Locus for Retail: Shippers’ One Stop Shop for All Third Party Carrier Woes

Introduction

Since the inception of online shopping, the way customers shop and interact with brands has completely changed. Businesses were super excited as well since they could extend their brand’s reach seamlessly online compared to traditional means. This paradigm shift was a welcoming change by consumers and businesses everywhere. So much so that, online shopping revenue is said to reach $6.3 trillion in 2024.

However, as the volumes of online orders spiked, this quickly turned into a double edged sword for businesses like retail and e-commerce. How? Customers don’t want to wait multiple days for certain products to be delivered and retailers without deep pockets can’t afford to deliver quickly without hurting their revenue. Most shippers hire third party carriers to make deliveries in the hopes of saving transportation cost. However, without the right carrier, the shippers are jeopardizing delivery quality. That is the case with many shippers. To save cost, you cut corners and pay the price in the form of WISMO calls, brand switch and overall poor customer experience.

Why is Selection and Management of Third Party Carriers a Nightmare for Shippers?

• No Branded tracking experience for customers: While customers do receive notifications from third party carriers, it falls on the shippers to make sure the tracking experience is up to the mark. Most carriers might have subpar systems and might not provide clear tracking info for customers. The key to success here is to integrate carrier data with the shipper system and then send a notification to the end customer via shipper for seamless branded tracking experience.
  
• No seamless third party delivery tracking: Typically shippers just have systems to track their captive fleet and depend on third party carrier data to gain visibility on orders. However, the reporting method is usually manual and not in real-time either. This leaves shippers and customers frustrated.
  
• No track record of carrier: Shippers that outsource orders through mutual connections and not with data driven decisions often fall prey to the factor of trust. Most shippers with simple logistics systems don’t have capabilities such as filtering based on cost, serviceability, delivery and outsource orders based on trust or blind faith.
  
• Limited carrier options: With manual carrier management, shippers don’t have access to a wide carrier network. It’s often limited to a handful of carriers. This forces shippers to deliver mediocre delivery services, hampering SLA and customer experience. Limited carrier options also hinders business growth by inhibiting the ability to reach global customers.
  
• Kickback practices due to manual intervention: With manual selection, the last mile dispatchers have full discretion to choose carriers of his/her choice. Some dispatchers typically have connections with third party carriers and provide them the contract in exchange for kickbacks. This practice isn’t just unethical but could also compromise delivery quality for shippers. Automating carrier selection is key to mitigating this problem.

We know what shippers are dealing with when outsourcing their deliveries but how can they navigate through that?

Auto Select, Allocate and Track Third Party Carriers Seamlessly with Locus

Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have been at the forefront of innovation in multiple industries and logistics and supply chain isn’t an exception. With end customers’ demand growing along with complex challenges in logistics operations, shippers are looking to tech enterprises to deliver cutting edge solutions to stay competitive.

So let us take a look at why shippers should consider Locus’ ShipFlex as a viable option:

Branded tracking experience for customers: Imagine your customer orders from you and then they receive a message from your carrier partner without any context on what the message is about. That’s bad customer experience.

With ShipFlex, integrated carrier’s real time data is visible on the TMS/Logistics management system for shippers and once order has been assigned to carriers, notification is sent to customers to track their order.

Unified tracking dashboard for captive and outsourced deliveries: The biggest challenge for shippers to rate any carrier is not being able to get real time data on their delivery performance. With Locus, shippers can club both captive and outsourced delivery data and track in real-time to make informed decisions.

Connect with a vast carrier network: ShipFlex has over 160 carriers in the network for shippers to choose from. This large carrier network will be ever expanding. This will help shippers get a track record of every carrier and what industry/vertical they are experts in. Shippers can also leverage ShipFlex to expand business operations and not worry about transportation support, since global carriers are part of ShipFlex. If your preferred carrier isn’t part of our network, then a simple 4 point API integration can seamlessly integrate 3PL of your choice into your system for visibility and tracking.

Automated carrier selection to mitigate kickbacks and errors: Locus’ Carrier Management Software, ShipFlex has the capability to auto assign orders to carriers based on predetermined rules that operations manager or warehouse manager can add based on multiple factors like geo, order type, cost and SLA, This gives dispatchers little room to conduct any unethical practices and hamper delivery quality.

Here’s a sneak peak into ShipFlex:

The need for a smart carrier management system is quite evident. Shippers should move away from manual carrier management operations and implement a more robust system like Locus to do away with multiple business challenges and customer pain points. This isn’t merely a choice but a need for shippers as growing demands from customers can slowly stifle logistics operation without the right tool.

What We Have Accomplished

Locus has been helping top brands like TATA, LuluGroup International, Nestle and many other brands optimize logistics operations for close to a decade now. Our goal is to help shippers across the globe seamlessly deliver orders to their customers and we believe our Order to Delivery platform plays a big role in accomplishing that goal.

Here’s what we’ve achieved so far

On-demand routing	Dollars Saved	CO2 reduced	On-time delivery	Global delivery volume
<10 seconds	$300 million+	14.4 million KGs	99.5%	1 billion+

Book a demo to see how Locus can help your brand appeal to your customers.