Shipping Optimiser is a free tool that is accessible to all stores and can be used to provide insights and recommendations to your multi-carrier mix so that you can achieve optimal delivery outcomes.
With the Shipping Optimiser, you can:
View Instant Carrier Insights: See instant analysis on transit time, delivery on-time percentage, and delivery costs per carrier.
View Suggested Carrier Mix Recommendations: See our recommendations for which carriers can be enabled to provide the lowest estimated delivery costs.
Apply Recommendations: In 1 or 2 clicks you can apply the recommendations, and they will take effect immediately.
Using the Shipping Optimiser
Access to the Insights tab and Shipping Optimiser’s carrier mix recommendations are only available to users who have Head Office and/or Store Administration permissions. If you believe that you should have this access, please contact the Shippit administrator within your business.
1. Within Shippit, head to the main menu in the top-right corner and select 'Insights'
2. When the 'Insights' page has loaded, select the "Shipping Optimiser" tab
3. If you operate multiple stores within Shippit, use the drop-down menu on the right-hand side to select the individual store that you wish to analyse.
‘Optimise Costs’ tab
Getting started couldn’t be easier with the ‘Optimise costs’ tab. This powerful tool will shine a spotlight on potential carriers that may increase your cost-saving potential around shipping, based around your order metrics from the previous 30 days.
Launching the ‘Optimise costs’ tab will automatically trigger the tool to begin its calculations.
If the tool identifies possible improvements, the recommended carrier(s) will be listed with a ‘New’ flag beside them, accompanied with the projected cost saving estimate.
If you would like to apply the recommendation, simply click the ‘Update carriers’ button at the bottom-right of the screen.
A pop-up window will summarise the pending update:
if you are happy to proceed, select ‘Update’ at the bottom-right of the pop-up. You will receive confirmation that your carriers have been updated. Shippit’s Carrier Operations team will reach out to you within 3-5 business days in order to assist with your first pickup (where applicable).
If you do not wish to proceed with the proposed update, select ‘Cancel’ which will prevent any changes from being implemented.
And that’s it! Your carrier settings have been updated. You may now come across your newly activated carriers appearing in the New Orders page, Live Quoting, the shopping cart and the Send tab.
Change of mind? No worries at all - you can update/revert your carrier mix at any time by heading into your Settings > Carriers and toggling the carriers of your choice. See below for more details on how to do this.
Note: The ‘Optimise costs’ tab will provide the option to enable new carriers; this tab does not offer the ability to disable current carriers. To disable carriers, head into your Settings > Carriers and utilise the toggles to enable/disable carriers.
‘Optimise Performance and Costs’ tab
Time to hone in on your cost-saving potential: the ‘Optimise costs and performance’ tab will empower you to make strong, data-backed decisions. Explore available carriers by transit time, delivery-on-time percentage and delivery costs.
Launching the ‘Optimise performance and costs’ tab will automatically trigger the tool to begin its calculations.
1. ‘Filter’ Function
In order to begin analysing specifics around your current carrier set-up, the Filter function can be found at the top of the tab.
This function allows you to drill into the following:
Service Levels*
- Domestic Standard/Express
- International Standard/Express
- Domestic On Demand
- Domestic PriorityDestinations/Zones
Analyse data in ‘Zones’ with ranges offered from statewide, through major cities/metropolitan areas, all the way down to a specific postcode.
Displays your store’s volume of orders passing through each zone, based on the ‘Orders date range’ currently set.
Chargeable Weight
The results of this filter are subject to each individual carrier, depending on their individual pricing calculations. For more information, check out our FAQs below.
Orders date range
Control whether your analysis is conducted based on data from the previous 30, 60 or 90 days, or set your own custom date range.
Once your filters have been set, the tool will begin automatically calculating the current carrier mix along with any new recommendations.
*Note: some Service Types may be greyed out - this indicates that there is insufficient data to provide a recommendation. For example, you have not utilised a service type that matches your filters within the specified timeframe.
2a. View current and recommended carrier mix insights
Once you have filtered on the settings outlined in the previous step, you will be presented with your current carrier mix along with any new recommendations that aim to improve on your current shipping costs.
The insights provided within this tool utilise a strategic selection of criteria to build personalised results to further optimise your store’s shipping options, with the following four columns:
Avg. speed: Estimated average speed of each carrier*, based on similar recent orders running through the Shippit platform.
Avg. on time: Estimated average ‘on time’ delivery for each carrier*, based on similar recent orders running through the Shippit platform.
Projected orders: Recommended allocation of orders.
Projected costs: Estimated total delivery costs if recommended carriers can service & were allocated for every order.
*the data provided here will be sourced depending on the following metrics:
If this carrier is already active and utilised within your Shippit account, the calculations will be based on your recent data
If the carrier is a new recommendation and there is no available data within your Shippit account, these calculations are based on the weekly average across the Shippit platform
Upon a successful calculation, you will be met with the results table outlining your current carrier mix along with any recommendations clearly highlighted:
Your current carriers will show as ‘Enabled’ directly beneath the carrier name.
The optimal carrier mix based on your filters will be ‘Recommended’ by default, highlighted with a ‘tick’ in the left-hand column as well as a green ‘Recommended’ flag beneath the carrier name.
While we will initially recommend a carrier selection with the highest predicted cost-saving, you are not obligated to opt for these changes; instead, you can ‘pick and mix’ different carrier selections using the ‘tick’ buttons in the left-hand column.
Changing your selection will not automatically apply any changes: these will simply re-calculate the provided estimates. If you wish to confirm these changes, you will need to follow the below section: Apply a customised carrier mix
If any of your selected carriers are not currently active, these will be indicated by the green “New” flag next to the carrier name.
These results will automatically recalculate each time changes are made either to the filter criteria, or to the carrier selection.
At the bottom of the screen will be your ‘Projected total for next 30 days’ for each column, accompanied by the ‘Projected change’ directly beneath:
These estimated totals are built on the carriers currently selected, and will update as and when new selections are made using the purple ‘tick’ buttons on the left-hand side.
2b. Applying a customised carrier mix
After testing various carrier combinations and reviewing projected estimates, should you land on a combination that suits your requirements, you are able to apply these changes directly through the tool.
Select the ‘Update carriers’ button in the bottom-right corner of the tool - a pop-up window to appear which outlines any proposed changes:
To proceed with the changes, select ‘Update’ once again and you will be notified that the changes were successfully applied. Following these changes, a member of Shippit’s Carrier Operations team will contact you within the next 3-5 business days if applicable:
Congrats - your carrier settings have been updated! Any new carriers will be enabled & available, and old carriers disabled & removed from use for future orders. You may now come across your newly activated carriers appearing in the New Orders page, Live Quoting, the shopping cart and the Send tab.
Need to revert back to your original selection? No worries, you can update/revert your carrier mix at any time by heading into Settings > Carriers and making the changes you need. See below for more details on how to do this.
2c. Carrier mix update scenarios
There are a number of potential scenarios that may appear depending on your newly selected carrier mix.
LOW VOLUME
If a selected carrier is only predicted to service a low volume of orders, this may only qualify you business for ad-hoc pick-ups. You will be notified of this at the time of updating the carrier mix.
HIGH VOLUME
If a carrier is predicted to service a high volume of orders for your store, we may need to conduct additional checks to ensure that the carrier-in-question can accommodate this level of pick-ups.
In this instance, no action needed - our Carrier Operations team will reach out to you within 3-5 business days.
SERVICEABLE AREAS
If your selected carrier mix is unable to service the entirety of your delivery region, we will notify you with an alert beneath the ‘Projected orders’ column - simply hover over the orange exclamation point (!) to review the warning.
Revert Recommended Carrier Mix
Change of heart, instant regret, or caught in a click-happy moment? No worries - it is super simple to revert your carrier selection at any time - just follow the below steps:
Head to the main menu in the top-right corner and select ‘Settings’
Within this page, head to ‘Carriers’ in the left-hand column
Turn carrier settings on/off using the toggle button:
Once you are happy with your selection, select the ‘Update’ button at the bottom-left of your screen and your carrier settings will update with immediate effect.
If you encounter any trouble on this page, please email our helpful Support team at [email protected] who will be able to offer further assistance!
FAQs
From which region(s) can I access and analyse data with Shipping Optimiser?
The Shipping Optimiser is currently available for stores based in Australia only.
What is the goal of the recommendations made by Shipping Optimiser?
The current version of Shipping Optimiser produces recommendations around reducing costs. If you would like to see more factors considered within Shipping Optimiser, please get in touch with your feedback - we would love to hear it!
Can I apply my Shipping Optimiser changes to my entire company and not just to a single store?
Shipping optimiser is currently built to analyse and make recommendations based off individual stores and cannot be applied as a company-wide setting at the stage.
How does the Shipping Optimiser work with my current carrier settings, allocations or quoting workflow?
Generating Shipping Optimiser insights & recommendations does not affect your carrier settings. However, if you choose to ‘Update’ your settings based on Shipping Optimiser’s recommendations, this will become active with immediate effect. You can change your carrier settings at any time within the Settings > Carriers menu.
Are there any limitations with my new carriers, and how will I be made aware of this?
Some orders may only be serviceable by a limited set of carriers. For example: PO Boxes and Locked Bag addresses are only serviceable by Australia Post within Australia; therefore alternative carriers such as Couriers Please or Aramex will be unable to service these types of orders. Check out Carrier Mix update scenarios for more information around this.
How can I access and use the Insights tab/Shipping Optimiser?
Shipping Optimiser and its carrier mix recommendations/updates can only be viewed and modified by a user who has Head Office & Store Administrator (non-read only) permissions. Please contact your Shippit Admin to give you the correct permissions.
How were the Destination lane zones determined?
Shippit’s Zones have been based on Australia Post Zones as they service the entirety of Australia and therefore had the most comprehensive list available. Some smaller zones have been combined (grouping based on similar locality and pricing), in order to limit the length of the zone list. Delivery data from other carriers have been remapped into these adjusted zones.
What does chargeable weight mean?
Chargeable weight can be either the volumetric weight or the deadweight of an order. For each package, the dimensions and weight are recorded. Some carriers prefer to calculate cost based on the total calculated dimensions (length x width x depth = volumetric weight), while other carriers prefer to calculate cost using the deadweight of a package. To standardise across these different charge models, we use the term chargeable weight, which allows us to make comparisons between charges based on both volumetric and deadweight.
The recommendations are created based on cheapest shipping cost. Does this take into account any surcharges?
Pre-paid surcharges are taken into account for Couriers Please, TNT and Allied Express Overnight. For BYO carriers where merchants have negotiated their own contracts directly with the carrier, these surcharges are included automatically into any estimates that Shipping Optimiser makes so long as you have manually entered and updated this information consistently within the Shippit platform. If surcharge data has not been entered and maintained within Shippit, we will not be able to include this data within the resulting estimates.
Please note: surcharge estimates for BYO carriers are reliant on the accuracy of data entered by yourself for each respective carrier. The accuracy of the data input by users will therefore have an impact on the accuracy of the resulting estimates within Shipping Optimiser.
Why can’t I see [x carrier] in the list of available Carriers?
If a carrier you were expecting to see within the results is not showing up, it is likely that the carrier is both not recommended and has not been used in the time period currently being analysed within the tool. If you wish to use a carrier that isn’t listed, you will need to head into the Settings > Carriers page and activate the carrier in question from here.