Shippit’s new insights platform to give Aussie retailers full visibility from cart to doorstep

Australian retailers now have a potentially powerful weapon at their disposal, with commerce delivery platform Shippit this week unveiling an insights platform that will give its customers a 360° view of their shipping and delivery operations. 

Shippit Insights, which is available through Shippit’s custom Performance Package that customers can tailor with their selected plans, analyses over 250 metrics to help retailers identify ways to cut costs and improve the customer delivery experience.

These insights can be used by an entire retail operation, including logistics and operations, e-commerce and finance teams, to streamline data from multiple sources, identify bottlenecks that lead to delivery delays, select the carriers based on freight, delivery and dispatch, and get a complete view of shipping costs.

Many retailers have very little clarity on the economics and efficiency of a delivery after it leaves their store or distribution centre, however, Shippit wants to give them visibility from cart to doorstep.

When asked how Shippit Insights would help Australian SMEs, Shippit chief product officer Inga Latham told SmartCompany that Shippit Insights puts retailers, irrespective of their size, in control of their shipping operations. 

“Our reports create visibility of issues and opportunities,” she says. 

“Through tools like Shipping Optimiser and Rules Engine, retailers can automate actions based on the information in the reports, allowing them to drive better outcomes for their customers and their business.

“For small retailers, as with all retailers, the cost of delivery and a great recipient experience are top priorities. We help them unearth the insights they need to make their delivery more cost-effective and convenient for customers.”

Latham says Shippit knows that data and analytics play a crucial role in navigating business priorities and finding growth.

“We hold an enormous amount of data, and our in-house logistics experts leverage this, but we want to make that insight available to all our customers,” she says. 

The first step was asking Shippit customers about what was “holding them back” from using data to make decisions in their business, explains Latham. 

“They identified several key challenges: lack of access and visibility due to disparate data from different carriers; the high cost of data analysts needed to make sense of the data they have;  and difficulties in knowing and deciding what to do with the data,” she says. 

“This feedback clearly indicated that our customers needed easy access to visibility of their data in a way that makes sense in the context of their business operations.”

Shippit aims for 200 million global deliveries by 2025

Founded by Rob Hango-Zada and William On in Sydney in 2014, Shippit is used by 4,000 retailers across the Asia-Pacific region, and its tech powers more than 100 million deliveries every year across Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia.

Almost $30 billion of e-commerce orders have been fulfilled through Shippit, on behalf of retailers including Baby Bunting, Kmart, Cotton On, Woolworths, Total Tools and Temple & Webster.

Placing third in the 2023 Smart50 Awards, Shippit recorded revenue of $19 million for the 2021-22 financial year, which grew to $66 million a year later.

The founders are now aiming to reach 200 million global deliveries without waste by June 2025, and the company’s latest products are designed to help it achieve that goal. 

Latham says there is real power in knowing what’s happening across an entire commerce delivery journey, and then using that information to make improvements.

“Those improvements go well beyond having the cheapest shipping and we saw an opportunity to help customers understand how shipping and delivery impacts their whole business,” she says.

“By cutting costs and driving efficiencies across the shipping operation, customers can make informed carrier allocation decisions and monitor the impact of these changes. 

“They can identify efficiencies by making like-for-like carrier comparisons with standardised data across all carriers and equipping support teams with information on issues like late or failed manifests, pickups, or deliveries. 

“Additionally, they can gain trend insights across all carriers and shipments.”

For e-commerce operators, using data in this way can help uncover revenue opportunities from inventory placement to location-based deliveries and understand how shipping and fulfilment affect SKU profits, says Latham. 

“They can cut shipping costs by fulfilling orders closer to customers by knowing their high-demand shipping lanes,” she says. 

“Clear visibility of costs helps avoid bill shock, and they can prevent surcharges before invoices land by proactively identifying gaps or errors with weights and dimensions.”

At the same time, businesses can avoid bottlenecks in their delivery operators by better understanding lead times for order processing, pickup, and transit times. 

“They can proactively communicate delivery and carrier performance issues, identify problems, and make resolutions before WISMO (where is my order) queries flood in,” adds Latham. 

In a statement provided to SmartCompany, Baby Bunting general manager for online Rod Williams said the insights aren’t just ‘nice to have’, they’re mission critical. 

“Arming ourselves with 360° data through Shippit enables us to improve our bottom line and turn delivery and customer experience into a driver of loyalty,” he said. 

“Accessing data-driven insights, directly within Shippit, allows us to drive operational efficiencies, optimise our online order routing and lead informed carrier negotiations.”

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