Ship Tips
Warehouse Tips for 3PLs
3PLs of all sizes have been seeking new ways to manage their businesses, and in most cases, that means optimizing warehouse operations.
The need for integration processes is increasing for many businesses as they continue to grow in today's economy. This has led enterprises to utilize enterprise resource planning software, also referred to as an ERP. These account integrations, which are common within enterprise-level businesses, help automate and streamline a business' processes, including billing and accounting, product management, and analytics.
However, many organizations utilizing ERP systems only have elementary access to shipping capabilities. Although the ERP can tell an order to go to a specific carrier, they lack features like rate-shopping and often don’t support consolidators like OMS, Pitney Bowes, and GLS. This means these businesses are still managing shipping and fulfillment semi-manually, obtaining postage and shipping labels directly from most carriers, then packing shipments, applying labels, and scheduling pick-ups or deliveries. Automation with a shipping solution is the answer.
Let’s Talk Benefits
To make operations more efficient and scale businesses more effectively, savvy companies are adding shipping solutions to their ERP systems. However, without the right shipping solution, shipping can be a lagging, labor-intensive, and costly process. It is well known that ERP systems provide users with benefits including increased efficiency, reduced costs, and satisfied customers. With the following DesktopShipper features, these benefits are reinforced:
+ Manage Carrier Options: Integrations of ERP systems with a shipping solution, like DesktopShipper, create the ability to use features like carrier mapping and service grouping. Rate-shop batches by selecting the type of Service Group you want and map distinct preferences that make sense to your orders. Whether you are looking to select the fastest and cheapest service by the total amount of days the package will take to reach its destination, by specific carriers based on the destination, or simply the cheapest rate available, shipping becomes an automated process, saving you time.
+ Address Verification: Our real-time address validation determines whether an address is commercial or residential. Above all, it verifies if the order address exists and catches errors that may have been inputted by a customer, reducing unnecessary and costly returns.
+ Advanced Markups: A way to streamline the pricing process is having the e-commerce company directly pay per package. Our advanced markup feature allows for your 3PL to charge your customers for each package based on a pre-agreed rate. This can relate to all of our third-party integrations by organizing the markups per package, per business, and per billing cycle. Our advanced markups are also great for enterprise-level businesses. If you want to charge and arrange your shipping prices per customer and package during the checkout process, you can also do that to help streamline the billing process for your customers.
+Shipping API: Our flexible shipping API perfectly connects with ERP systems so they communicate effectively. Every 5 minutes, our cloud-based system will communicate with your ERP to allow for billing information to be reported back in a timely manner. In addition, users can utilize the shipping API to print labels quickly for fast fulfillment without ever leaving the ERP interface.
Meet Our Integrations
DesktopShipper currently integrates with the following ERPs:
+ Microsoft Dynamics
+ Oracle Netsuite
+ The System House
+ Brightpearl
Conclusion
ERP and shipping solution integrations are really beneficial for 3PLs and Enterprise-level businesses. If you are either, then it’s time to implement. Streamline your business processes by reducing the amount of time your team members spend on shipping, taking advantage of low shipping rates, and focusing on what's most important - your ability to delight your customers with quick and dependable shipping.
