Most eCommerce businesses invest heavily on their products, the digital storefront, inventories, marketing, and more. However, all that becomes secondary if you can't fulfil your orders on time. If your order fulfillment system is slow or inexpensive, it really brings down your trustworthiness in front of your customers. In fact, late deliveries or high logistics costs can also punch a hole in your margins. And that's precisely why eCommerce store owners should always plan shipping routing if they're serious about business. This is a strategic move that decides how orders move from your inventory to your customers. For established eCommerce stores, this is a routine process. However, if you've just entered the industry, you may not properly understand how shipping routing works. In this blog, we're going to show you the practical steps to build an order fulfillment system that actually keeps delivering even under heavy load. So, let's get down to it!
What Is Shipping Routing in eCommerce?
In simple terms, shipping routing is the process of automatically deciding how you ship and deliver your products to your buyers. When you first start operating your online store, you can fulfill orders manually. You can pick a warehouse and a courier service every time you receive an order. However, that becomes overly hectic once your business grows. Handling multiple orders manually becomes a challenge. You need the right tech stack and Shopify app development services for smoother and faster order fulfillment.
When businesses develop a shipping routing system, it uses predefined rules to assign the most efficient shipping route for every order. You don't need to manually enter all the details. It effectively answers three big questions that eCommerce stores face:
- Where will the order be fulfilled from?
- Which shipping partner will handle the delivery?
- What is the fastest and most cost-effective way to get the order to the customer?
As businesses grow, they start operating multiple warehouses across different locations. An automated shipping routing system will pick the warehouse nearest to the customer to reduce delivery time. It'll also select the best courier service to deliver the order depending on availability and reliability.
It's quite common in the eCommerce sector that you place an order and it takes weeks to finally get delivered. Such delays often leave the customers frustrated. Shipping routing comes as a saviour in such cases.
Why Shipping Routing Matters for eCommerce
Reducing Delivery Time without increasing costs
Whenever a customer makes a purchase online, they expect it to reach them as soon as possible. Fast delivery is one of the basic expectations that people have with eCommerce. This is what shipping routing offers. This is a fully automated system that allows brands to pick the nearest fulfillment centre and the fastest courier partner for delivering orders. Especially if the business operates multiple warehouses across different locations, this becomes an even more suitable approach for faster delivery. This way, you can deliver the order fast which is a crucial cog in improving customer satisfaction levels. The best part is that you don't really need to spend too much on logistics once you have a shipping routing system in place. For businesses that are still growing, this is the best option to handle order fulfillment.
Lowering Shipping Costs through Smart Allocation
In many cases, the shipping costs become so high that online businesses can't really make much money from the margins. That undermines the entire point of operating a digital storefront. With proper routing, you can:
- Choose cost-effective courier partners
- Avoid unnecessary long-distance shipping
- Optimize packaging and shipment sizes
For growing businesses, the best idea is to partner with a top Shopify store development agency and develop a routing system. If you want to optimize shipping costs, this is the only way to go.
Handling Multi-warehouse and Multi-vendor Setups
When businesses grow, it usually means that they start operating:
- Multiple warehouses
- Third-party fulfillment centers
- Dropshipping suppliers
eCommerce is a complex industry and every business operates at different levels. Without proper routing, you risk the chances of confusion during order fulfillment. Without a system in place, your orders are more likely to get delayed or misassigned. Controlling such complex setups manually can increase the risks of human errors. Routing ensures that you have an automated system in place, so that you can always pick the best available option.
Improving customer experience and trust
Timely order fulfillment is what every customer expects from every eCommerce store. In fact, they don't really care about how complex your backend systems are. All they want is to get their order at their doorstep without delay. Routing ensures:
- Faster delivery timelines
- Fewer shipping errors
- Accurate tracking updates
If you are delivering the orders on time, customers will start trusting your brand. If customers trust your brand, they will buy more products from your brand. This makes routing extremely important for improving your retention rates and customer loyalty.
Building a Shipping Routing System: A 6-Step Guide
Map your fulfilment network clearly
Every eCommerce business manages a complex order fulfilment network. Before you work on a routing logic, you need to have clarity over the system that you already have in place. You need to start by listing out:
- Warehouse locations
- Supplier locations
- Inventory distribution
- Delivery zones
The basic idea behind this is that you’d get a better idea of where you’re storing your products and where your customers are located. Many eCommerce brands jump this step and directly hire Shopify developers to build a routing system. However, without this clarity, you may have to depend on assumptions on your delivery network instead of working with actual real-time data.
Define Routing rules based on business priorities
Routing rules are the cornerstone of any shipping system, but creating a rule isn’t as easy as it sounds. You need to focus on:
- Nearest warehouse selection
- Lowest shipping cost option
- Fastest delivery route
- Inventory availability
To put it in layman’s terms, if you store the same product in two warehouses, the system should choose the one closest to the customer. This is where routing rules are applied. It also extends to other areas. For example, picking the right delivery partner gets decided by the routing logic. If you need fast deliveries, the system will pick the fastest courier partners. If you want to save money instead, it’ll pick one of the cheaper options. Either way, the routing logic or rule depends exactly on your goals as a business.
Choose the Right Tech Stack
Shipping routing depends on automation and you can’t automate such a complex system without a reliable Shopify development partner. You can build a routing system using:
- Shopify apps
- Custom-built routing systems
- API integrations with logistics providers
However, with that being said, you can't really pick the best tech stack unless you have a technical background. So, the best option is to hire Shopify developers and let them handle the project.
Integrate with Logistics and Courier Partners
When you develop an automated shipping routing system, you need to also integrate:
- Multiple courier partners
- Delivery tracking systems
- Real-time shipping APIs
Once you integrate the shipping network into your system, you can:
- Compare delivery times
- Track shipments automatically
- Switch couriers if and when you need it
When you have a routing system in place, it always picks the best available option. For example, if one courier is consistently performing poorly in a region, the system will automatically assign the next delivery to a faster courier partner.
Automated Order Processing and Tracking
Once you have collected all the data and the insights, you need to focus on automation. Ideally, a Shopify development agency in India can do that job quickly and efficiently for you. Ideally, the system should:
- Automatically assign fulfillment location
- Automatically select courier
- Generate shipping labels
- Send tracking updates
As seamless as it sounds, building automated systems can be costly and time-consuming. Talk to your development partner and see if you work something out.
Monitor, optimize, improve
Once you have a shipping routing system in place, you may think that your job is done. However, that’s far from the truth. You still need to track-
- Delivery times
- Shipping costs
- Return rates
- Courier performance
You need to continuously monitor your performance and optimize the system as your business grows. Without occasional audits, your risk getting complacent even if your system fails every now and then.
Mistakes eCommerce Businesses Commit
- Don't rely on a single fulfillment location. That undermines the entire point of having a shipping routing system in place.
- Don't ignore your performance metrics. Only with real-data, you can understand if the system is working properly.
- Don't overcomplicate the system too early. You can always expand as your business grows.
Conclusion
Shipping routing is a curious part of eCommerce. When it works, it usually remains invisible. When it doesn't, it becomes a problem. Since it's so important for delivering products on time and within your budget, you need to plan it properly.
Jaipuria Geeks are one of the widely trusted Shopify store developers. If you're trying to build a shipping routing system for your Shopify store, we'd love to help you out.
Have a project? Reach out to us and let's discuss how you can go about it!
