Redwood Helps Shippers Master These 5 Parcel Challenges

Remember when parcel shipping was relatively easy and straightforward? The growth of omni-channel commerce has completely upended the parcel shipping sector. 

Manufacturers and retailers now have to ship enormous volumes of smaller orders to a range of destinations — from consumers’ homes and offices to retail stores, lockers, micro-fulfillment centers, and third-party drop sites. The well-documented “Amazon Effect” has increased consumer expectations for fast, free, or low-cost delivery. Global competition is increasing, allowing shippers to source products from anywhere. And carriers have implemented incredibly complex pricing tables, with a labyrinth of confusing surcharges and peak-season rate increases. 

Amid this chaos, Redwood offers the help parcel shippers need to navigate their way to success, enabling high customer service levels and profit margins. No matter what mode of parcel shipping support customers choose, Redwood saves parcel shippers an average of 12% in costs in the first year alone. With results like those, it’s not surprising that the typical Redwood customer relationship exceeds nine years. 

Redwood Understands Your Top Concerns 

With a team of established parcel experts, Redwood knows parcel shipping inside and out. We offer a complete range of parcel services and solutions that are targeted to shippers’ specific objectives, opportunities, threats, and risks. Redwood’s Parcel Suite is built to help shippers master the five biggest challenges they face in today’s volatile, complex parcel landscape.   

Redwood has special expertise and has achieved impressive customer results in cost reduction. Cutting costs and driving healthier margins are at the top of most shippers’ priorities today. 

Redwood’s Parcel Advisory team can study each shipper’s demand forecast, delivery patterns and destinations, the nature of products and orders, customers’ needs and delivery preferences, and other factors. Then Redwood consultants can recommend improvements such as a more optimal carrier mix, a new network model or more favorable carrier contract terms. Our parcel shipping experts regularly coach customer teams through carrier negotiations to achieve better rates. Redwood also helps shippers identify and cash in on parcel audit refunds — 75% of which go unclaimed every year. 

Shippers also have an enormous opportunity to cut operating costs via process acceleration and automation. Redwood Parcel Cloud, the proprietary execution platform, is designed to streamline the day-to-day work of preparing and sending shipments by relying on intelligent automation. This advanced technology tool has created significant savings for parcel shipping customers in a range of industries. 

In pursuing cost savings, Redwood never sacrifices customer service. For example, Redwood might suggest relocating a warehouse to reduce transportation costs and regional carrier surcharges — but only if this action would also improve delivery speed, fulfillment accuracy, and other key performance indicators (KPIs) related to customer satisfaction. In its partnerships with parcel shippers, Redwood takes a holistic perspective that considers both the top line and the bottom line.  

In today’s hyper-competitive environment, it’s easy for customers to find another retailer or manufacturer to answer their needs. Redwood prioritizes your customer relationships and aims to drive long-term loyalty by combining low costs with high service levels. 

Both the shipper and recipient benefit from improved real-time visibility across each parcel’s first-to-last-mile shipping journey. Shippers can sense delays, compliance issues, unexpected surcharges, and other surprises — then work proactively to get deliveries back on track. For consumers, real-time tracking has become an expectation. Customers want to be able to check order status and item location at any moment, on any device.  

Redwood helps establish clear, end-to-end visibility and tracking via advanced digital solutions and improved connectivity among trading partners. Whatever systems shippers are using, and whatever their carrier mix looks like, Redwood has the technology expertise to enable real-time awareness and responsiveness. Both shippers and recipients can be connected to up-to-date insights and delivery predictions, on demand. 

One of the most challenging aspects of parcel shipping is optimally managing inventory. Inventory must be strategically located in the supply chain to support fast delivery, but also cost-effective delivery. It must be committed and moved with an eye on freshness, trendiness, seasonality, the likelihood of returns or markdowns, and other factors. 

Redwood’s Parcel Advisory team can help shippers by determining how their products are purchased and where they’re delivered, at a granular level. The network model and fulfillment plan can be adjusted to combine transportation savings and high service levels with frequent, profitable inventory turnover.  

Modern parcel shippers rely on a wide range of technology systems, including a warehouse management system (WMS), transportation management system (TMS), order management system (OMS), and an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. That adds up to a lot of acronyms, and a lot of technical complexity. To add to the technology infrastructure, carriers are using their own systems and solutions. 

Parcel execution and shipping shouldn’t be divorced from these other systems, but seamlessly and dynamically integrated for true end-to-end, real-time visibility. Redwood offers the advanced technology expertise shippers need to not only connect their internal systems, but also integrate those systems with carriers and other trading partners. Redwood offers the ideal solution in RedwoodConnect — the logistics industry’s only integration platform that aligns all of shippers’ disparate systems, processes, and data. 

Stay Ahead of Emerging Challenges with Redwood 

Today’s parcel shipping landscape is not only complex, but also ever-changing. While these are the top challenges shippers are facing today, there’s no telling what the future will bring. 

One thing is certain: Parcel shippers will be better prepared for that future with Redwood by their side. Redwood not only helps shippers navigate today’s obstacles, but also anticipate emerging trends, threats, risks, and opportunities — then act appropriately and strategically. 

Why add parcel expertise and invest in homegrown technology solutions when Redwood offers everything you need? Find out exactly how we save our parcel shipping customers 12% in the first year — and explore the results we can achieve for your parcel shipping business. Contact Redwood for a general discussion or to schedule a Parcel Health Check and accelerate your journey to parcel shipping optimization today.