Shipping solutions encompass the various services, strategies, and tools that businesses use to manage the entire process of sending products to their destinations. This can involve everything from packaging and transportation to real-time tracking and delivery, all coordinated to ensure goods are delivered efficiently and cost-effectively.
Shipping solutions streamline operations by automating documentation and reducing manual errors. This boosts efficiency and ensures compliance with regulations, helping to avoid costly fines. By providing real-time tracking and optimizing logistics, these tools also improve delivery times and enhance customer satisfaction, ultimately saving both time and money.
Navigating the world of shipping presents a host of hurdles that can disrupt supply chains and inflate costs. Businesses frequently grapple with complex paperwork, evolving regulations, and logistical inefficiencies. These challenges often fall into several key areas:
While often used interchangeably, shipping and logistics solutions address different aspects of the supply chain.
The shipping industry is rapidly evolving, driven by technological advancements that streamline complex processes. These innovations focus on automation, integration, and data-driven insights to enhance efficiency, reduce errors, and ensure regulatory adherence.
This is how you can select the best shipping solution for your company.
How do shipping solutions keep up with changing trade regulations?
Modern solutions automatically update their databases with the latest international trade rules and restricted party lists. This ensures your shipments remain compliant by flagging potential issues in real-time, preventing costly delays and fines before they happen.
Can these solutions integrate with our custom-built ERP?
Most leading platforms offer robust APIs and pre-built connectors for seamless integration with major ERPs and even custom systems. This ensures a unified workflow by synchronizing data like orders, inventory, and tracking information across your entire tech stack.
Are shipping solutions scalable for a growing business?
Absolutely. Many solutions are designed to scale, offering tiered pricing and feature sets that grow with your business. You can start with essential features for managing smaller volumes and add more advanced capabilities as your shipping needs become more complex.
Process Builder is a Salesforce automation tool that lets you create 'if/then' business processes with a user-friendly visual interface.
A performance plan is a formal document outlining an employee's goals, expectations, and metrics for success over a specific period.
A use case is a detailed description of how a user interacts with a system to achieve a specific goal, outlining the steps from start to finish.
Intent data tracks a user's online behavior—like searches and site visits—to identify signals that they are ready to make a purchase.
Ramp-up time is the period a new hire takes to get fully up to speed and become a productive member of your go-to-market team.
Docker is a tool that packages applications and their dependencies into isolated environments called containers for easy deployment and scaling.
Lead generation software helps businesses automate finding and capturing potential customers' contact information to build sales pipelines.
An Operational CRM is a system that automates and improves customer-facing business processes like sales, marketing, and customer service.
Pipeline coverage is a key sales metric. It's the ratio of your total open pipeline value to your sales quota for a specific period.
A sales dashboard is a visual tool that centralizes and displays key sales data, metrics, and KPIs to help teams track performance and goals.
Channel partners are third-party firms that help market and sell a company's products or services, acting as an indirect sales force.
Customer retention refers to the strategies and activities a company uses to prevent customer churn and encourage them to continue buying.
Responsive design is an approach where a website's layout adapts to the user's screen size, providing an optimal experience on any device.
Mobile compatibility ensures your site or app works flawlessly on mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, for a seamless user experience.
The awareness stage is the first step in the buyer's journey, where a potential customer realizes they have a problem or an opportunity to explore.
Sales metrics are quantifiable data points that track and measure a sales team's performance against specific goals and objectives.
Sales workflows are a set of automated actions that streamline the sales process, helping teams engage leads consistently and close deals faster.
Customer buying signals are the actions, behaviors, or statements a prospect makes that indicate they are moving towards a purchase decision.
Email personalization uses subscriber data—like their name, interests, or past behavior—to create highly relevant and targeted email campaigns.
NoSQL ("Not only SQL") databases offer a flexible alternative to relational models, excelling at managing large and unstructured data sets.
Email marketing is a digital strategy where businesses send targeted emails to prospects and customers to build relationships and drive sales.
Learn about bounce rate, including understanding bounce rate implications, key factors affecting bounce rate, & reducing your bounce rate effectively.
A Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) API is a web service that uses XML to exchange structured information between different applications.
Website visitor tracking collects and analyzes data on user behavior to understand their journey and improve the overall user experience.
Feature flags let you remotely control features in your app without new code. This enables safe testing, gradual rollouts, and quick rollbacks.
A channel partner is a company that works with a manufacturer or producer to market and sell their products, software, or services to customers.
Audience targeting is the process of segmenting consumers into specific groups to deliver more personalized and relevant marketing messages.
Average Revenue per User (ARPU) is a key performance indicator that calculates the average revenue generated from each user or subscriber.
A sandbox is an isolated testing environment where new or untrusted code can be run safely without affecting the host device or network.
Learn about business continuity, including understanding key components, steps to ensure continuity, common challenges, & best practices.
Hadoop is an open-source framework designed for the distributed storage and processing of extremely large data sets across clusters of computers.
A Request for Information (RFI) is a formal process for gathering information from potential suppliers before issuing a more detailed proposal.
Cohort analysis is a behavioral analytics tool that groups users with common traits to track their actions and engagement over time.
A sales intelligence platform is software that provides sales teams with data and insights about prospects to help them sell more effectively.
A Customer Data Platform (CDP) centralizes customer data from all sources to create a complete, unified profile for each individual customer.
Lead routing is the automated process of distributing incoming leads to the right sales reps based on predefined criteria.
Mid-market companies are businesses larger than small businesses but smaller than large enterprises, often defined by revenue or employee size.
Learn about buyer, including identifying your ideal buyer, understanding buyer's journey, & evaluating buyer decision processes.
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based model where affiliates earn a commission for promoting another company’s products or services.
Account mapping is comparing your customer list with a partner's to find common prospects and unlock new sales opportunities.
A buying committee is a group of stakeholders within an organization who are jointly responsible for making major purchasing decisions.
Learn about big data, including understanding big data characteristics, benefits of leveraging big data, & challenges in managing big data.
Learn about bottom of the funnel, including maximizing conversions at the funnel's end, & strategies for nurturing bottom-funnel leads.
The Dark Funnel describes customer buying activities that are untrackable by companies, such as private chats and word-of-mouth referrals.
Revenue forecasting is the process of estimating a company's future revenue, using historical data and market trends to guide strategic planning.
A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is an action plan that outlines how a company will reach target customers and achieve a competitive advantage.
Regression testing ensures that new code changes don’t negatively impact existing features. It's a key step to maintain software quality after updates.
Copyright compliance is adhering to laws that protect creative works. It involves legally using content by obtaining permission or licenses.
A demand generation framework is a strategic process for creating awareness and interest in your product, ultimately driving new business.
A Representational State Transfer (REST) API is a web service that uses a simple, stateless architecture for systems to communicate online.
Buying intent is the collection of online cues and behaviors that signal a prospect is actively researching and moving toward a purchase decision.
Learn about business development representative, including skills and qualifications for BDRs, & roles and responsibilities of a BDR.
An email cadence is a scheduled sequence of emails sent to prospects over a specific period to nurture leads and drive engagement.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) is a web security vulnerability that allows attackers to inject malicious scripts into trusted websites.
Sales enablement content refers to the materials and tools that empower your sales team to engage prospects and close deals more efficiently.
GDPR compliance means following the EU's strict data protection laws to ensure the secure and lawful handling of personal data.
“End of Quarter” (EOQ) refers to the final weeks of a business quarter when sales teams rush to meet quotas, often leading to a flurry of deals.
A Content Management System (CMS) is software for creating, managing, and modifying website content without needing specialized technical skills.
AI data enrichment uses artificial intelligence to automatically enhance and update raw data, making it more complete, accurate, and valuable.
Learn about brag book, including crafting your outstanding brag book, essential components of a brag book, & brag book vs. resume: unveiling the differences.
An account is a company or organization that you're targeting for sales. It can be a prospective, current, or even a past customer.
Learn about buyer intent, including understanding buyer intent signals, strategies to capture buyer intent, & buyer intent vs. customer interest.
Email verification is the process of confirming that an email address is valid and deliverable, which helps improve campaign performance.
Lookalike audiences are groups of potential customers who share similar characteristics and behaviors with your existing, high-value customers.
Net new business is revenue from customers who have never purchased from your company before. It’s a crucial indicator of sustainable growth.
Digital advertising is the practice of delivering promotional content to users through various online and digital channels like social media or search engines.
A consumer is an individual or entity that buys products or services for personal use, not for resale. They are the final user in a supply chain.
Lead scoring is the process of assigning points to leads based on their attributes and actions to determine their sales-readiness.
A custom API integration is a bespoke connection between software, enabling them to communicate and share data to meet unique business requirements.
A Letter of Intent (LOI) is a document declaring the preliminary commitment of one party to do business with another, outlining the chief terms.
A cold email is an initial outreach sent to a potential customer with whom you've had no prior contact, aiming to introduce your business.
A sales coach is a mentor who trains and guides sales reps to enhance their skills, boost performance, and ultimately close more deals effectively.
Predictive lead generation uses data and AI to find prospects most likely to buy, helping teams focus their efforts on high-value leads.
Video selling uses personalized video messages to engage prospects, build rapport, and guide them through the sales funnel to close more deals.
Learn about B2B marketing attribution, including challenges in B2B marketing attribution, & key metrics for effective attribution.
Account-Based Everything (ABE) is a strategy aligning sales, marketing, and success teams to focus on a specific set of high-value accounts.
Event marketing is a strategy where brands engage directly with target audiences through live events like trade shows, conferences, or webinars.
Personalization in sales means tailoring outreach to a prospect's specific needs, interests, and context to make communication more relevant.
A messaging strategy defines what your brand says, how it says it, and where it says it to connect effectively with your target audience.
White labeling is when a company puts its own branding on a product or service that was actually produced by a different company.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a system of integrated software that businesses use to manage and automate their core day-to-day processes.
Generic keywords are broad search terms that lack specific details like brand or location. They attract a wide audience with less specific intent.
Event tracking is the method of collecting data on specific user actions, or 'events,' on a website or app, such as clicks or downloads.
Product recommendations are a marketing strategy that uses customer data to suggest relevant products, boosting sales and customer engagement.
The FAB technique is a sales framework connecting product features to advantages and then to the specific benefits for the customer.
Sales acceleration refers to strategies and technologies designed to speed up the sales cycle, enabling reps to close more deals, faster.
Marketo is a marketing automation platform used by B2B marketers to manage lead generation, nurturing, email marketing, and analytics.
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is the predictable, recurring income a business expects to receive each month from all active subscriptions.
A marketing attribution model is a framework for assigning credit to the marketing touchpoints that lead a customer to convert.
A lead list is a curated database of potential customers (leads) with contact information and other key data for sales and marketing outreach.
Chatbots are AI-powered programs that simulate human conversation. They interact with users via text or voice, typically for customer support.
Firmographic data is information used to classify firms. It includes attributes like industry, employee count, location, and annual revenue.
A RESTful API is a web service interface that uses HTTP requests to access and use data, adhering to the constraints of REST architecture.
Learn about B2B data, including sources and types of B2B data, leveraging B2B data for sales success, & ensuring the accuracy of B2B data.
A Salesforce Administrator is a certified professional who manages and customizes the Salesforce platform to meet a company's specific business needs.
Accounts Payable (AP) is the money a company owes its suppliers for goods or services bought on credit. It's listed as a current liability.
Logo retention is a key B2B metric that measures a company's ability to retain its customers, or 'logos,' over a specific period.
Trigger marketing uses customer actions or events to automatically send highly relevant, personalized messages at the perfect moment.
A sales pipeline is a visual representation of where prospects are in the sales process, from the first contact to the final sale.
Technographics is data that outlines a company’s technology stack, helping B2B teams identify prospects based on the software and hardware they use.