Every ecommerce business has its own unique preferences and rules around shipping. Your brand might work with certain carriers, comply with product-specific regulations, or even use boxes of certain dimensions.
But when suppliers, manufacturers, and last-mile carriers are the ones shipping your cargo, it’s up to you to communicate your brand’s shipping instructions to them.
Routing guides are one of the most straightforward ways to share shipping information to your suppliers and vendors. Through a routing guide, brands can communicate essential information to stakeholders in a standard, organized format, enabling them to optimize their ecommerce shipping while minimizing complexity and risk.
In this article, we’ll dive deeper into what routing guides are, discuss why they’re important, and share some best practices for managing your brand’s routing guide.
What are routing guides?
A routing guide is a document that communicates rules for shipping your brand’s cargo. They contain vital information and outline key details of the shipping process, such as which shipping carriers to use, where shipments should be routed, what service should be used, and so on.
Routing guides enable you to set specific standards and requirements for moving shipments through your supply chain, and maintain those standards while working with outside suppliers and distributors.
With every party following the same guidelines on how to handle and route various shipments, your cargo can seamlessly move between different points in the supply chain with minimal issues. This helps you save time and effort in managing your ecommerce shipping operations, which improves efficiency in the long run.
Key components of a routing guide
A routing guide contains a ton of critical information that guides various aspects of your shipping operations. Some of the main components of a routing guide include:
- Preferred carriers and vendors for all stages of shipping (from first-mile delivery to last-mile delivery)
- Contact information for regional carriers and logistics partners
- Conditions for carrier selection (such as when to use USPS vs. UPS vs. FedEx vs. another carrier)
- Preferred modes of transportation
- Preferred service levels and additional service requirements
- Expected delivery times
- How packages should be stored and handled during transport
- Which carrier facility to route specific shipments to
- Which warehouses to route specific shipments to
- Ideal package dimensions based on item weight and volume or type of shipment
- Where to place shipping labels on packages
- Incoterms such as such as Ex Works (EXW), Delivery Duty Paid (DDP), and Free Carrier (FCA)
- Information for preparing essential shipping documents, such as the bill of lading, certificate of origin, etc.
- Regulatory compliance requirements
- Instructions to handle damaged or lost products
The lifecycle of a routing guide
Ecommerce retailers may create routing guides as they expand their operations and work with more suppliers, vendors, and shipping partners across more locations.
The most common type of routing guide found in ecommerce is the inbound vendor routing guide. This guide provides a detailed set of rules on how to handle inbound shipments (shipments from a supplier or manufacturer to a brand’s facilities) that are to be stored at the retailer’s warehouse or various distribution centers.
The ecommerce brand shares the finished routing guide with relevant parties, such as vendors and suppliers, as well as your 3PL, fulfillment partner, or other stakeholders that are responsible for sending inventory to the business’s warehouses and fulfillment centers.
Before preparing the goods for shipment, the vendor refers to the routing guide to ensure that packages are prepared in accordance with the brand’s specifications and preferences. They then hand them off to the carrier, which also refers to the routing guide to ensure that the shipment is transported and handled according to the buyer’s requirements.
The importance of routing guides for ecommerce
Having detailed routing instructions in place enables you to standardize and optimize your shipping process. This benefits your ecommerce operations in a number of ways.
Promote fulfillment efficiency and accuracy
A routing guide lays out all your shipping and routing requirements, and these requirements are made with your operational needs and time constraints in mind. As a result, you can design a set of rules specifically structured to help you improve your order fulfillment efficiency.
When relevant parties have all the necessary information on hand regarding how to handle your shipments, you can minimize the need to go back and forth for clarification and instruction. This allows you to essentially automate some portions of your transportation management, which improves supply chain efficiency.
Moreover, when all instructions and key details are laid out at the start, it makes it easier for shippers to prepare and transport shipments according to your requirements. This generally leads to higher order accuracy and vendor compliance, as it helps prevent misshipments and other errors that hurt your brand’s OTIF rate.
With this level of accuracy, you also reduce the need for corrections and rerouting, which further increases operational efficiency (since you’re not having to spend time repackaging goods to meet compliance regulations or reshipping packages to the correct destination).
Improve cost-effectiveness and time management
Having a routing guide in place also helps you save time and money. Specifically, a well-written routing guide enables you to:
- Ship goods with the most ideal carrier. A routing guide allows you to choose your preferred carriers to factor in cost, which helps you reduce shipping costs. You can ensure that goods are shipped out with the most cost-effective carrier based on factors such as delivery destination, size, and shipment type.
- Minimize dunnage and DIM weight. Through your routing guide, you can arrange for goods to be packed in the most optimally-sized packaging, which helps cut back on expensive dunnage and minimizes the parcel’s dimensional weight to reduce shipping costs.
- Avoid damage in transit. By specifying which transportation method to use and how those goods should be placed inside the truck, you can ensure that each type of good is transported safely and avoid costly reshipments and refunds.
- Optimize staff scheduling and allocation. With structured delivery times specified in your routing guide, you can allocate more staff to handle your inbound shipments during peak unloading times, and make the best use of your employee’s time.
Best practices for managing routing guides
Routing guides are a valuable tool – but like any other tool, they require upkeep to be effective. Here are some best practices for managing your routing guide over time.
Regular updates and communication
Shipping costs change, carrier policies get updated, and new routes emerge. All of these can have an impact on your shipping operations, so it’s important to stay on top of any changes that could affect various aspects of your shipping and update your routing guide accordingly.
It is crucial that your routing guide aligns uses current or timely information, so your shipping operations can function seamlessly. Additionally, using the most up-to-date data will also help you find the most optimal solutions and further improve your shipping strategy.
For example, say one of your preferred carriers invests in new trucks to support liftgate delivery. If you’ve been experiencing issues transporting your heavy goods using another service, you could update the routing guide to leverage this carrier’s service for your heavier shipments.
It’s also important to maintain clear communication channels with shippers and carriers alike. Make sure to provide shippers with the latest updates to your routing guide so they can use it from that point forward. Have a system in place to ensure that they’ve received their specific routing guide and to confirm that they understand it (this may involve requiring a signature response that also serves as a security measure).
Similarly, maintain regular communications with your carrier and logistics partners so that you stay apprised of any changes that could influence your routing guide. Have them share updates to their policies, rates, and services before they take effect so you can update your routing guides accordingly.
Monitor and adapt on-the-fly
While you may have a system in place to revisit your routing guide every few months, it’s also important to make adjustments on the fly. If you can remain flexible to a degree, you will be less likely to be deeply impacted by unexpected and sudden changes, as you’ll be able to adapt your shipping strategy in a timely manner.
To monitor your shipping performance, you will need access to real-time analytics on all your channels and shipments – preferably through a single platform. You may use a transportation management system with built-in analytics capabilities to keep track of KPIs such as transit time and cost, or leverage a partner’s platform to achieve this visibility.
ShipBob, for example, offers merchants a free analytics reporting tool that tracks key metrics on shipping performance that you can use to extract insights that will help you update your routing guide.
ShipBob also tracks real-time carrier rates, which can be used to optimize your routing strategy for increased cost savings.
From routing guide support to outsourced fulfillment: Introducing ShipBob
As a best-in-class fulfillment provider, ShipBob helps ecommerce brands optimize their shipping strategy from port-to-porch. Here are just some of the ways ShipBob saves brands time and money while minimizing the complexities of shipping.
Inbound and outbound freight services
Brands can ship freight to ShipBob’s global fulfillment network using FreightBob, an end-to-end managed freight and inventory distribution program that enables merchants to pick from a variety of preferred freight providers, optimize freight costs, and get access to sailings from most global locations directly to ShipBob’s receiving hubs and fulfillment centers.
“The first shipment that we had with FreightBob…I mean, it was amazing. We beat the average freight time it’s taken to move something from Asia to our warehouse in LA by at least 50% — and it was easier and cost us less money. What’s not to love about that?”
Nathan Garrison, Co-Founder and CEO of Sharkbanz
ShipBob can also help you simplify inbound and outbound freight shipments to or from our fulfillment centers. Merchants who use ShipBob can save on freight costs, time spent on transit and coordination, with all appointments booked for them, and simplify vendor management through ShipBob’s all-in-one logistics solution.
Automated order processing and routing
ShipBob’s platform integrates seamlessly with major ecommerce platforms and tools, so orders across all your channels are pulled into ShipBob and processed automatically.
From there, our algorithm leverages your order data and product availability to forward each order to the ShipBob fulfillment center closest to the end customer. This ensures that your orders are shipped out from the most ideal fulfillment centers to save on shipping costs while reducing transit time.
Brands can even use ShipBob’s Ideal Inventory Distribution tool to calculate the most optimal split of inventory across ShipBob’s fulfillment center network to lower the average zone they ship to. ShipBob will also physically distribute your inventory to regional fulfillment centers for you – simply send your inventory to a single ShipBob receiving hub, and we’ll do the rest.
“ShipBob’s technology streamlines inventory management across our network, ensuring optimal inventory allocation. Once the inventory is allocated correctly, passing orders to ShipBob is seamless. ShipBob automatically routes orders to the nearest warehouse to the customer. We receive notifications confirming the warehouse selected for shipping, eliminating inventory discrepancies between the warehouses. Efficient inventory allocation significantly impacts our outbound shipping costs, and with ShipBob, managing this has been effortless.”
Ali Shahid, COO of Our Place
Optimized carrier selection
ShipBob partners with major shipping carriers for last-mile logistics and negotiates bulk discounts to pass cost-savings on to merchants. Our platform also allows you to select a preferred carrier for specific shipments automatically, or automatically choose the most cost effective shipping option for every shipment.
Global fulfillment network for limitless shipping potential
With dozens of fulfillment centers across the globe, ShipBob’s fulfillment network offers limitless shipping potential to help you optimize your routing strategy. By sending your inventory to and fulfilling orders from ShipBob’s fulfillment centers in the UK, mainland Europe, Canada, and Australia, you can cut shipping times and costs for international customers while minimizing cross-border complexities.
“I’m a strong believer in having local inventory in the country that we ship to. I don’t like to do cross-border shipments, just because there’s so much potential for delays and customer issues. So for us, it’s very important that the fulfillment company that we work with has the capability to grow with us and provide service in the countries in which we want to sell our products – and I see that with ShipBob.”
Mithu Kuna, Founder and CEO of Baby Doppler
For more information on how ShipBob can help streamline your shipping operations, click the button below.
Routing guide FAQs
Below are answers to the most commonly asked questions about routing guides.
How do routing guides impact ecommerce shipping efficiently?
Routing guides help ecommerce brands establish specific standards and requirements to ship orders out efficiently. They establish rules that allow you to maintain consistency in your shipping operations, and help improve operational by eliminiating confusion.
What are the challenges when updating routing guides?
Lack of communication and continuous changes in vendor policies and procedures can make it challenging to update routing guides.
Can small businesses benefit from customized routing guides?
Customized routing guides are especially beneficial for small businesses as they enable these brands to effectively share crucial information with suppliers, vendors, and partners, and optimize their shipping strategy for efficiency and cost.
