Updated: June 3, 2025
Published: February 23, 2022

Parcel volumes have skyrocketed in recent years. Unfortunately, so have prices. 

In recent years, global carriers have lost some of their volumes to regional carriers. If you serve customers across a limited geographic area, this may be a more cost effective shipping strategy. However, if your customers are dispersed around the world, the best way to control global logistics and international parcel shipments is to leverage multiple carriers.

Due to the rising costs of parcel shipping, many shippers have moved away from the traditional single carrier strategy. Simply adding extra carriers is not the answer. This adds complexity to the shipping process. Instead, shippers are turning to multi carrier shipping software to help them manage volumes, customer requirements, and control costs. 

Here’s a look at how multi carrier shipping software helps shippers cope with rising parcel volumes.

Meet Customer Demands with Multi Carrier Shipping Software

Most carriers have their own dedicated shipping software and specific formats for paperwork. As the number of carriers the shipper uses increases, the burden on the shipping team increases exponentially. They have to toggle between multiple systems and processes. This slows down their ability to accomplish their tasks. 

Switching between different systems increases the risk of human error. This has a knock-on effect of affecting customer delivery times.

Multi carrier shipping software eliminates this problem. The solution remains compliant with each carrier’s unique requirements. The logistics team can decide on the best shipping option for a delivery. However, you can also configure the solution to automatically assign carriers depending on your business rules.

After choosing the best routing that meets the customer’s needs, it creates properly formatted labels and paperwork for each parcel. As a result, the logistics department experiences increasing efficiency and eliminates potential bottlenecks while reducing shipping costs and increasing customer satisfaction.

The Benefits of Integrating Compliance and Multi Carrier Shipping Solutions

In addition to the carrier specific paperwork requirements, there are also requirements associated with international shipments or the sale and transport of specific products across borders. Keeping track of the thousands of regulations and the continual changes in required paperwork formats is a full-time job. These requirements can slow deliveries, and increase the risk of errors that cause delays or fines.

Sometimes it is not where you ship, but what you ship. If you sell restricted or dual use products, you may need to screen your trading partners and validate that they are subject to sanctions or denied party laws. 

There are solutions that solely handle these compliance issues. However, using disparate and separate systems for global trade compliance and shipping adds complexity. 

The shipping team must learn to use multiple systems, perhaps logging in and out many times per day. It is also harder for you to catch errors, duplications, or omissions if your systems are not integrated. This is particularly wasteful considering that you need exactly the same details to screen a trading partner as to complete a shipment. 

Multi carrier shipping software handles compliance as easily as it handles routings and bills of lading requirements. Shipments are automatically checked against the latest restricted parties and sanctions lists and generates all compliance paperwork along with the shipping labels.

Choosing A Global Multi Carrier Shipping Solution: 3 Questions to Ask

If you are considering a multi carrier shipping solution, here are three questions to help you refine your requirements.

DO YOU NEED SCALABILITY?

Shippers must ensure that any solution they select can scale to meet their future requirements. It is costly and disruptive to replace software frequently. Therefore, you should ask potential vendors about the scalability of their multi carrier shipping software. 

DO YOU NEED A GLOBAL SOLUTION?

The supply chain is increasingly global and many companies both source and ship internationally. This is why scalability concerns should also include new regions or geographies that may place demands on your multi carrier shipping software in the future.

DO YOU NEED INTEGRATED COMPLIANCE SCREENING?

Many lower-end multi carrier software solutions have only rudimentary compliance checking or omit it completely, forcing you to rely on a secondary system or manual methods. Even if your company has no compliance concerns today, are you certain that will remain the case in the future?

• Your product line may change
• Your geographical reach may change
• Regulations may change
• Your supply chain may change
• Your customer mix may change 

Nobody can predict the future, so this list may not even include changes that arise and severely affect your ability to ship parcels quickly and inexpensively.

When evaluating multi carrier software, you should look for a solution that meets your current needs, but also ensure that it can meet future requirements. The answers to these questions will help you avoid additional hassle, disruption, and expenses in the future. 

Visit our website to find out more about how QAD can help you address supply chain challenges and tariffs.