Shipping
How do you cut ecommerce shipping costs with multi-carrier shipping?
Cut ecommerce shipping costs 20-40% by rate-shopping every order across multiple carriers, avoiding dimensional-weight surcharges, using regional carriers on zones where they beat national ones, and auto-failing over when a carrier hits capacity or outage.
By Saara Editorial Team · Updated
Direct answer
The fastest 20-40% shipping-cost reduction comes from four levers: (1) rate-shop every order across multiple carriers, (2) detect and avoid dimensional-weight and residential surcharges before print, (3) route regional-eligible shipments to low-cost regional carriers, and (4) auto-failover when a carrier is delayed or over-capacity. Multi-carrier shipping software runs all four automatically.
The four levers in detail
Where the savings actually come from:
- Rate shopping: for any given shipment, one carrier is cheapest for that origin/destination/weight/service combo. Single-carrier brands overpay on 30-60% of orders.
- Surcharge avoidance: dim-weight, residential, delivery-area and fuel surcharges vary wildly. Multi-carrier platforms flag them pre-label and reroute.
- Regional carriers: LaserShip, OnTrac, Better Trucks and similar regionals beat national carriers by 15-30% on their home zones. Route only those zones to them.
- Failover: when UPS or FedEx miss cutoff or hit capacity (peak season), auto-shift to the next-best carrier without manual work.
What brands typically see
EcoShip customers report an average 27% shipping-cost reduction in the first 90 days after switching from single-carrier to multi-carrier rate shopping, with brands shipping 5K+ orders per month often exceeding 35%. Payback on software cost is typically under 30 days.
Frequently asked questions
How fast do savings kick in?
Immediately. From the first shipment routed through rate-shopping, you pay the lowest available price. Cumulative savings compound over 30-90 days as you learn where regional carriers win.
Do I need to renegotiate my carrier contracts?
No. Keep your existing contracts and rates - multi-carrier software just lets you use them optimally alongside other carriers, and gives you leverage to renegotiate later.
What about international shipping?
International savings are often even larger. DHL Express beats FedEx International on some lanes; Aramex wins in the Middle East; local posts win on light packages. Multi-carrier picks per shipment.