It’s a great time to be in the Logistics and Shipping sector in India, every way you look at it Innovation is at the fore-front! India has one of the fastest growing online retail markets in 2021, as revealed by a recent Statista report. India’s digital buyers were estimated to be approximately 289.1 million in 2021 - a figure that suggests that almost 71 percent of the country’s internet users in the region would have purchased products online for the mentioned time period.
As India’s thriving industry ecosystem works to capitalise on this incredible growth opportunity, automation of logistics takes a forefront in almost every organisation and with that we mean not just Printing Barcode or Shipping labels, but ehanching the entire pre to post shipping experience, right from from the time the order is created, to when it is assigned to the carrier partner, tracked and notified to the end consumer.
eShipz aims to power the growth in any organisation by simplifying complex decision making in their supply chain, increasing customer centricity, and ensuring operational excellence through automation.
Addressing current logistics inefficiencies
Meeting the rapidly increasing size and demand for B2B Commerce in India calls for a paradigm shift in logistics operations that can be slowed down by manual operations - from invoice segregation to AWB creation, slow inventory movement from manual matching of boxes to labels, visibility issues with manual tracking and high operational and freight costs in addition to manual errors and time.
Bengaluru-based eShipz is addressing these current logistics inefficiencies and catalysing that paradigm shift with future-ready supply chain SaaS that leverages the latest advancements in machine learning, RPA, IoT, AI, warehouse automation, and cloud computing. eShipz’s solutions provide significant advantages to existing supply chain operating models that makes shipping effortless with the help of an intelligent engine that brings the digital and physical ecosystems together.
Born out of a urgent need for better logistics efficiency
eShipz came into being when co-founders Shashi Shekhar Tripathi, Shivadeep Mahadi, and Ajaykumar Rajakumar were visiting a warehouse owned by one of their clients. They saw that a huge chunk of time was being wasted on the manual work that went into the creation of labels, manual filling in the courier dispatch dockets, tracking of shipments, and matching payments via excel sheets.
The founders, who are former tech and logistics professionals, felt that there had to be an easier way to do this. They realised that since digitisation was missing in the very first step of the process, it affected all the subsequent procedures negatively. After speaking to a few of their clients about these challenges, they set out to build an application that could help businesses cut down on manual efforts, thus resulting in increased efficiency, tracking, and reports. And that’s how eShipz was born.
Increasing efficiency and customer satisfaction, while decreasing costs
A pioneer of B2B shipping automation, eShipz provides a full-stack solution to its users, thus helping them avoid using multiple applications simultaneously. Several B2B brands still depend on manual or partly automated dispatches, and this solution is perfect for them to compile all their processes on a single platform.
Most of the problem statements recognised by eShipz currently revolve around manual operations, which lead to slow inventory movements due to manpower limitations. They also found that most brands had to go through problems like shelling out high amounts of money to provide unhappy customers with customer support and also for assets, labour, and freight. Another problem that brands faced was consistent manual error, and eShipz’s founders figured that all of these problems could be solved with one simple solution: automation.
As a part of automation, eShipz built a shipping management tool, which contains a centralised dashboard that gives access to all stakeholders involved. Along with the integration of over 120+ carriers, such as Blue Dart, FedEx, Gati, Spoton, Rivigo, Aramex, UPS, etc, and multiple sales channels & ERPs such as WooCommerce, Magento, Shopify, Opencart, Amazon and many more, the platform also offers predictive analysis, which helps brands plan their strategies ahead of time.
Apart from the management tool, eShipz also ensures efficiency in business operations with additional functions such as EPOD to reduce all manual reconciliation and processing of invoices, NDR to increase the delivery success percentage by providing alternate instruction from the recipient in real time to the last mile delivery partner, carrier and sales channel performance reports to enable a stake owners to make informed business decision. A branded tracking page, tracking widget, customised email and SMS alerts, and WhatsApp notifications, which can be accessed by users from anywhere they want, thereby enhancing customer experience. This technological innovation, coupled with customer focus, has acted as a key growth driver for eShipz, as they stay in constant touch with their users and explore technologies that could help them tackle logistical challenges.
The best partners for the job
With more than 120 carrier partners and major shopping channels on board, integration done in less than 20 minutes ensures that brands can start delivering to their customers in no time at all. Customers can also select the best fulfilment partner for every order based on its business priorities with eShipz’s data-driven carrier recommendation engine.
Choosing this carrier-based approach over the market channel approach helped eShipz provide quick solutions to carriers, thus enabling over 15 million shipments in just two years.
Shipping giant FedEx also saw value in the difference that eShipz were making in the market, and decided to disrupt the market by becoming one of their supporting and carrier partners. This value creation and partnership also enabled eShipz to recently introduce the FedEx eShipz Challenge, which gives participants a chance to win a MakeMyTrip gift card worth up to Rs 50,000.
Participants have to make 100 FedEx international bookings to qualify for the reward. The alliance also gives eShipz’s customers a chance to benefit from exclusive discounts of up to 76 percent on FedEx Express services. Once eShipz’s customers enrol in the program, the pricing will be automatically applied to all eligible shipments using the FedEx account number.
Taking its vision to the world
With a MoM growth of 22 percent today, eShipz caters to clients like PhonePe, IshaLife, Enamor, Fossil, Avon, Maruti Suzuki, and Oswaal Books, among others.
Looking forward, eShipz plans to provide a full spectrum of solutions that will help large enterprises automate their outbound-logistics process. The eShipz solutions team is currently working on advanced shipping recommendations and business intelligence that will enable 80% of offline express companies to improve their supply chain efficiency and overall logistics costs via their new tech stack which . The shipping company also plans to introduce One-Click Dispatch (OCD) at all major warehouses across the country.
Being a geography-agnostic unified shipping API platform, eShipz’s application can be used across the globe - and it will be, as the startup also plans to expand its services to the Middle East and Southeast Asia.