A brand new partnership between Shopify and Shippo aims to take the fight to retails two reigning titans, Amazon and Walmart.
Shippo for Platforms
On March 9th, America’s largest eCommerce platform announced a brand new partnership with Shippo, one of the industry’s leading shipping platforms for eCommerce. The result of this union is the launch of their Shippo for Platforms integration. Together, Shopify and Shippo will provide their users with both an end-to-end shipping solution as well as best-in-class carrier rates from within the Shopify platform itself. Shopify will also leverage Shippo to make Shopify Shipping available in select European markets; Euro Shopify merchants will now be able to access shipping directly from the Shopify backend.
Traditionally, to expand upon Shopify’s base feature set, additional capabilities were made possible by way of third-party apps and integrations. Of all eCommerce platforms, Shopify does have one of the largest collections of apps from both official and independent developers alike. The downside, however, is that stacking multiple add-ons can run the risk of incompatibility, which also has the potential to cause some serious stability issues. With the launch of Shippo for Platforms, the Shippo API provides a seamless integrated shipping solution from within the platform itself without the need for additional in-house development or programming.
“Shopify has a well-established reputation of introducing new features and innovations that provide customers the absolutely best possible experience, and shipping is no exception. Third-party apps are clunky and often result in a poor user experience, but natively integrating Shippo’s shipping capabilities directly within the Shopify platform helps ensure their merchants enjoy all the benefits of Shippo while maintaining the seamless experience they have come to expect from Shopify.”
Simon Kreuz
Shippo President and Co-Founder
March 9, 2022
“It goes without saying that, to succeed in commerce today, merchants must be able to get packages into the hands of their customers quickly and affordably. Our partnership with Shippo allows our merchants to meet consumer expectations for convenience, speed, and cost without having to be a shipping expert themselves.”
Kaz Nejatian
Vice President, Merchant Services at Shopify
March 9, 2022
Shippo for Platforms was created to allow the eCommerce industry’s top platforms to streamline their respective shipping processes by providing a unified in-platform shipping experience. Shopify users (and eventually, those on other platforms) will be able to manage their shipping infrastructures with embedded master accounts and “bring-your-own-carrier” functionality, all without negatively impacting the merchant experience.
Shippo for Platforms includes:
- Global carrier network and rates. In addition to having the largest global network of carriers, Shippo offers aggressive, pre-negotiated carrier rates. Shippo for Platforms enables platform providers to offer merchants lower rates and international scale without diverting resources to develop and maintain those relationships.
- Turnkey end user experience. Any platform can quickly and easily integrate the full set of Shippo features using Shippo’s API or Embedded UI, as each instance of Shippo for Platforms can be tailored to the development resources and needs of the platform, ensuring the experience feels true to that brand.
- Easy-to-integrate shipping infrastructure. Shippo for Platforms makes it easy for users to sign up merchants, onboard carriers, purchase labels, and use all of the Shippo API functionality to service a merchant – all from a single place.
Diztinct is an official design partner with Shopify. To learn more about Shippo for Platforms, click this link: https://goshippo.com/shippo-for-platforms/.
Meanwhile…
On March 19th, Google announced the next step in their warplan against Amazon, the Last Mile Fleet Solution for Google Maps and the Cloud Fleet Routing API. Both systems intend to assist independent merchants optimize their shipping performance in order to be more competitive with major big-box retailers like Amazon and Walmart.
The Last Mile Fleet Solution helps fleet operators create exceptional delivery experiences at every stage, from the moment an eCommerce order is placed until the package is delivered. In addition to tracking shipment progress and analyzing fleet performance, the system uses Google Maps to verify shipping addresses, optimize delivery routes, provide efficient navigation to delivery drivers, and optimize delivery routes. The Last Mile Fleet Solution is based on Google’s On-Demand Rides & Deliveries technology, which is currently used by major ride-hailing companies and on-demand delivery companies globally.
As part of the route planning phase of the delivery process, Cloud Fleet Routing API enables operators to perform advanced fleet-wide optimizations, which allows them to determine the distribution of packages among delivery vans and the sequencing of delivery tasks. The Cloud Fleet Routing API integrates with Google Maps routes data natively to provide simple route planning in near-real time and to handle the most demanding workloads with parallelized request batching. Customers can specify a variety of constraints, including timeframes, package weights, and vehicle capacities. By reducing the number of delivery vans and distance traveled, Cloud Fleet Routing can help carriers meet sustainability goals.
This is the next phase in Google’s war against Amazon. In recent months, Google capitalized on Amazon’s underwhelming 2021 fiscal year. Global supply/stock shortages and declining brand perception amongst the public led consumers to break away from Amazon and reach out to smaller independent retail websites for their goods; Google was largely responsible for that small business renaissance. The search engine king previously announced partnerships with both Shopify and BigCommerce to aid small and medium-sized businesses better promote themselves in the Amazon-dominated online retail market which, at the same time, helped themselves stave off the market share hemorrhaging and regain a little bit of lost ground from Amazon throughout the past decade.