DigitalShipper Rate Engine
The DigitalShipper Rate Engine is a separate set of Web Services that
extends the rating features to other key areas of your business such as
providing rate quotes through your e-commerce web site or handling large
volumes of rate transactions without interfering with your shipping
throughput. The Rate Engine can work alongside your DigitalShipper
Enterprise or work independently.
Determining how much something will cost to ship is essential to any
business. The Rate Engine can rate single package shipments or
multiple package shipments for domestic or international destinations to
determine the carrier’s cost for freight. The carrier published rates
are automatically part of the Rate Engine; however, you can load your
negotiated rates to see exactly what you should be paying for freight.
Time in transit information can also be loaded to capture information on how
long it will take to ship the package to its destination and allow you to
optimize ground services when they are able to meet the air service
commitments.
The Rate Engine can take into account carrier accessorials such as Fuel
Surcharge, C.O.D. (Collect On Delivery), Insurance, Saturday Delivery,
Residential Delivery to determine the additional fees that may be associated
with shipping. If dimensions are set for each package then the Rate
Engine will determine the billable weight and calculate the dimensional
weight rate and fees associated with the dimensions such as Large Package
Surcharge.
Common Uses of the DigitalShipper Rate Engine:
“ABC” Rating can perform rate transactions based on any origin to any
destination. This is an ideal tool to determine which warehouse to
originate shipments from when shipping goods to your customer based on cost
and transit time. “ABC” Rating can also play a role in deciding where
to plan new distribution center/warehouse locations. By using
historical shipment data or “what if” scenarios you can return rating
results for various origin zip codes.
Rate Shopping is available through the Rate Engine using published or
negotiated rates and can even take into account accessorial fees to
determine the least cost carrier. Rate shopping can be used to
determine the least cost for a particular carrier by comparing the different
service levels or shopping across multiple carriers. The Rate Engine
can even rate shop an entire shipment to determine if it should ship via a
small parcel carrier or an LTL/FTL carrier using the Total Order Rate
Shopping feature.
Transportation Pre-Planning is an integral part of many warehouse
operations and involves determining how shipments should be consolidated,
staged, released, and ultimately shipped. The Rate Engine can
facilitate calculating the freight charges and apply general carrier rules
to select the carrier and service that is most suitable for the shipment
before it is actually shipped. Custom business rules with the Rate
Engine can engage routing guidelines to comply with trading partners to make
sure the shipment accurately is shipped how the vendor requires.
Order Processing through Ecommerce web sites or Customer Service
Representatives often need to have the shipping method selected to finalize
a customer’s order. The Rate Engine is an integral part of the order
processing step when determining the shipping method by returning the
various rates for each carrier and service available. The customer is
then able to make an informed decision on how they want the order to ship
based on how much the freight costs. The Rate Engine can precisely
calculate the shipping charges when integrated with a packing algorithm
application that determines how many boxes and the weight of each box it
will take to fulfill the customer’s order.
Alternate Rating has many purposes for businesses: it can be a
competitive way for a company to do business in certain markets where they
are able to charge a “ground” rate for shipping but actually ship their
product using an “overnight” service; allows companies to upgrade shipping
service for customers and charge for a lesser service level; ship product
from any warehouse location to any customer and charge shipping cost from
the closest warehouse point. The Rate Engine can be used to calculate
the alternate rate and pass back the appropriate freight cost the host
system for invoicing purposes.
Negotiating Rates with carriers can be a daunting task and unless you
have access to your shipment data and can recognize the trends, you are
depending on the carrier rep to share these facts with you. By
presenting the facts about your current and future shipping volumes and
characteristics, you can control your discounts and make sure you are
negotiating the best possible rate. The DigitalShipper Rate Engine can
help formulate the data you need by returning useful rates based on your
existing or potential shipping data.