2Ship Solutions
The Next Generation of Smarter Shipping is Here

From inventory and warehouse management to shipping, businesses are juggling multiple systems from many different vendors. It is a daunting task to keep tabs on each carrier, rate updates, inventory, orders from multiple sources, various fulfillment locations, vendors and policies and procedures. Switching between multiple systems, not to mention the manual processes involved in many businesses, produces inefficiencies and stunts growth. In an effort to change the industry narrative, 2Ship Solutions stepped up to meet the growing customer expectations with its comprehensive system. The company offers a SaaS-based application that manages everything from rating at checkout to delivery notifications. 2Ship interacts with all carriers, platforms, and customers to simplify the process of managing all outbound and inbound logistics in its entirety. What started as a best-in-class Transportation Management System (TMS) has now evolved into a full logistics—smarter shipping—solution with a focus on centralization, control and visibility; it’s the single solution that ties the entire supply chain together.

As the CIO Applications’ team interviews Russ Proos, Founder/President of 2Ship Solutions, he touches upon how the company elevates the supply chain process for a wide variety of customers, from small businesses to larger enterprises.

Give us a brief overview of your company and your journey in creating the array of solutions that are currently being provided to customers.

We started in 2006 with an auditing and freight invoicing platform that is frequently used by third-party logistics (3PL) customers. The platform aids customers in auditing their invoices, reconciling them against shipping history, and proves useful in the freight forwarder world by re-calculating and invoicing client freight.

Thereafter came the development of our 2Ship TMS as a true SaaS product. Our solution compares rates and services across carriers and modes—local and global small package carriers and freight providers—to find the best price in a single environment. The SaaS logistics platform covers various aspects such as centralized shipping, return management, virtual distribution, full self-administration, rate visibility and control, and more.

Over the last few we have expanded our SaaS product to encompass inventory, order and warehouse management. And our new middleware component—2Ship Connect—now empowers our clients to self-connect with all their storefronts and marketplaces in an instant to download orders, upload shipping information, and synchronize inventory levels.

Tell us about the offerings your company brings to the logistics market.

Our 100 percent SaaS-based application caters to the multi-faceted requirements of customers with its inventory modules, warehouse management, and pick-and-pack platforms. Our offering includes a true TMS, as well as a freight offering—the best of both worlds. As SaaS, the 2Ship Solution can handle various customer volumes of shipments—from just one to over 200,000 a month—with equal efficiency. 2Ship uses packing algorithms to calculate the dimensions and weight of all packages at the beginning of the checkout process. As carriersrate more and more shipments by volume rather than weight, 2Ship aims to diminish the space left inside each container or use smaller boxes for the same. By knowing how the order will be optimally packed and shipped ahead of time, customers no longer need scales and dimensional scanners, or wasted space for ship stations.

What are the typical challenges that your clients face concerning the shipping process, and how does 2Ship Solutions address them?

Customers usually face challenges encompassing inefficiency and manual processes, which typically result in excessive freight bills, wasted labor hours, inability to track and reconcile shipments, and more. For Corporate clients, 2Ship makes things easier with an inbound-outbound mailroom solution. We create ship request user environments and allow shipping experts in mailrooms to automate the process for each request, from pickup at employee desk, to acceptance at the mailroom and outbound processing. On the inbound side, users scan, receive, and record every shipment that comes into the mailroom, as well as capture the employee’s signature at final delivery. It’s a full Chain of Custody solution for the shipping and receiving process.

With 2Ship, e-commerce customers can centrally manage all orders, inventory and pick-and-pack across all their fulfillment, retail and vendor locations to automate the selection of the right fulfillment location, carrier and service for every order. Smarter shipping, like aggregation and consolidation, also shorten the Final Mile by using future ship dates and de-consolidation points. This process of consolidating shipments across the country or a border will reduce shipping costs by up to 60 percent. And with 2Ship Connect, we’ve eliminated to costs of integration with most e-commerce platforms and marketplaces.

How does the solution provided by your company lower shipping costs and benefit the customers?

2Ship lowers both soft and hard costs for our customers. It’s a combination of rate shopping, smart shipping features and functionality, as well as automation. 2Ship also helps our clients analyze their shipping data to find additional freight methods and options to further reduce their logistics spend.

2Ship has several automation methods to aid its 3PL and e-commerce customers to connect with storefronts and marketplaces, ERP’s and financial systems, warehouse systems, as well as aid in the picking and packing of goods (on behalf of many clients using multiple platforms in the 3PL space). By running 2Ship’s inventory module, the company’s warehouse inventory synchronizes with their online stores in real-time, preventing end-users from ordering unavailable goods, and averting potential customer service nightmares.

A laser focus on centralization, control, and visibility of shipments ensures that every detail of our customers’ goods becomes visible on the 2Ship platform. The platform works as the single interface that enables real-time shipment tracking and reporting, as well as cost and analysis of the same.

We also help customers audit and reconcile their carrier invoices to find any mis-charged shipments, incorrect charges and help distinguish between justifiable problems, and delayed or canceled deliveries.

Could you cite one or two case studies on how you have enabled clients to overcome hurdles and attain desired outcomes with your innovative array of solutions?

A large 3PL company approached 2Ship, seeking assistance in the fulfillment space. Within two weeks, our enterprise solution was seamlessly implemented, and the customer was able to benefit from it. In Phase 2 of the implementation process, 2Ship introduced business methods to reduce costs and improve their bottom line. In the past, aggregating orders was a daunting task for the client due to the size of the warehouse and various allocated locations for picking and packing goods. However, we aided the customer in accomplishing a full aggregation process and introduced partial shipping to continue to allow different areas of the warehouse to pack different items of the same order, or even aggregated orders, and to print their package labels on-demand. Their new process now eliminates any need to pack aggregated orders prior to shipping and, in doing so, eliminates any need for ship stations in the warehouse.

Where do you see 2Ship Solutions in the future?

2Ship aims to become the single shipping solution that caters to the needs of all businesses. We are constantly evolving our shipment filtering approaches and finding the best methods to ship goods. We are developing a virtual carrier platform to aid freight-forwarders and 3PL providers in creating their own routes and service offerings. The company, which has already made its presence felt in North America, Europe, and South Africa, aims to expand across Australia, Asia, and the Middle East and make it possible to transport goods across the globe seamlessly via its own virtual carrier offering.