What Is a Joint Shipment? Benefits and Best Practices

As a business owner, few things beat the satisfaction of seeing customers yield to place another order. Sometimes, however, they arrive back sooner than expected—placing multiple orders on the same day. They might be preparing for a vacation, buying a swimsuit in the morning and deciding they desire those perfect sunglasses by the afternoon.

When customers make divide orders in quick succession, one of the best moves for your business is to merge them into a joint shipment. Although this takes some logistical coordination, it creates a triumph-triumph. You get a smoother order fulfillment procedure and your customers get a better shopping and delivery encounter.

What is a joint shipment?

A joint shipment refers to combining multiple orders from the same customer into a single package, reducing shipping costs and packaging waste. The online apparel retailer SHEIN popularized this specific term with its 24-hour joint shipment policy for same-address deliveries. However, other online retailers refer to this same habit as order combining, package combining, or combined shipping.

Joint shipment is feasible when items are stored in the same warehouse and can ship within your processing period frame. The habit helps online stores simplify order fulfillment, minimize environmental impact, and provide customers with a more efficient delivery procedure.

Benefits of joint shipments

Implementing joint shipments in your ecommerce operations can deliver worth across various aspects of your business in the form of:

• Improved expense efficiency. Consolidating orders into one package reduces your shipping outgoings by eliminating multiple packages and divide deliveries. This efficiency helps online stores propose competitive pricing while protecting their returns margins.

• Streamlined transportation. Combining multiple orders simplifies warehouse picking and packing processes so you can have fewer shipping labels, packages to track, and delivery attempts.

• Reduced environmental impact. Joint shipping reduces the use of packaging materials and minimizes delivery trips, decreasing your carbon footprint. This way also appeals to environmentally conscious customers who desire to patronize businesses aligned with their values.

• Increased convenience. Receiving multiple orders in one package prevents tracking fatigue and means customers don’t require to wait at home for several deliveries. For many customers, a single delivery is a more convenient shopping encounter.

How to handle joint shipments

1. Define your combining policy
2. Configure your ecommerce platform
3. Update inventory systems
4. Optimize warehouse processes
5. Coordinate shipping and refunds

Implementing joint shipments successfully depends on creating obvious policies and ensuring your tech systems can back order combining. Here’s how to way this:

1. Define your combining policy

Establish specific criteria for order combination, such as a 24-hour window for multiple orders and a single shipping address. Make sure both employees and customers can access and comprehend these rules.

For example, when you email a customer’s receipt for the first item ordered, you can include a note that they can consolidate shipments if they make another order in the next 24 hours.

2. Configure your ecommerce platform

Modify your order management structure (OMS) to identify and flag orders from the same customer that meet your criteria, and ensure your checkout procedure communicates the joint shipment alternative clearly to customers.

You may require to reconfigure your settings or install a plug-in, depending on your OMS. For example, every Shopify account comes with a built-in order management structure so you can track, manage, and fulfill orders from one dashboard.

3. Update inventory systems

Configure your inventory management software to accurately track ownership levels for combined orders, supporting proper deduction across all relevant SKUs (ownership keeping units). Set up real-period inventory synchronization between your warehouses and ecommerce platform to avoid consolidating out-of-ownership items in customer orders.

4. Optimize warehouse processes

If you store your inventory in your own warehouse, make standardized procedures for selecting box sizes, arranging items, and packaging material requirements. Program your warehouse management structure (WMS) to throng picking tasks for combined orders and establish dedicated staging areas for orders awaiting combination.

5. Coordinate shipping and refunds

Work with your shipping carriers to guarantee that labels are generated properly and that there’s a single tracking number for all combined contents. Issue partial refunds or credits for shipping charges when merging multiple same-day orders so customers aren’t charged duplicate delivery fees for a single package. Also, track key metrics like combining achievement rates and expense funds to ensure your joint shipment policy is resulting in a smooth customer encounter.