Shipping Logistics: Ensuring Fast, Efficient Delivery in Your Supply Chain

In shipping, small mistakes can cause big problems. A late delivery, missed address, or poor tracking updates might seem easily repairable, but they can damage trust quickly. This is even more true when customers are expecting a fast delivery.

The numbers back it up as well, a 2023 survey found 97% of consumers consider “same-day delivery” to be “fast” while 95% of consumers also accept “next-day delivery” as fast. 98.1% of consumers (a shockingly high percentage) also say that their delivery experience directly affects their loyalty to a brand.

This is why shipping logistics matters more than ever. Businesses need to make sure they are not just about moving packages from the warehouses to the customer, but also ensuring this process runs smoothly, consistently, and without any unnecessary surprises.

Delivery speed and consistency depend heavily on how well your shipping logistics are set up. If you want to meet higher SLAs, cut unnecessary costs, and keep customers happy, understanding how shipping logistics is the first step.

We are going to exactly break that down in this blog – what shipping logistics mean, how it impacts your business, and what you can do to make it more efficient and easier to manage.

Shipping logistics refers to everything that happens when a product moves from your inventory to the customer’s doorstep (and sometimes, back to the shipper again).

It is a chain of moving parts that all need to work together to get the job done. This includes:

• Packaging and labelling the product correctly.
• Choosing the right carrier or delivery method.
• Handling the handoff to the carrier.
• Providing live tracking and ETA updates.
• Confirming delivery with proof.
• Managing returns and reverse logistics if needed.

Understanding how shipping logistics works is the first step towards optimizing it for better results and cutting unnecessary costs. But, that’s not the only way they affect your business. Let’s take a deeper look at how shipping logistics affect your business.

Improves Cost Efficiency

Shipping logistics directly contributes to your delivery costs. The more optimized your logistics are, the more cost efficient you can be. When your processes are automated, and are tracked through centralized systems, you drastically reduce the chances of manual errors and unnecessary delays.

For example, optimized shipping routes and load consignments can cut fuel costs and reduce the number of trips needed. Fewer failed deliveries also mean fewer rescheduling attempts and fewer customer complaints, leading to reduced customer service overhead.

Over time, these improvements reduce your operational costs and gives you higher revenue numbers without compromising on your service quality.

Operational Visibility

The problem with less visibility is very simple, you can’t improve what you can’t see. That is why investing in better operational visibility can be a huge game changer for your business. Visibility does not mean knowing where a shipment was yesterday, it is about knowing where your shipment is in real-time, throughout its journey.

When you know where your shipment is in real-time, you will know exactly what’s causing delays. This helps you think faster, act faster, and fix problems faster.

Real-time visibility also helps you identify trends and patterns over time. For example, knowing that deliveries often get delayed in a particular zone at a certain time, you can optimize your delivery routes to accommodate that.

Brand Perception

The delivery experience is the last touchpoint your customers usually have with your brand. If the delivery is late, poorly completed, or incomplete/wrong, it can seriously damage the trust they have in you. A good delivery experience gives the customer the satisfaction of getting what they were promised which greatly increases brand reputation and repeat purchases.

The key steps involved in shipping logistics are:

• Pre-shipping
• Shipping
• Post-shipping

Pre-shipping

The pre-shipping phase includes everything that needs to happen before a package is handed off to a carrier. This involves collecting shipping details, confirming the order, packaging the item, labeling it accurately, and generating necessary documentation like invoices. It also includes selecting the preferred shipping method based on cost and delivery time.

What you need to know about this stage:

Pre-shipping is where accuracy or the lack of it begins. A small error in labeling, documentation, or address entry at this stage can lead to failed deliveries, delays, or compliance issues later. Getting things right up front ensures the rest of the shipping process runs pretty much without any hiccups.

Shipping

This is the phase where the packaged order is handed over to the carrier and begins its journey to the customer. It includes initial scanning, movement through shipment hubs, shipment tracking, and status updates. This process is usually monitored and controlled through a Transportation Management System (TMS) that integrates with the carrier’s system.

What you need to know about this stage:

Shipping is where most delays and visibility gaps tend to occur. Without real-time tracking and communication in place, it’s hard to know if a shipment is progressing as expected. Real-time visibility during this stage helps reduce guesswork, keep customers informed, and manage delivery exceptions.

Post-shipping

Post-shipping refers to everything that happens after the package is delivered, or after a delivery attempt. This includes delivery confirmation, handling failed deliveries, processing returns, managing customer complaints, and collecting feedback about the experience. It’s also where businesses review performance data and make improvements based on what happened.

What you need to know about this stage:

A delivery is not truly complete until the customer actually receives the shipment. If something goes wrong, how quickly and effectively you respond can make or break future relationships. Post-shipping also takes care of returns and customers always keep a keen eye on how brands handle returns. 

Carrier management refers to the process of selecting, onboarding, monitoring, and optimizing the performance of third-party delivery providers or carriers. It includes managing their contracts, setting SLAs, evaluating costs, tracking KPIs, and ensuring compliance with shipping policies and regulations.

Here are few reasons why carrier management should not be overlooked:

The Right Carriers Are Reliable for Execution

Carrier management begins with choosing delivery partners you can actually rely on. It’s not just about picking whoever is available for the lowest cost. It’s about finding carriers that can consistently deliver on time, handle your shipment types, and can easily cover the areas you want to deliver to.

If a carrier struggles to meet your timelines or doesn’t have the capacity to handle peak demand, it puts your delivery experience at risk. That’s why carrier selection is not something you rush. It involves checking their track record, service coverage, and understanding how well they fit into your delivery strategy.

With the right carriers onboard, you actually have time to spend on your business’s growth and not constantly firefighting issues.

It Helps You Stay Proactive

Once you’ve picked your carriers, the next step is keeping an eye on how they are performing. Tracking KPIs like on-time delivery rates, failed delivery attempts, average delivery times, or even customer feedback gives you the full picture of the carrier’s performance.

You can start noticing trends that might otherwise go unnoticed like a certain carrier always being late to a particular zone or not handling certain product types well. When you have granular insights like these, you are not stuck reacting to complaints. You can step in early, communicate with the carrier to know what’s going wrong and put out the fires before they become uncontrollable.

Well-negotiated Contracts Help Reduce Costs

The rates you agree on with your carriers have a big impact on your shipping costs. A good carrier management process includes reviewing your shipping volumes, understanding your common routes, and using that info to negotiate better deals.

If you are sending a lot of orders to the same zone, you might be able to get better pricing based on volume. Apart from the price, contracts usually also cover things like fuel surcharges, insurance coverage if any, and penalty rates. The better you understand your carrier, the better you can negotiate fair terms that work for both sides.

Helps You Mitigate Risk and Enforce Compliance

Even if a third-party carrier is handling your shipments and delivery, you are still the one your customer will blame if something goes wrong. So, making sure that your carriers meet basic safety, legal, and operational standards.

Are their licences up to date? Do they follow your delivery protocols? Do they carry the right insurance? Having a simple carrier compliance checklist and doing regular checks can go a long way. It keeps your operations clean, protects your brand’s reputation, and reduces the chances of dealing with legal issues down the line. 

High Costs

Last-mile delivery costs make up at least 53% of the total shipping costs. You deal with short routes, fluctuating fuel costs, traffic, and unpredictable blockages that can quickly add up. Without proper planning, you could be spending a lot more per delivery than you need to.

Lack of Transparency

If you don’t have visibility into what’s happening on the field, it’s hard to know when or where delays are happening. This not only affects operations, but also leaves customers in the dark, which increases support calls and frustration.

Poor Tracking

Basic tracking updates like “out for delivery” or “delayed” don’t cut it anymore. Customers expect real-time location updates and accurate ETAs. If you can’t provide that level of tracking, it puts your brand at a disadvantage.

Inefficient Routing

Drivers taking unnecessary longer routes or making back and forth trips leads to more fuel consumption and delayed deliveries. Without optimized routing, you are not using your delivery trucks and agents effectively. This is especially true when you have tight delivery windows.

Failed Deliveries

Missed addresses, unavailable customers, and poor communication often result in failed attempts. Every failed delivery means extra time, cost, and effort to redeliver.

Outdated Delivery Tools

Not every delivery team is working with the best tools. Some drivers still rely on apps and software that don’t update in real-time or have to manually log deliveries and updates at the end of the day.

Some systems don’t sync well with others, which can create gaps in tracking and delays in getting the right information to the right people. When things slow down or updates are not updated, it becomes much harder to spot issues and respond quickly.

Shipping logistics challenges like visibility gaps, failed deliveries, and high costs remain common in the last mile. FarEye’s platform addresses these pain points with a unified solution that streamlines execution, enhances real-time tracking, and automates key processes.

Let’s take a look at some key features of FarEye:

• Dynamic Route Optimization -  Cut delivery time and fuel costs by automatically assigning the fastest, most efficient routes in real-time.
• Real-time Delivery Tracking - Stay in control of every shipment with live updates and accurate ETAs from dispatch to doorstep.
• Exception Alerts and Resolution -  Act quickly on delivery issues with instant alerts that let your team fix problems before customers notice.
• Digital Proof of Delivery - Reduce delivery disputes and speed up billing with digital signatures, photo capture, and instant confirmation.
• Carrier Performance Dashboards - Make smarter decisions by tracking how each carrier is performing across key delivery metrics.
• Customer Communication Tools -  Keep customers informed and happy with live tracking links, timely updates, and easy delivery feedback.

Ready to optimize your shipping logistics? Talk to FarEye.

Shipping can make or break a customer’s experience. If a delivery is late, goes missing, or doesn’t have clear updates, it directly reflects on your brand. The good news is, you don’t need to do everything at once to see an impact. Just improving visibility, acting on delivery issues faster, and keeping customers informed can go a long way.

Good shipping logistics is about making the shipping experience smoother, both for your team and for the people receiving the order. FarEye helps you do exactly that. With tools that bring real-time tracking, smart planning, and better communication into one place, it gives you more control over the entire delivery journey.

When your shipping logistics runs better, your brand feels reputable and reliable and customers notice that.