What Is a Carrier Contract?

A carrier contract is an agreement between a company that ships parcels or freight and a company that has packages to ship. Shipping companies, also known as carriers, charge a set rate for every parcel that they move.

What Is the Difference Between Parcel and Freight?

Parcel generally refers to shipping individual boxes to many different locations while freight refers to large quantities of boxes or goods that move as a unit to the same location.

What Does Contract Negotiation Mean?

Carrier contract negotiation is the process of each party going through the contract and hammering out the details. An important thing to note while parcel contracts tend to be similar to each other, there are many different types of freight contracts.

Why Is Contract Negotiation Important?

Contract carriers want to maximize their profit margins, not help you maximize yours. Pre-negotiated shipping rates are sky-high, and often, your post-negotiation rates are not market appropriate either.

What Is a Good Shipping Rate?

Often, account managers for these small parcel contract carriers will say things like "a very competitive volume-based discount," when the truth is that 20% or even 50% discounts on ground shipments still leave a large margin for the carrier. Without market intelligence, industry experience, and the modeling of your parcel shipping cost, it’s difficult to negotiate fair and competitive rates.

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We could not say enough good things about our relationship with ShipSigma. Beyond the initial savings, they continue to find us new angles for savings, set up dashboards specific to our needs, and meet with us quarterly to go through reporting/review savings/new opportunities. ShipSigma has been more than just a service for us, they have been a continuous partner as we navigate the difficulties of controlling our freight costs and holding the vendors accountable.

Tyler B. Vice President of Finance, Leading Global Manufacturer

4 hours. It took less than 4 hours of my time for my company to see half a million in annual savings. No headaches, no feet-dragging negotiations, no confusing documents. It was so easy.

Todd M. Vice President, Food Manufacturer and Distributor

The insights and analytics, ShipSigma provided before and after negotiating our carrier agreements, make it clear we have a long-term partner who is aligned with our company values. The cost modeling and rate simulation let us know the exact savings we would see, down to the last cent. After running our historical data, ShipSigma was able to find us almost 28% in annual shipping savings with our same carrier.

Jonica H. Controller, Market Leading Wine Distributor

Our team managed billions of dollars of various category spend. To have ShipSigma guarantee a savings and then fully execute so that we’re realizing increased EBITA within 60 days allows us to focus on other strategic opportunities.

Randy H. Chief Procurement Officer, Leading Provider of Pork Products

We thought we had the best rates. We were told we had the best rates. ShipSigma got us better rates. They found us nearly 25% in savings and helped us renegotiate our contract with our carrier. It was just so easy.

Brad M. Chief Operations Officer, Clothing Retailer

The parcel invoice audit was a lifesaver for us. The team at ShipSigma monitored the weekly audit and noticed that instead of shipping air, over 60% of our packages could have traveled ground with no delay in arrival. They saved us more money than we had ever saved in our manual audit process.

Julie F. Chief Financial Officer, Industry Leading Retailer

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Trusted by Thousands. Saving Millions.

4 hours. It took less than 4 hours of my time for my company to see half a million in annual savings. No headaches, no feet-dragging negotiations, no confusing documents. It was so easy.

Our team managed billions of dollars of various category spend. To have ShipSigma guarantee a savings and then fully execute so that we’re realizing increased EBITA within 60 days allows us to focus on other strategic opportunities.

We thought we had the best rates. We were told we had the best rates. ShipSigma got us better rates. They found us nearly 25% in savings and helped us renegotiate our contract with our carrier. It was just so easy.

The parcel invoice audit was a lifesaver for us. The team at ShipSigma monitored the weekly audit and noticed that instead of shipping air, over 60% of our packages could have traveled ground with no delay in arrival. They saved us more money than we had ever saved in our manual audit process.

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