A partnership built around one of the fastest-rising costs in retail and eCommerce — parcel delivery.
Adroit Associates has partnered with Shipium, the modern parcel shipping platform, to help retailers and eCommerce companies take on one of the largest and fastest-growing lines on their P&L: the cost of getting an order to the customer’s door.
We’re often asked how the two companies came together. The short version is that our clients introduced us. We kept crossing paths with Shipium across accounts running Manhattan, IBM, and Blue Yonder, and the fit was obvious.
Why shipping technology became a priority
Over the last few years, parcel shipping has moved from a back-office detail to a board-level concern. For many eCommerce companies, delivery is the single highest operating expense on the income statement — and since the pandemic, those costs have climbed sharply. Leaders who once treated shipping as a fixed cost are now actively looking for modern ways to manage it.
“For a lot of eCommerce companies, delivery is usually the highest operating expense on their P&L. Since the pandemic, those costs have exploded — and that’s pushed shipping technology to the top of the priority list.” — Raghu Kammari, Founder & CEO, Adroit Associates
Much of the industry still runs on the original parcel-shipping modules built into their WMS, TMS, or OMS. Those modules were fine for years. But as parcel spend has grown, more companies are recognizing they need a solution dedicated to parcel shipping — one designed to optimize cost and service at the moment of fulfillment, not a feature buried inside another system.
What makes Shipium different
Shipium’s approach stands out because it manages shipping decisions across multiple systems, rather than acting as a simple print-and-apply label tool bolted onto the warehouse. It works across the order, warehouse, and transportation stack and makes the carrier and service-level decisions that drive both cost and delivery performance.
That cross-system design is also what makes implementation the decisive step. Because Shipium has to integrate cleanly with the OMS, WMS, and TMS already in place, the quality of those integrations determines the results. That is where Adroit comes in.
The use cases it unlocks
Modern parcel shipping isn’t a single problem — it’s a set of decisions made on every order. With Shipium in place and Adroit managing the integration, clients can address a wide range of carrier-optimization use cases from one platform:
- Multi-carrier rate shopping — automatically pick the lowest-cost carrier and service that still meets the delivery promise, on every shipment.
- Delivery-date and service optimization — stop over-buying speed; choose the cheapest option that still hits the committed date.
- Carrier diversification and peak capacity — spread volume across carriers and manage capacity through peak instead of depending on a single provider.
- Routing rules and contract enforcement — apply business rules, routing guides, and negotiated rates consistently at the moment of fulfillment.
- Surcharge and accessorial control — surface and avoid the fees that quietly inflate parcel spend.
- Carrier performance analytics — track on-time rates, cost-to-serve, and exceptions to hold carriers accountable.
- Accurate delivery dates at checkout — give customers a realistic estimated delivery date, lifting conversion and cutting “where is my order?” inquiries.
Each of these is a point where the right shipping decision protects margin. Together, they are why this partnership matters to our clients.
Where Adroit fits
Adroit brings deep, hands-on experience across the platforms Shipium connects to — IBM Sterling, Manhattan, Blue Yonder, and the broader order and warehouse stack. As Shipium’s trusted implementation partner, we manage the integration work that turns the platform’s capabilities into real, measurable savings for the customer.
For our clients, the partnership means a single accountable team for both the shipping strategy and the technical delivery behind it.
Learn more
If you’re a client weighing how to modernize parcel shipping — or you’d simply like more background on what Shipium does and where it fits in your stack — reach out and we’ll walk you through it.