ShipStation, the largest provider of multi-carrier parcel shipping software for online merchants in North America, plans to expand its international footprint through acquisitions and other means while broadening the freight transportation modes available on its platform, CEO Tom Madine said on the FreightWaves Today show.

This week, the automated shipping platform began facilitating less-than-truckload (LTL) freight shipping within the same workflow customers already use for parcel shipping and other logistics operations. The new capability was made possible by private equity owner Thoma Bravo's summer acquisition of Worldwide Express Group and its portfolio of freight brokerage companies. Adding LTL matters for merchants because goods too large or heavy for parcel networks — such as furniture, equipment and bulk orders — typically move via LTL, so handling both modes in one platform can unify workflows that previously ran on separate systems.

Beyond deeper modal integration, ShipStation is eager to expand its logistics management technology offerings in Europe and other key markets, Madine said Sept. 1 during a live interview at the company's Austin, Texas, headquarters.

ShipStation currently operates in Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Australia. In Europe, its biggest users are large enterprises that leverage its tools, along with micro-businesses that use the platform to compare and select parcel carriers. Its London-based subsidiary Metapack provides delivery management technology to e-tailers and other companies.

"Our grand plan is to build out those geographies. There's a big area of opportunity for us with small-and-medium businesses, in the middle market. That's sort of our next growth lever," Madine told FreightWaves Today. "There's really not a global player for shipping software. ShipStation has the opportunity to be that."

That expansion could come through acquisitions or partnerships, similar to existing carrier relationships under which ShipStation pre-negotiates rates and plugs into carriers' booking sites.

"The reason a lot of these mega brands use us in Europe is we manage over 400 [software] connections to parcel carriers around the globe. Supply chain is different in every country, but at least in the top 15 to 20 e-commerce markets, we think there's a real opportunity for there to be a global leader," the ShipStation chief said.

In early June, Thoma Bravo merged ShipStation and sister companies Stamps.com, Metapack and Packlink with WWEX Group, forming a new holding company renamed ShipStation Global. The combination is part of a broader pattern of private equity-driven consolidation in shipping and logistics technology, in which software platforms and brokerage networks are being merged to offer merchants a wider range of services under one roof.

ShipStation's core business is providing retailers with digital workflow tools for importing shopping cart orders from multiple e-commerce stores into a single virtual inventory management system. That system automatically decides how to organize, process, fulfill and ship orders from multiple distributors and automatically shops for carriers that meet pre-set requirements for price, delivery time and other factors.

The service appeals especially to businesses that lack the resources, scale or expertise to negotiate discounted rates with carriers effectively. A key attraction of platforms like ShipStation is that businesses can manage carrier selection, scheduling, tracking and label generation in one place, without manually connecting to and querying multiple carrier websites — greatly simplifying the parcel delivery process. Accessing a platform's capacity saves them time and money.

"ShipStation has allowed us a one stop shop platform so that we don't have to spend hours every day" managing parcel shipments, said Ned Woodward, director of logistics and fulfillment at Spiceology. "Everything's integrated from our ERP into ShipStation, and we've got labels at our fingertips."

Following the LTL integration, Madine outlined upcoming plans to add truckload freight and final-mile delivery to the parcel platform, noting that businesses outside e-commerce — such as industrial and medical manufacturers — can also use ShipStation's tools and services to better manage their supply chains. A signal to watch going forward is how quickly the company adds those modes and whether further acquisitions extend its reach into new geographies.

"We power the platform with a lot of intelligence to help people make better decisions about how to ship their parcels" and freight, he said.

Few parcel shipping marketplaces also offer LTL, but a smaller brand called Shipio says its technology coordinates parcel, LTL and truckload movement across 90 carriers and multiple fulfillment locations.

Source: FreightWaves