AIMS360 Shipping supports both small and large shipments!
Compare rates and save money, quickly generate labels, and streamline your fulfillment process for maximum efficiency.
AIMS360 shipping runs inside the ERP rather than beside it, across UPS, FedEx, USPS, GLS and DHL. Below the features you will find how carrier rate shopping works, what actually drives the price of a parcel, and the shipments where rate shopping does not apply.
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Compare every carrier on every parcel, before the label prints
Rate shopping means asking what each carrier and service would charge for this exact parcel, to this exact address, right now, and taking the cheapest one that still arrives on time. It happens per parcel, not per account, because the winner changes with the destination, the weight and the size of the box.
Most brands do not lose money on shipping by negotiating badly. They lose it by defaulting. One carrier gets picked because that is who the warehouse has always used, and every parcel goes out at that rate whether or not it was the right choice for that box and that zip code. AIMS360 compares UPS, FedEx, USPS, GLS and DHL at label time, so the decision is made per shipment instead of once, years ago.
Five things decide what a parcel costs
Rate shopping is just evaluating all five for every carrier before you ship, rather than after the invoice arrives.
Zone
How far the parcel travels from the warehouse that ships it. The same box to two different states can price very differently, and carriers do not draw their zones the same way, so the cheapest carrier for the east coast is often not the cheapest for the west.
Billable weight
Carriers bill the greater of actual weight and dimensional weight, which is calculated from the size of the box. In apparel this is where the money hides. A puffer jacket weighs almost nothing and fills a large carton, so you pay for the air.
Service level
Ground, expedited, overnight. The question is not which is fastest but which is the cheapest service that still meets the date you promised. Paying for two day transit on an order with a five day window is a silent, repeating cost.
Surcharges
Fuel, residential delivery, delivery area surcharges for remote zips, additional handling for oversize or irregular boxes, and peak season charges. These attach to the address and the box rather than the base rate, and they vary by carrier, which is exactly why comparing base rates alone is misleading.
Your negotiated rates
Whatever you have agreed with each carrier. Rate shopping compares your real rates, not list prices, so the comparison reflects the deals you already have rather than a generic table.
And the one you control most
Packaging. Because billable weight is driven by box size, choosing a polybag over a carton, or a smaller carton, changes the price on every single unit you ship in it. That is a decision made once and paid for thousands of times.
Where rate shopping applies, and where it does not
Any shipping software that promises savings on every order is describing a business that does not sell wholesale.
| Type of shipment | Can you rate shop? |
|---|---|
| Your own ecommerce and DTC parcels | Yes. You choose the carrier and you pay the bill, so every parcel is a real decision. |
| Prepaid wholesale, where you pay the freight | Yes, unless the account's routing guide says otherwise. Check before you assume. |
| Samples, replacements and returns to you | Yes, and these are usually the most neglected. Nobody watches what a sample costs to send. |
| Collect freight on a retailer purchase order | No. The retailer is paying and their routing guide names the carrier and service. Shipping outside it is a compliance failure, not a saving. |
| Retailer dropship programs | Usually not. Most programs specify the service and often the label, because the parcel arrives in the retailer's name. |
This is the first thing worth checking before anyone quotes you a savings number. If most of your volume ships collect on retailer routing guides, rate shopping will not touch it, and the money is in not taking chargebacks instead. If most of your volume is your own DTC parcels, the opposite is true. Most brands are somewhere in between and have never split the two apart to look.
Small per parcel, large per year
There is no honest percentage to quote here, because the saving is not a discount. It is the gap between the carrier you would have used by default and the cheapest carrier that still delivers on time, multiplied by every parcel you ship.
That gap is usually small on any one parcel and invisible on any one day. It is the volume that makes it matter. A brand shipping a few hundred parcels a day is making that same decision tens of thousands of times a year, and until it is automated, it is being made by habit.
Two things tend to surprise people when they first look. The first is how often the default carrier loses, particularly on light parcels to residential addresses. The second is how much of the bill is surcharges rather than base rates, which is why comparing published rates on a spreadsheet does not find the money and comparing at label time does.
Shipping inside the ERP, not beside it
One record from order to tracking
The order, the allocation, the pick, the carton, the label and the tracking number all reference the same record, so the parcel you rated is the parcel you shipped and the one you invoiced.
Rules where rules belong
Accounts that ship on a retailer routing guide follow that guide automatically. Rate shopping is applied to the freight you actually control, so compliance and cost saving do not fight each other.
The warehouse does not have to think about it
Packers scan and pack. The comparison happens when the label is generated, so the cheapest compliant option is chosen without anyone on the floor making a pricing decision mid shift.
Carton data you can act on
Because the warehouse records what physically went into each box, you can see which products and which box sizes are costing you on dimensional weight, which is where packaging changes come from.
Rate shopping, asked and answered
Comparing what each carrier and service would charge for one specific parcel, at the moment you create the label, and picking the cheapest option that still meets the delivery date. It is done per parcel rather than per account, because the winner changes with the destination, the weight and the box.
It depends on your parcel mix, not on a percentage anyone can quote honestly. The saving comes from the gap between the carrier you would have used by default and the cheapest carrier that still delivers on time, multiplied by every parcel you ship. Brands with high volumes of light, small DTC parcels going to mixed zones usually find the biggest gap, because that is where carriers price most differently from each other.
Usually not. Most large retailers dictate the carrier and service in their routing guide, and on collect freight the retailer is paying, so the choice is not yours to make. Shipping outside the routing guide is one of the more expensive compliance mistakes you can make. Rate shopping applies to the freight you pay for: DTC parcels, prepaid wholesale, samples and replacements.
Five things: the zone between origin and destination, the billable weight, which is the greater of actual weight and dimensional weight, the service level and its transit commitment, the surcharges that attach to that address and that box, and the negotiated rates on your own carrier accounts. Rate shopping is simply evaluating all five for every carrier before the label prints instead of after the invoice arrives.
Because apparel is often light and bulky. A puffer jacket weighs very little and fills a large box, so carriers bill it on the size of the box rather than the weight of the coat. Two carriers can treat the same box very differently. Packing choices, polybag against carton, are a shipping cost decision as much as a presentation one.
Yes. AIMS360 shipping supports UPS, FedEx, USPS, GLS and DHL, so the comparison and the label come from the same place. Because shipping sits inside the ERP rather than beside it, the order, the pick, the carton, the label, the tracking number and the invoice all reference one record.
Last reviewed 11 August 2026 by the AIMS360 team. Rate shopping mechanics described here are standard parcel industry practice. Carrier rates, dimensional weight divisors and surcharge amounts are set by each carrier, change on their own schedule, and are deliberately not quoted on this page. Whether a given shipment can be rate shopped depends on the routing guide your account is trading under.
