CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today at the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition, Bigcommerce announced it has partnered with shipping innovator WebShopApps to deliver ShipperHQ, a unified, real-time shipping rate solution, to its 95,000 clients around the world. ShipperHQ, launched earlier this year and used by the world’s most successful brands, adds the industry’s most sophisticated shipping rate calculator and rules engine to Bigcommerce, enabling both B2C and B2B retailers to provide customers with accurate, real-time shipping quotes within their online stores with support for a wide range of fulfillment scenarios.
According to a 2014 survey of online shoppers,1 28% of respondents said they will abandon shopping carts if presented with unexpected shipping costs, making it critical for online businesses to provide customers with transparent, accurate pricing for their orders. However, due to constantly evolving carrier fees and a wide variance in shipping scenarios, proactively providing this information to customers requires businesses to determine shipping rules and rates in real-time or risk sacrificing margins.
“Since its release, ShipperHQ has had significant impact in the world of ecommerce shipping by providing merchants with the tools, information and customization they need to adequately account for all of the variables associated with fulfilling online orders,” said Ryan Shields, CEO of Indaba Group, an award-winning ecommerce development and digital marketing agency. “By combining ShipperHQ with Bigcommerce, our clients will have access to two incredible SaaS technologies in a unique package that maximizes the benefits of both platforms.”
Through the ShipperHQ dashboard, Bigcommerce clients will have access to a comprehensive suite of shipping tools and features providing benefits such as:
- Reduced Shipping Costs via the Industry’s Most Powerful Real-time Rate Calculator. Merchants can fully control and customize shipping rates with advanced surcharges and discounts, define preferred carriers and shipping methods and rate structures based at the country, state or postcode level. Additionally, clients with unique needs can set specific attributes based on product, category, or cart quantity, value, weight, dimensions and more to reduce shipping costs and ensure the most cost-effective and appropriate shipping methods are always utilized.
- Expanded Control for B2B Retailers and Wholesalers with Multiple Buyer Segments. ShipperHQ’s flexible rules engine enable merchants to define shipping rates and methods for specific customer groups without offering them to all shoppers, making it even easier to manage business and wholesale accounts.
- More Efficient Shipping Workflows and Native Support for Major Carriers. Built-in support for UPS, FedEx, USPS and other major carriers allows clients to easily use one or multiple carriers through a single interface. Merchants have the option to use base rates for each carrier or link existing carrier accounts to automatically apply negotiated rates.
- Enterprise-grade Logistics. Business owners can tap into sophisticated shipping tools including support for LTL freight and dimensional shipping, multi-origin shipping, dropshipping, in-store pickup configurations and fully-customizable tiered pricing.
- Centralized Shipping Analytics and Tracking. Through an intuitive dashboard, merchants are in control of all shipping activity across all carriers, easily accessing key details about outgoing orders including geographic trends, time in transit, delivery estimates and average weight of products in customer carts and more.
“Online retailers around the world are choosing SaaS platforms such as Bigcommerce for their ability to help scale their business,” said Karen Baker, ShipperHQ founder and CEO. “As these businesses grow, the ability to manage shipping rates and rules effectively and provide pricing transparency to customers has a material impact on their businesses. Our goal is to give them the best the industry has to offer in a package that enables them to focus on growth instead of fighting technology.”
ShipperHQ will be offered as part of the Bigcommerce Enterprise solution in Q3 and available as an add-on service to all Bigcommerce merchants for an additional monthly fee. For more information, visit www.bigcommerce.com/shipperhq.
1 Visual Website Optimizer. “VWO eCommerce Survey 2014.” Retrieved May 26, 2015.
About Bigcommerce
Bigcommerce is a robust, flexible ecommerce platform that provides established and emerging brands with everything they need to launch, promote, manage and scale a successful online store. Bigcommerce merchants earn more than retailers on competitive ecommerce solutions thanks to advanced features, better site performance and streamlined business processes. Founded in 2009, the company has received $125 million in funding from SoftBank Capital, American Express, Telstra Ventures, General Catalyst, Revolution Growth and FLOODGATE. Bigcommerce supports more than 95,000 retailers around the world from its offices in San Francisco, Austin and Sydney. For more information, visit Bigcommerce.com.
About ShipperHQ
ShipperHQ is a product of WebShopApps and has taken eCommerce shipping to the next level. It combines the power and functionality of WebShopApps’ diverse collection of shipping extensions together with years of eCommerce experience into one easy-to-use application. WebShopApps is a recognized expert in the world of shipping with over 70K merchants using their software, having offices in the US, UK, and Australia.
