This article is part of our “Scale your ecommerce operation without limits” series, where we break down five practical strategies for building resilient, scalable delivery operations.
- Diversify to deliver – eliminating carrier bottlenecks for scalable shipping
- Automate for resilience – real-time delivery automation to eliminate manual strain
- Optimize with data – using delivery analytics for smarter shipping decisions
- Orchestrate without overwhelming – simplifying multi-option delivery experience
- Govern for growth – turning delivery operations into a scalable, repeatable machine
Prefer the full story in one place? Download the guide: Scale your ecommerce operation without limits
In e-commerce logistics, knowledge is power. Every package that ships generates a trail of data: transit times, delivery success or failure, shipping costs, customer feedback, tracking events, and more.
Optimizing with data means capturing all those data points, analyzing them, and using the insights to continually improve your delivery operation. This strategy turns shipping from a “set and forget” back-office function into a data-driven practice of ongoing refinement.
And the payoff is huge: lower costs, better carrier performance, and a smoother experience for your customers.
Start with unified visibility
The first step is consolidating your delivery data in one place.
If you’re using multiple carriers, it’s vital to have a single dashboard that shows all shipments across all carriers. This unified view allows apples-to-apples comparisons. You can monitor key performance indicators like on-time delivery rate per carrier, average transit duration by service level, percentage of shipments hitting their promised delivery date, and the frequency of customer inquiries (like “Where is my order?” calls).
Many retailers are surprised by what they discover – perhaps Carrier X is on-time 98% of the time while Carrier Y is only 85%, or one shipping service has far more lost-package claims than others. Armed with these insights, you can make informed decisions (e.g., favor Carrier X for critical shipments, or discontinue that problematic service).
Drive cost efficiency with data
Delivery analytics often reveal hidden cost-saving opportunities.
For instance, by analyzing weight-break data, you might find that packages just over 2kg incur a sharp rate increase, prompting you to adjust packaging or split shipments to stay in a lower bracket.
Or you might spot that two-day shipments often arrive overnight, indicating you could switch to a cheaper service without impacting customers. One nShift client realized they were paying premium for express air service to a zone that ground service reached just as quickly; switching saved them thousands with no service downgrade.
Additionally, when you compare carrier performance side by side using real metrics, you gain leverage in negotiations. If Carrier A is consistently 10% more expensive than Carrier B for the same delivery times, you can ask Carrier A for better rates or shift volume to Carrier B. Retailers using a multi-carrier approach report that having concrete performance data lets them negotiate better contracts and identify the best options for each route.
Improve carrier accountability and service quality
Data turns anecdotal issues into quantifiable trends. Instead of suspecting that “Carrier Z is often late,” you can pull a report that shows Carrier Z met its 2-day delivery promise only 78% of the time last month. With that evidence, you can push for service credits or operational improvements.
Some nShift customers set up automated alerts – for example, if a carrier’s on-time rate falls below 90% in a week, it flags the team to investigate or temporarily reroute shipments. This ensures small issues don’t snowball into big problems. Over time, holding carriers to data-backed KPIs leads to across-the-board improvements (since carriers know you’re measuring their performance closely).
Data can also guide you in optimizing your delivery promise to customers. By examining historical delivery times, you can set realistic yet competitive expectations. Say your standard shipping is quoted as 5-7 days, but data shows 95% of those orders actually arrive in 4 days – you have room to tighten the quoted window, which could boost conversion without changing anything operationally. Conversely, if data shows a particular route frequently takes longer than expected, you might proactively adjust the promise to avoid disappointing customers.
Enhance customer experience with insights
Analytics isn’t just inward-facing; it directly benefits your buyers too.
Monitoring metrics like WISMO (Where Is My Order) inquiry rates and delivery-related complaints helps you identify friction points in the customer journey. For example, if you notice a spike in WISMO calls for orders shipped via Carrier Y, perhaps that carrier’s tracking updates aren’t sufficient. You could respond by providing more proactive notifications or even switching to a carrier with better tracking.
It’s known that 84% of customers value the ability to track their orders, so using data to ensure you’re meeting that need will improve satisfaction. One apparel retailer, ICIW, discovered through data analysis that a significant share of support tickets were coming from customers asking about order status. By implementing unified, branded tracking and automated updates, they cut WISMO-related inquiries by 50%, freeing up their support team and keeping customers happier.
You can also analyze delivery feedback or ratings (if you collect post-delivery surveys or NPS scores tied to fulfillment). This can surface trends like “customers in region X are unhappy with long delivery times” – which you could address by using a closer fulfillment center or a faster local carrier. Or you might find that offering a small delivery rebate or coupon after a late delivery boosts retention, quantifiably reducing the chance of losing a customer due to one mistake. In other words, data helps transform negative experiences into actionable improvements.
Tools and practices
To get the most out of delivery analytics, establish a regular cadence for reviewing data – say, a weekly operations meeting to go over dashboard metrics and a monthly deep-dive into trends.
In these meetings, ask the critical questions: Where are we seeing delays or higher costs? What’s driving those issues? What can we change? In many cases the answers will lead to tweaks in your carrier mix (strategy #1), process changes or automations (strategy #2), or adjustments to customer communication (strategy #4).
Modern delivery management platforms often include robust analytics modules (nShift’s “Data” features, for instance, aggregate all your shipping data and even use AI to spot anomalies). If your platform doesn’t, exporting data to a business intelligence tool or spreadsheet for analysis is a workable alternative – it’s a bit more manual, but the insights are worth it.
Data closes the loop on your scalable delivery strategy. It tells you what’s working well and what isn’t, so you can continuously refine your approach. The most successful e-commerce operations treat delivery metrics as core business metrics, right alongside sales and marketing data. By doing so, you turn delivery from a cost center into a source of ongoing value – improving efficiency, cutting costs, and keeping customers coming back with reliable, transparent service.
If you’d like to go deeper or share this framework with your team, explore the rest of the “Scale your ecommerce operation without limits” series:
- Diversify to deliver
- Automate for resilience
- Optimize with data
- Orchestrate without overwhelming
- Govern for growth
Ready to put it all into practice? Get the full guide: Scale your ecommerce operation without limits
Author
Thomas Bailey
Product Innovation Lead, nShift
Thomas plays a key role in shaping how new features and platform improvements deliver real value to customers. With a background spanning product, tech, and go-to-market strategy, he brings a pragmatic view of what innovation looks like in practice and how to make delivery experiences work harder for your business.
