General Questions
What products and services does DigitalShipper offer?
DigitalShipper offers products and services related to all areas of
shipping and transportation logistics. If you need to get your product
from point “A” to point “B”, whether you are B2B (Business To Business) or
B2C (Business To Consumer), we offer software applications to assist you
with your needs and can customize a solution that is right for you.
Products: DigitalShipper offers the following products: DigitalShipper
Enterprise, DigitalShipper Express, DigitalShipper Web Services,
DigitalShipper Rate Engine, DigitalShipper Portal, and DigitalShipper PDSN.
Services: DigitalShipper offers consulting in the areas of transportation
logistics, shipment processes, and outbound shipping. Whether you need
a better understanding on how your company can improve existing processes,
develop new processes to adapt to changes in your business, complete an RFP
(Request For Proposal), or measure your ROI (Return On Investment) our team
of specialists can guide you through all areas related to shipping
execution.
DigitalShipper specializes in implementing DigitalShipper products for
companies including workflow design, technical specifications, business rule
development, software installation, setup, testing, deployment, and user
training. Our years of industry experience, extensive knowledge in business
trends, and best practices will assure you that your company will maximize
results when using DigitalShipper products.
Who benefits from DigitalShipper products?
The types of customers that will benefit the most from our solutions are:
- Companies that ship with one or more of these carriers: National Carriers like
UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL; LTL/FTL; International; Regional Carriers like OnTrac,
Spee-Dee Delivery, Eastern Connection, Prestige Delivery Systems, Pitt-Ohio, Lone
Star Overnight, Dunham Express; Courier Companies; Internal Truck
- Companies that ship low volume (i.e. 50 packages per day)
- Companies that ship medium volume (i.e. 5,000 packages per day)
- Companies that ship high volume (i.e. 50,000+ packages per day)
- Companies that need a shipping system integrated into their host computer
system. Whether it’s an ERP system, warehouse management system or an accounting
application, DigitalShipper communicates with your software application producing
efficient and seamless results.
Where can I purchase DigitalShipper products?
DigitalShipper products are available to purchase directly from us.
We rely on a direct sales team to keep the cost of
our software at its lowest point and to maximize your return on investment.
Contact sales at (651) 348-4080.
However, if you are a company interested in establishing an OEM
relationship or reselling any of our products, we do offer an incentive
program so you can offer the same affordable solutions to your customers.
Please contact us for more information.
How does DigitalShipper products compare to other software in the
marketplace?
There are approximately 20-30 companies that offer multi-carrier shipping
software and are often referred to as “3rd party vendors” or “certified
solutions partners”. When it comes to carrier compliance, most
software is apples-for-apples. The carriers require all companies to
follow strict guidelines and vigorous testing to ensure they are able to
offer and comply with the services available for “3rd party vendors”.
However, it is always good to check with the company to make sure their
software offers what you need for each of the carriers you intend to use –
some carriers have certain services/features that are optional.
So what’s the difference? 1.) You should pay close attention to the
price – make sure you understand the cost of the software, the cost of
integration, the cost of customizing the software to accommodate your
business rules, and the ongoing cost of maintenance. Some companies do
not disclose all of this upfront and you may be surprised later on. 2.) You
should understand the technology behind the software – does it have lots of
flexibility, is the software built using current technologies, is the
software extensible to other applications or does it offer an API in case I
want to build my own application around it. 3.) How knowledgeable are
the people you will be working with – whether you are using an integration
team for all aspects of implementing the software or you are doing the work
yourself, you need to have a team of experts available to help you out and
they should have industry experience (from working with other companies to
carrier compliance awareness), extensive knowledge in business trends, and
best practices to back you up. 4.) What features does the software
offer that I don’t have to pay extra for – during a demo you may be wooed
with some great way to process certain shipments and shown all sorts of neat
things, but beware that you may have to pay extra for all those bells and
whistles!
How do I decide? This is a tough question to answer. Before
you make a decision you should: 1.) Gather the facts on what
carriers/services you plan to use and business rules you need to implement –
preparing information ahead of time and understanding as much as possible
about how your company currently ships and how your would like to ship will
help you ask the right questions before you buy. 2.) See a
demonstration of the product – schedule time for yourself and others
(including key shipping personnel since they will be the ones using it the
most) to have a technical sales person show you how the shipping software
works and provide an opportunity to ask questions. 3.) Speak to some
customers – find out how long they have had the product, how did their
implementation go (though don’t weigh too much on this answer because a lot
of companies are unprepared for the work involved on their end or don’t
fully disclose their participation in what problems occurred), did they get
what they expected, do they feel they got good value for the price they
paid, does the system ever go down, and how is the support. Some
companies are required to do a site visit before purchasing – this probably
won’t really do much good since most customers have very customized business
rules and even if they have the same host system, it does not guarantee how
the software will work for you.
Why you would want to choose DigitalShipper? Hopefully after you see a
demonstration of our product and have a chance to compare prices, you will
know DigitalShipper is the right solution for you. DigitalShipper
relies on 100% satisfaction from our customers and has been built
“organically” without any investment money to get to where we are today.
Our development team responsible for all our products works directly out of
our U.S. office and is not outsourced to developers in other countries.
Not only do we want to gain you as a customer, but we also want to keep you
as a satisfied customer.
DigitalShipper Enterprise
How long has DigitalShipper Enterprise been on the market?
DigitalShipper Enterprise was first introduced in the marketplace in
September 2002. It has been adopted by many Fortune 500 companies and
small-mid size businesses for handling all outbound shipping.
How long does it take to implement DigitalShipper Enterprise?
DigitalShipper Enterprise can be implemented in as little as one day
including installation, configuration, and basic data exchange for pulling
in order information through the Plug-in Architecture. Implementation
varies based on the overall goals of each individual company. We work with
companies of all sizes, from Fortune 500 companies down to much smaller
operations where there are less than 50 employees. The goals and
requirements of each company’s project can be considerably different and
will determine largely how long the project will take. This causes
implementation time to vary from one customer to the next. Installations
using our Professional Services team and handling of advanced business
processes typically take 4 – 12 weeks.
Why should I purchase DigitalShipper Enterprise when a carrier-provided
system is free?
Carrier-provided systems only allow you to ship packages using their
services. This would mean if you use multiple carriers in your
warehouse that you would need to have a separate workstation for each
carrier and users would need to be trained how to use each of the different
software applications. DigitalShipper Enterprise eliminates the need
for separate workstations for each of your carriers. It also processes
packages the same way regardless of the carrier so training users is easy.
Carrier-provided systems sometimes have hidden costs to you. If the
carrier is providing a turn-key solution with a PC, scale and printer then
you are likely not receiving your optimal rate discount. The carriers
often will offset the cost of these “free” systems through your discounts.
Is DigitalShipper Enterprise available as SAAS (Software As A Service)?
No. DigitalShipper Enterprise is intended to run within a company’s
network environment. This is largely due to strict guidelines set
forth by a few of the national carriers and would violate end user and
distribution agreements.