Those shipping B2B consignments have requirements not unlike those shipping to consumers. They can benefit from using intelligent despatch to select the most cost-effective services from a combination of parcel and pallet carriers. B2B businesses also have a need to monitor and act on carrier status updates, introduce a contingency routine and manage the returns process.

B2B despatchers require additional functionality such as address book management, the ability to send consecutive consignments out on different contracts, manage multiple carrier accounts belonging either to them or their clients and invoice reconciliation.

B2B shippers can combine both pallet and parcel operations to their benefit. It could be more cost effective to ship using a ‘per parcel’ charge offered by parcel carriers as against ‘per weight’ for pallets

In addition, because of the accessibility and ease-of-implementation of e-Commerce, many b2b suppliers are now looking to either sell directly to the public or despatch to domestic consumers on behalf of their retailer customers (and some retailers are now requesting this from suppliers).

Metapack can help B2B despatchers manage:

• Just in Time Fulfilment- Provide your customers with ‘just-in-time’ stock replenishment and single despatches direct to any site.
• Critical parts or product – distribute time-sensitive and valuable items through the best carriers
• Carrier contract consolidation – send consignments through the same carrier to save on costs or balance load between several carriers.
• Increase warehouse capacity – by faster despatch from every pack bench and extended cut-off times.
• International despatch and management  - including the automatic production of the correct customs documentation for the destination to ensure compliance and reduce costly rejections.
• Break bulk – the ability to label consignments due to be collected by Carrier B from a secondary location (eg another country) with the final destination address, then ship all items in bulk via Carrier A to the secondary location. Bulk order then opened and forwarded via carrier B from the secondary location to the final recipient.
• Sell direct to consumers - introduce sales direct to the public through e-Commerce and fulfil accordingly.
• Cost breaks - The introduction of parcel carriers as an alternative to half-filled pallet shipments