Glossary

A

Allocation

Allocation is the process of selecting the optimal carrier service to deliver a consignment.

With the Metapack Platform, you can either carry out allocation independently of the consignment creation or create and allocate simultaneously. The workflow that your organisation uses for fulfilment will determine which of these methods works best for you.

C

Carrier

A carrier is a third-party logistics provider that contracts with the seller or shipper for delivery services.

Carriers use their own or sub-contracted delivery networks to deliver parcels from collection points to delivery or collection points.

Carrier service

Carriers usually provide different levels of services for domestic and international deliveries.

Your organisation's contract with each carrier specifies the services to which it subscribes.

Carrier service group

For allocation purposes, the Metapack Platform enables you to group the carrier services to which your organisation subscribes into meaningful "service groups".

For example, you can group all those services that offer 48-hour delivery into the same "48-hour" group. This will enable your organisation to offer the most appropriate services for each consignment.

Consignment

A shipment that is handled by a (common) carrier.

Consignment lifecycle

A consignment moves through various statuses before it reaches the recipient(s).

The Metapack Platform uses the following consignment statuses:

• Unallocated
• Allocated
• Printed (if activated for your Metapack shipper account)
• Ready to manifest
• Manifested
• Tracking
• Completed

I

Item

Items are components of a product. One or many items can constitute a product.

Warehouse management systems or other operational platforms record items by SKUs (stock-keeping units) to ensure that all "parts" or "items" that form a product are available and shipped as part of the product as part of the order.

L

Label

A shipping label identifies many things about a consignment or a parcel, including the following:

• Point of origin
• Destination
• Weight
• Carrier name

Labels are used to determine where your consignment or parcel came from, where it needs to go, and the stops that it might have to make along the way.

Without a clear shipping label, a package can be delayed in transit, delivered to the wrong address, or lost, which might lead to either a financial loss or a loss of customer trust.

M

Manifest

A document that describes individual orders contained within a shipment. It is not a legal document but is created for record purposes.

A manifest usually covers an entire load regardless of whether the load is to be delivered to a single destination or many destinations.

A typical manifest will contain details about the following:

• Goods being shipped
• Shipper
• Consignee
• Weight
• Measurements
• Packing
• Origin and destination
• Document number

Metapack shipper account

Any seller or shipper who wants to use the Metapack Platform must first get an account.

The account is used to store the following data:

• Your organisation's warehouses.
• Carrier services to which your organisation subscribes.
• Details about any users of the platform.

O

Order

A shopper places an order with a seller, pays for the contents of the order, and selects one or more delivery services for the order.

An order will always go to a single delivery or collection location, but might be shipped from multiple shipping locations.

An order contains one or many products shipped in one or many parcels. It might be delivered to the single delivery address by different delivery carriers using different delivery services/speeds, so the contents of the order might have different expected delivery dates.

P

Paperwork

Shipping documents that facilitate international trade.

In the Metapack Platform, paperwork can refer to either labels or customs documents or both.

Parcel

Parcels contain products (items) from an order. One or many parcels make up an order.

Parcels/packages are collected by carriers and delivered to recipients' homes or their chosen collection points.

Product

Products are selected by shoppers and placed in their shopping carts.

Products have descriptions to encourage purchase. These descriptions usually include the following information:

• Size
• Colour
• Model number
• Images

A product can be made up of one or many items/SKUs (stock-keeping units).

R

Rate

The price that a shipper is charged by a carrier for the transportation of goods.

The main criteria used for determining shipping rates are as follows:

• Transportation mode(s)
• Weight
• Measurements
• Distance
• Points of pickup and delivery
• The goods being shipped

Recipient

The recipient of a delivery. A recipient might not be the shopper who purchased the product(s) from the seller.

S

Seller

The organisation from which a shopper purchases products (orders). By purchasing from the seller, the shopper creates a contract with that organisation and can hold it accountable for any delivery problems.

A shipper might have its own shipping solutions, including a shipping platform, carrier contracts, and so on. Alternatively, it might outsource these to third-party specialists.

Shipper

The organisation that is responsible for the warehousing and despatch of the orders to carriers.

The roles of shipper and seller can be either performed by the same entity or sub-contracted to a third-party fulfilment organisation.

A shipper can also refer to the physical location from which "parcels" are collected.

An order can be sent by multiple shippers.

Shipping platform

An application or system that consumes details relating to consignments to select the appropriate carrier(s), generate the carrier label, and manifest the consignment to the selected carrier(s).

Depending on functionality, a shipping platform can be "dumb" or "intelligent". The Metapack Platform is an intelligent shipping platform.

Shipping rule

In the Metapack Platform, shipping rules enable you to search for an optimal subscribed carrier service by using acceptable and unacceptable collection and delivery days and date and time slots, carrier services, delivery location, and other filtering options.

Shopper

The person who purchases a product (or products) from a seller, chooses the delivery method, and specifies the delivery location.

The shopper might not be the recipient of the delivery.

T

Tracking identifier

Typically, this is a barcode applied to a parcel or lowest tier trackable unit, which could be a pallet if the pallet contains products for an order.

A barcode is used for "in-network" scanning and processing and for sharing tracking updates to sellers or third parties.

A barcode should be unique to a carrier for a nominated amount of time, but might not be unique across carriers.

W

Warehouse

A storage place for products. Principal warehouse activities include receipt of products, storage, shipment, and order picking.

For the Metapack Platform, a warehouse is any location used for shipping orders. Example locations include stores, distribution centres, and logistics channels.

Warehouse management system

A warehouse management system (WMS) sits within fulfilment location operations to streamline and control all warehousing processes and thus create an efficient operation.