Why We Started CommerceShip

The Challenge

After years working at leading shipping technology companies like Maersk, Auctane, Shippo and International Bridge, we kept seeing the same fundamental challenge: as businesses scaled, their shipping operations became increasingly fragmented and harder to manage. Operations and finance teams struggled with growing complexity.

Fragmented Systems

Data fragmentation across multiple systems constrained visibility into shipping performance and costs. The disconnect between analyzing this data and implementing changes prevented teams from acting on optimization opportunities

Limited Solution Options

Existing solutions forced a choice between basic tools that couldn't handle enterprise needs, or complex systems requiring long implementation times, significant engineering resources, and high total cost of ownership.

Operations-Finance Disconnect

The disconnect between operational and financial aspects of shipping made it harder to automate workflows. This impacted key areas like rate optimization, contract compliance, and invoice reconciliation.

Our Background

Our journey began at Endicia (then part of Newell Brands), where we gained unique insights from small to mid-market to enterprise customers.

Richard brought deep expertise in shipping technology - partnering with stores, marketplaces, and logistics systems to integrate Endicia's API, scaling Shippo's partnerships as an early employee, and later serving as VP of IT and Product Management at Visible Supply Chain, which was acquired by Maersk to form their North American eCommerce logistics division.

Tiberiu led API development at Endicia, processing millions of shipping transactions monthly. He later co-founded RedBrick247 with an Endicia founder, which was acquired by International Bridge where his technology became core to their eCommerce shipping platform.

Together, we observed the technical complexity and business impact of these challenges. While solutions existed, they required significant investment in building custom systems, connecting multiple tools, or maintaining specialized teams. With advances in automation and AI, we saw an opportunity to make these capabilities more accessible and efficient.

The Market Need

eCommerce shipping operations face growing complexity that impacts operational efficiency and financial performance. As businesses grow and evolve, each new sales channel, product, fulfillment location, packaging option, and carrier service adds complexity to shipping decisions.

System Fragmentation

System integration challenges increase as businesses grow. New sales channels require different shipping rules and automation, while connecting additional systems creates more data standardization and sync challenges. For brands and 3PLs, managing these operations requires coordinating multiple systems and processes to optimize shipping performance.

Operational Complexity

Carrier management brings its own complexities. Carrier rates may change multiple times throughout the year, while contract terms and renewals are negotiated annually or multi-year. Each carrier has unique services, constraints, and volume requirements to maintain. Managing multiple carriers requires continuous optimization to maintain cost efficiency while delivering consistent customer experiences.

Finance-Operations Integration

This complexity makes it harder to determine optimal shipping solutions, maintain rate accuracy from quote to invoice, ensure carrier contract compliance, and connect operational decisions to financial outcomes.

These challenges open up an opportunity to turn complexity into competitive advantage.

Our Solution

CommerceShip bridges the gaps between operations and finance while turning shipping complexity into a strategic advantage. Our platform starts by connecting your systems, then unifies shipping operations through analysis, optimization, and automation. Data-driven decisions help teams select the right products, packaging, locations, and carrier services while reducing manual work.

CommerceShip addresses financial challenges directly. Our platform manages carrier rates, checks shipping charges for variances, and identifies cost-saving opportunities through analysis. This gives finance teams the visibility they need to optimize shipping costs.

We turn fragmented data into actionable insights. Teams can monitor delivery and carrier performance, optimize shipping locations, and receive data-driven recommendations without requiring specialized resources or extensive implementations.

Our Vision

We believe optimized shipping operations shouldn't require large budgets or technical resources. We're building CommerceShip to make data-driven shipping decisions accessible to evolving businesses, helping them use shipping as a competitive advantage.

Our vision is to build an intelligent platform that continuously learns and adapts to your business needs, automating complex shipping decisions. By combining technology and AI, we're creating a platform that functions as a logistics expert and consultant, analyzing data across operations and finance, making recommendations, and executing decisions to drive better shipping outcomes.

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