How Partial Shipments Work in Logistics & Transportation

Sometimes, it’s just not practical to ship a particular type of order in full. It may be the case that certain items are out-of-stock in a warehouse, and only some of the order can be delivered. In other cases, it may be quicker if each individual piece of the order is sourced from multiple warehouses.

In most cases, however, sellers just want buyers to get their items as efficiently as possible. That’s why partial shipments happen and they’re oftentimes necessary to enhance the customer experience.

Learn more about partial truckload shipping in five minutes (or less) on our guide.

What is Partial Shipment?

Partial delivery occurs fairly regularly when a complete order must be or can be split into smaller shipments. This can be the result of constraints or strategic choices – rather than waiting for every item to become available before shipment starts, companies can instead choose to ship smaller portions of the order as they become ready.

Such freight shipping practices are common in industries like manufacturing, automotive, pharmaceuticals, construction, and e-commerce, where individual components may be just as important as the comprehensive whole.

If you’re wondering why partial shipments happen, it may be the result of inventory limitations, transportation capacity constraints, cost optimisation strategies, product availability issues, urgent customer needs, or even regulatory requirements.

Shippers make a partial shipment to guarantee delivery and meet their customers’ demands.

Partial Shipment Example

Let’s say you’re an online retailer that receives an order for a full home office setup. The order includes a desk, chair, laptop, and accessories. You find the desk and chair in stock at your nearby warehouse, but the laptop is in a different location. Then you discover the accessories are temporarily out of stock.

It’s rarely good business practice to tell your customers they’ll have to wait as their items are to be partially shipped.

A partial shipment strategy as follows:

1.     You ship the desk and chair from the nearby warehouse.

2.     You dispatch the laptop from its separate location.

3.     You ship the remaining accessories in the order as soon as they’re available.

With this approach, the customer receives most of their order quickly and only has to wait for the last few items.

Benefits of Partial Shipment

When you take advantage of partial shipment for order fulfillment, both your customers and your business can enjoy the following benefits:

·       Available items ship faster: Your customers can receive part of their order sooner, which improves their satisfaction levels and reduces their wait times.

·       Suppliers gain improved cash flow: When you ship and bill for available items immediately, businesses get revenue in faster.

·       Inventory management flexibility as you ship from different warehouses: Your company can optimise its warehouse space when it moves available products out quickly rather than waiting for each additional item to come in.

·       Meeting customer deadlines: Your business can fulfill important components of an order by a specific date, even if the rest of the order isn’t ready.

·       Catering to urgent customer needs: If your customers need certain items more urgently than others, using partial shipment strategies allows for prioritisation.

·       Enhanced customer satisfaction: As long as you communicate proactively with your customers about your partial shipment tactics, they’ll be more receptive and thus more satisfied with your service.

Challenges of Partial Shipment

Partial truckload shipping clearly has its benefits, but that’s not to say it’s always ideal. Some of the disadvantages of shipping this way include:

·       Higher shipping costs: If you’re sending out multiple shipments, you’ll have to factor in higher overall transportation expenses as opposed to sending out a single consolidated shipment.

·       More complex tracking and documentation: Keeping track of the order status for a single shipment will require more sophisticated software systems.

·       Greater error potential: Since there are more touchpoints along the shipping process, there’s an increased risk of making mistakes or altogether misplacing an entire order.

·       More packing materials: Since you’re shipping multiple products, you’ll need a lot more packaging. This can increase costs and environmental concerns.

·       Increased customer communication: If you want to ship orders partially, you’ll have to explain the buyer to effectively manage their expectations.

How Modern Technology Helps Partial Shipments

Thanks to advanced transportation management systems (TMS), your business can much more efficiently plan and execute partial shipment strategies.

Being able to use real-time tracking tools that provide visibility for all stakeholders allows for superior coordination and communication with customers. You can even use AI and machine learning algorithms designed to optimise decision-making around partial shipments that consider factors like cost, urgency, and inventory levels.

Final Thoughts

Partial shipments may not be the most ideal way to fulfill an order, but they’re far better than telling your customers, “Sorry, we can’t make that happen.”

While there are certain challenges in partial shipping, the benefits will usually outweigh any drawbacks you encounter. And with new technologies offered by companies like TransVirtual, you’ll have no problem making sure your customers are happy and your business stays profitable.