Technical Innovations » Shipping and Tracking Software

Photo: Ellen Lewis Papugai's partnership with FedEx is a win-win for all involved. Here are just a few of the many comments from FedEx executives. "This is some of the brightest development work I have seen. SmartShip.NET™ is a valuable solution set for many different types of businesses using e-commerce." - Russ Bourne, Channel Marketing - FedEx ============================== "It took me only minutes to figure out the value of this product for FedEx customers. It really takes the guess work out of e-commerce shipping." - Chris Suhoza, Managing Director - FedEx ============================== "This is very cool e-commerce technology. You don't see this sort of thing every day. Arrival date shipping simplifies FedEx for e-commerce shoppers. Nice." - John Schnebeck, Account Exec. - FedEx ============================== Papugai's SmartShip.NET™ Domestic shipping module allows users to specify exact arrival dates for entire order — or separately for their products within an order. Users choose from a logical calendar of dates. The interface was inspired by a simple wall calendar, and is just as easy to use. Both "fastest" and "cheapest" dates are designated by the software for simple reference, but the user can choose any available delivery date as indicated by blue colored dates. Orange indicates the chosen date and the details about shipment method and price are instantly available for the customer to review. =============================== Another feature of SmartShip.NET™ Domestic is our Shipment Manager feature. The Shipment Manager only presents itself if it can suggest money-saving shipping options to the customer. There are countless ways to find cost savings for e-commerce buyers. In this case (right) the user chose to ship two items to himself, but arriving on two different dates. Maybe he thought he was saving money by choosing a "slower" shipping method for one item, but SmartShip.NET knew better. As you can see, the Shipment Manager is suggesting that the customer combine his items into a single shipment. The Shipment manager shows that this change, if applied, will save the customer exactly $27.00 to the penny. Now that's powerful. Imagine the confidence boost this will give the customer for future orders on this site. Imagine the customer has for the merchant after saving him $27.00.

SmartShip.NET™ Solves Perishability Concerns In early 2001, we were approached by one of our dearest clients, Dilettante Chocolate, in Seattle. They presented an interesting conundrum: They shipped their chocolates all over the world, but in the summertime, some of their products arrived at their destination in a warm, sticky puddle — while other products, such as jarred sauces and the like, arrived unscathed. What could Papugai do programmatically to save the day (and the chocolates)? The answer was SmartShip.NET™. In response to Dilettante's need, Papugai developed a shipping module that would allow Dilettante and other clients apply a "perishability setting" to every product in the database separately. This perishability setting would ultimately dictate how a product could be shipped. For example, a perishability level of 99 meant that a product could be shipped by any method because there was no concern of spoilage. However, a perishability level of 1 required a maximum time in transit of 1 day. A designation of  2, meant 2 days, 3 for 3 days and so on. The application allowed a customer to pay for even faster expedited shipping if desired, but never to assign slower shipping methods than the "perishability setting" dictated. But SmartShip.NET™ does far more than get perishable products to their destinations safely. Now, it its fourth version, SmartShip.NET™ manages complex shipping decisions and saves our users thousands in shipping costs every month. How? Many people have no idea that FedEx Ground will get their package delivered just as fast as FedEx Express (Air) in almost 50% of the cases. For example, if you are shipping from Seattle to Spokane, or Portland, or Eugene, Oregon,  FedEx Ground will get it there in just one day (overnight). To San Francisco? Two days (same as 2-Day Air), and LA, three days. Can you imagine how many people, each day, opt for Air shipping instead of Ground Shipping, just because the shipping type displays the time in transit for them? Well, I can tell you. A lot. SmartShip.NET™ takes all the speculation out of the process. Thanks to a valuable partnership with FedEx, Papugai has special access to this privileged "time in transit" data for Ground shipping, so all visitor of our clients' e-commerce websites have instant access to this data as well. So does FedEx lose money on our clients? No way. Only the opposite is true. Papugai clients enjoy customer loyalty and rapid growth thanks in part to SmartShip.NET™. So from volume, FedEx makes out just fine. It's a win-win deal, all the way around. Our SmartShip.NET™ calendar is only the tip of the iceberg for this powerful software. Most of the impressive architecture is under the hood. Here you see the customer has chosen February 7 for their arrival date. The system always auto selects the soonest (but least expensive) arrival date, but customers can change this as desired. Just rolling over the squares gives instant feedback about the price and method of shipping — for an individual product or for an entire order. Shipment Manager shows shipping options to customers, but only if some cost savings can be realized. 333