What's the difference between an aggregator and enabler?

This article was updated in October 2022 to provide the most accurate and up-to-date information.

Every online retailer, regardless of what they sell, asks themselves the same question: "How do I get my orders out the door?"

For some retailers, the answer is a shipping aggregator. An aggregator brings multiple carriers into one platform to provide online retailers with lower-than-normal shipping rates. It gives retailers greater visibility across the pricing of many courier providers, which helps them choose the cheapest one. But while initially easier, the downsides of shipping aggregators really start to stack up as your business grows.

In this article, we’ll explore shipping aggregators, why they may not be the best option for your business, and an alternative that will save you money and time.

Table of contents

• Why retailers choose shipping aggregators
• Some of the problems with shipping aggregators
• Aggregators vs enablers
• The main benefit of a shipping enabler
• Why retailers choose shipping enablers
• Starshipit: The powerful, all-in-one courier enabler platform

Some of the problems with shipping aggregators

💰 Pricing mark-ups

In order to make money, a shipping aggregator marks up its couriers’ prices then clips the ticket, which means you have to pay for your shipping plus the convenience of getting that ‘lower’ price. It might look like you’re getting a good deal but if you went straight to the courier, you’d get it even cheaper.

🚚 Limited number of couriers

An aggregator is also restricted by the carriers it partners with. For example, if a courier aggregator advertises pricing for 10 couriers, what’s to say that other providers can’t offer better pricing? The numbers might look good in the moment, but that doesn’t mean they’re the best numbers out there.

📞 Cheap ≠ best

Just because one carrier is cheaper than another, doesn’t mean they offer the best service. An aggregator ranks carriers in order of price, not reputation, so if you’re only making your decision on how much you’ll save you may end up with a negative experience further down the track.

Aggregators vs enablers

Another way to get the best shipping pricing for your business is to secure pricing yourself. Of course, no one’s got time for that; that’s why you signed up with an aggregator in the first place, right?

To really save money and hassle, a fulfilment enabler is your best bet. While an aggregator passively serves up pricing, an enabler empowers businesses to negotiate the best rates directly.

An aggregator marks up their pricing and profits on the difference, while an enabler gives their retailers real-life savings that they can pass onto their customers or keep for themselves. An aggregator restricts retailers to selected carriers, but an enabler has great relationships with a wide range of domestic and international carriers that offer them different ways of doing things.

The main benefit of a shipping enabler

The greatest benefit of an enabler is their relationship with couriers. An enabler doesn’t just send retailers a courier’s way like an aggregator does; they work with them in partnership. Because they have such good relationships with the couriers, an enabler can send a customer directly to a rep to start the negotiation process, instead of going in blind via a generic email address.

These relationships take the pain out of negotiating rates direct, so as a retailer grows and scales they can save money and improve efficiencies in parts of the business that matter.

You also need to consider the middleman issue: When you deal with an aggregator, you’re never actually working with the courier company directly. This means if there’s ever an issue with the courier, you’ll need to work through an intermediary to solve the problem.

Why retailers choose shipping enablers

Here are the main reasons we’ve found customers choose shipping enablers over shipping aggregators:

• 💰 Save on shipping rates. Negotiate your own rates directly with each courier. As you scale, you get access to better rates.
• 🚚 Pick and choose from any courier you want (Essential when you want to start shipping overseas).
• 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Control your relationship with each courier, meaning you can quickly manage issues directly with the courier, instead of dealing with a middleman (Useful if there’s a problem).
• 💻 The shipping software provider you choose remains focused on the technology, not clipping the ticket on each order you ship.
  
  

Got a question that we haven’t answered? We’d love to talk to you.

A centralised dashboard to manage your shipping

The best courier enablers are the ones that manage the whole fulfilment process for you. We’re not just talking about pricing; we’re talking about automating the entire process so the technology works for you.

Starshipit is the leading provider of integrated and automated shipping solutions for online businesses of every age and stage. Integrating with a large range of couriers and eCommerce platforms, Starshipit streamlines every step of your fulfilment process, reduces handling time, minimises human error, and improves your customer experience.

Ready-to-go integrations

Starshipit does so much more than save you money. Starshipit connects you with your preferred domestic and international carriers, like NZ Post, Australia Post, FedEx, Royal Mail, DHL Express and UPS, to simplify the process of fulfilling orders.

With more than 40 couriers on our books – and more on the way – we don’t restrict you to a limited selection of couriers; we give you a wide range of options that suit you domestic and international needs.

Starshipit is an enabler: Leverage our partnerships with leading couriers

Our team has ongoing, face-to-face relationships with each of our carrier partners – both a strength and benefit that we pass onto our customers.

These relationships mean that retailers who use Starshipit can negotiate the best pricing with their carriers directly, based on the services they need. The best way to get started is to sign up for a 30-day free trial, we can then help connect you to the right people in order to get courier accounts set up seamlessly.

Our pricing is designed for where you are – and where you’re going

A one-size-fits-all shipping solution doesn’t take a business’ unique needs into consideration. That’s why customisation is key when it comes to finding the best pricing to suit your business’ unique shipping needs. Our pricing scales with you, from when you’re shipping 10 packages per week to 5,000.