What Is a Joint Shipment? Benefits and Best Practices (2024)

As a business owner, few things beat the satisfaction of seeing customers return to place another order. Sometimes, however, they come back sooner than expected—placing multiple orders on the same day. They might be preparing for a vacation, buying a swimsuit in the morning and deciding they want those perfect sunglasses by the afternoon.

When customers make separate orders in quick succession, one of the best moves for your business is to merge them into a joint shipment. Although this takes some logistical coordination, it creates a win-win. You get a smoother order fulfillment process and your customers get a better shopping and delivery experience.

What is a joint shipment?

A joint shipment refers to combining multiple orders from the same customer into a single package, reducing shipping costs and packaging waste. The online apparel retailer SHEIN popularized this specific term with its 24-hour joint shipment policy for same-address deliveries. However, other online retailers refer to this same practice as order consolidation, package consolidation, or combined shipping.

Joint shipment is possible when items are stored in the same warehouse and can ship within your processing time frame. The practice helps online stores simplify order fulfillment, minimize environmental impact, and provide customers with a more efficient delivery process.

Benefits of joint shipments

Implementing joint shipments in your ecommerce operations can deliver value across various aspects of your business in the form of:

• Improved cost efficiency. Consolidating orders into one package reduces your shipping expenses by eliminating multiple packages and separate deliveries. This efficiency helps online stores offer competitive pricing while protecting their profit margins.

• Streamlined transportation. Combining multiple orders simplifies warehouse picking and packing processes so you can have fewer shipping labels, packages to track, and delivery attempts.

• Reduced environmental impact. Joint shipping reduces the use of packaging materials and minimizes delivery trips, decreasing your carbon footprint. This approach also appeals to environmentally conscious customers who want to patronize businesses aligned with their values.

• Increased convenience. Receiving multiple orders in one package prevents tracking fatigue and means customers don’t need to wait at home for several deliveries. For many customers, a single delivery is a more convenient shopping experience.

How to handle joint shipments

1. Define your consolidation policy
2. Configure your ecommerce platform
3. Update inventory systems
4. Optimize warehouse processes
5. Coordinate shipping and refunds

Implementing joint shipments successfully depends on creating clear policies and ensuring your tech systems can support order consolidation. Here’s how to approach this:

1. Define your consolidation policy

Establish specific criteria for order combination, such as a 24-hour window for multiple orders and a single shipping address. Make sure both employees and customers can access and understand these rules.

For example, when you email a customer’s receipt for the first item ordered, you can include a note that they can consolidate shipments if they make another order in the next 24 hours.

2. Configure your ecommerce platform

Modify your order management system (OMS) to identify and flag orders from the same customer that meet your criteria, and ensure your checkout process communicates the joint shipment option clearly to customers.

You may need to reconfigure your settings or install a plug-in, depending on your OMS. For example, every Shopify account comes with a built-in order management system so you can track, manage, and fulfill orders from one dashboard.

3. Update inventory systems

Configure your inventory management software to accurately track stock levels for combined orders, supporting proper deduction across all relevant SKUs (stock keeping units). Set up real-time inventory synchronization between your warehouses and ecommerce platform to avoid consolidating out-of-stock items in customer orders.

4. Optimize warehouse processes

If you store your inventory in your own warehouse, create standardized procedures for selecting box sizes, arranging items, and packaging material requirements. Program your warehouse management system (WMS) to group picking tasks for combined orders and establish dedicated staging areas for orders awaiting combination.

5. Coordinate shipping and refunds

Work with your shipping carriers to guarantee that labels are generated properly and that there’s a single tracking number for all combined contents. Issue partial refunds or credits for shipping charges when merging multiple same-day orders so customers aren’t charged duplicate delivery fees for a single package. Also, track key metrics like consolidation success rates and cost savings to ensure your joint shipment policy is resulting in a smooth customer experience.