Shiprocket Reviews- Features, Pros, Cons, Pricing

Introduction

There are a wide range of shipping aggregators and shipping software available across the globe that help ecommerce companies, and we’ll be taking a look at one of the most well-known. 

This Shiprocket Review has been carefully constructed using information collected from a variety of sources. These revered sources include (but are in no way limited to) top eCommerce companies, logistics experts from various industries and end-consumer opinions.

What is Shiprocket?

Shiprocket is a leading shipping aggregator that provides ecommerce companies access to and integration with multiple carriers. Founded in 2011, Shiprocket is operational across 220 countries and serves more than 29000 pin codes in its country of origin, India. Like most courier aggregators, it offers a wide range of logistics services, from first mile to last mile delivery along with add-ons like express delivery services and returns management. Shiprocket has played a major role in shipment tracking for a multitude of ecommerce companies of varying sizes, like Gillette, Relaxo and BodyCare.

A detailed review of Shiprocket's features

The best way to get an accurate review of Shiprocket is undoubtedly with the help of a comparative analysis. We’ve broken down the various features and functions offered by Shiprocket so we can deep dive into each parameter for comparison. 

Every service offered by Shiprocket comes with advantages and disadvantages, from the process of integration itself to the management of specific KPIs like Returns and Failed Deliveries. With that in mind, here’s a comparative Shiprocket review, complete with pros and cons. 

The rating provided is on a scale of 5

1) Multi-Carrier Integration (⭐⭐)

First and foremost, Shiprocket acts as a multi-carrier integration platform. This means it enables ecommerce businesses to integrate with a varied number of courier companies, as per each companies’ needs.

Pros

Using the ShipRocket API integration, ecommerce companies can manage their orders with these integrated shipping partners from a single dashboard. Monitoring orders can be done from this unified page, removing the need to toggle between carrier platforms to track orders.

The multi-carrier integration dashboard provided by Shiprocket displays the order number, assigned shipping partner and the status of the order. The onboarding process with Shiprocket is quick and easy, and it offers a user-friendly interface.

Cons

Shiprocket offers integrations only with selective carriers, approximately 20 or so. While this is effective for small to medium businesses (SMBs), all the larger enterprises out there require more options and access to niche/specialized shipping companies. 

Customer reviews of Shiprocket reveal that this limited choice of carrier can have a negative impact on overall delivery experience. Resolving issues also becomes tougher as Shiprocket handles all communications with carriers.

This is a major contrast from the system operated by shipping software like ClickPost and AfterShip, which offer integrations with hundreds of carriers and no communication barriers.

2) Order Tracking (⭐⭐)

When you take a closer look at it, you’ll find that order tracking is the real name of the game. This is the task that many ecommerce companies rely on Shiprocket to perform the most.

Using API integrations, aggregators like Shiprocket and shipping software pull information from carriers to send them to ecommerce companies and their customers.

Pros

The system provided by Shiprocket is a quick and simple one to use. You can use either the Order ID or the AWB to track orders from an easily accessible tracking portal on their website. This can also be done through your respective Shiprocket dashboard.

Real-time tracking statuses for order are also made visible on the dashboard, as is the case with most aggregators and shipping software. Email and SMS order tracking notifications are also sent to customers. 

Cons

At the end of the day, tracking updates are provided by carriers. Shiprocket uses Pull API integration to take these updates and send them to you. This means that in case of delays by the carrier in updating the status, Shiprocket has no mechanisms to retrieve said data. You are then left with no option but to inform Shiprocket and wait for them to manually contact the carrier.  

In case a carrier hasn’t updated the status, Shiprocket does not make use of Push API integration which is a major downside. These are used by shipping software like ClickPost and AfterShip to push carriers to pass on information in case there has been a delay. Push API integrations remove the need to manually intervene and ensure status updates occur in true real-time.

3) Cash-On-Delivery Services (⭐⭐⭐⭐)

Ecommerce companies in over 190 countries offer Cash-on-Delivery as a payment option for online orders. So naturally any good logistics aggregator should be able to provide COD services, and Shiprocket does. Shiprocket takes it a step further, offering focussed services around COD management. 

Pros

A major drawback of COD orders is that carriers are often slow to return the cash collected from customers to your business. Shiprocket offers an “Early COD” feature, which enables you to select an earlier date for COD remittance.

All of the plans that you can choose from this feature let you select how early you’d require remittance.  

Each of these available plans evaluates your volume of COD orders to determine viable time frames for COD remittance. With this feature in hand, you can receive specified amounts of remitted cash within 2 days of collection.

Cons

While early COD remittance is a great option to have, Shiprocket doesn’t provide the same options for all - hence the multiple plans. So your early COD remittance could take anywhere from 2 days to 9 days.

Shiprocket reviews have shown us that there are still frequent delays in COD remittance with certain carriers. 

Another important thing to keep in mind is that only a certain portion of the COD amount to be remitted will be eligible for Early Remittance. Depending on the volume of COD orders you send per month, even the slightest delays in this remittance could affect your cash cycle. 

4) Carrier Recommendation Engine (⭐⭐⭐)

When an order is placed by a customer on your platform, the first thing you need to do is select a carrier for it. But you can’t just be assigning orders to different carriers willy-nilly.

You may have certain criteria you wish the carrier to meet, like cost-effectiveness or speed of delivery. Shiprocket’s courier recommendation engine helps with just that.

Pros 

The major upside of Shiprocket’s courier recommendation engine is that as soon as an order is placed, the carrier recommendation engine snaps into action. It is an intelligent tool that uses 50 data points to categorize carriers based on speed and cost of delivery.

Another bonus of CORE, Shiprocket’s courier recommendation engine, is that it allows you to select carriers based on overall rating as well as their COD remittance speed. You can also select custom recommendation settings if you wish to only look at certain parameters.  

Cons 

As an aggregator, Shiprocket uses only a handful of key parameters to power it courier recommendation engine. So for larger companies that may want to select a carrier based on metrics besides cost, speed and rating, a more effective option would be shipping software as they tend to enable greater customization. 

In case you’re selecting from a wider range of courier partners, criteria such as RTO%, failed delivery handling and delayed delivery may be extremely important.

While these points may be included in the overall score of each carrier evaluated by Shiprocket, a shipping software like ClickPost would allow you to filter carriers using a greater variety of metrics. 

5) Shipping Rates (⭐⭐⭐⭐)

One crucial difference between courier aggregators like Shiprocket and shipping software is that the former are in charge of levying shipping rates. Shiprocket offers pre-negotiated shipping rates to ecommerce businesses in accordance with designated monthly plans.

Pros

Shiprocket enables ecommerce companies to skip out on the hassle of negotiating with carriers directly. Instead, Shiprocket handles the negotiations for you and you pay Shiprocket directly for the cost of shipping. These costs are enumerated in their various plans which come with a different range of features and options. 

The beauty of Shiprocket’s pre-determined shipping costs is that they are usually calculated at a discounted rate, something appreciated in numerous Shiprocket Reviews.

This is because Shiprocket selects specific courier partners to tie up with and maintains independent relationships with each of them. So as far as shipping rates are concerned, Shiprocket is the only party you will encounter any fees with.

Cons

For SMBs, avoiding the stressful (and not to mention time-consuming) negotiations that have to be conducted with carriers to decide on services and rates is definitely a bonus. However, ecommerce companies of scale may find this method of pricing to be determinedly inconvenient.

Furthermore, Shiprocket calculates prices based on shipment weight. So according to reviews of Shiprocket, weight discrepancies are a regular bone of contention for their ecommerce clients. 

Enterprise grade ecommerce businesses typically have massive enough order volumes on a monthly basis that they can use to leverage lower shipping rates directly from carriers.

During these negotiations, you would also be able to ensure you’re getting the best selection of services available for a lower price, to be denoted in your SLA (Service Level Agreement). 

6) Hyperlocal Delivery Services (⭐⭐⭐)

Numerous courier companies and logistics service providers offer hyperlocal delivery services, which focus on fast deliveries (under 60 minutes) within a specified geographical range.

Shiprocket offers integrations with multiple hyperlocal delivery partners through a specialized app that monitors hyperlocal delivery orders.

Pros

Shiprocket’s Hyperlocal Delivery App, SARAL, is a mobile app that enables ecommerce companies to create, manage and track deliveries within a 50 km area directly from a phone.

That in itself is a major boon given the demand for hyperlocal. This app also offers a pick and drop service courtesy of partnered hyperlocal delivery carriers. 

A few other bonuses that Shiprocket’s SARAL comes with are a multilingual interface, low shipping costs (thereby lowering delivery costs for your customers), and live order tracking for both you and your customers.

SARAL also lets you give customers multiple online payment options, like credit/debit card and wallets, as well as cash-on-delivery.

Cons

The first major disadvantage of SARAL is that it requires a separate app entirely to be operational. This app functions largely independently of your Shiprocket dashboard, once again forcing you to monitor orders from multiple places. Which, in this case, is the definition of redundancy. 

Another disadvantage, this one noted by users that left reviews of Shiprocket on the Google Play store, is that there is no way to communicate to customers when the backend of the app is down.

The end result of that is numerous people struggling to place orders when they need to or placing orders that go unfulfilled - once again defeating the purpose of the service itself. 

7) Failed Delivery/NDR Management (⭐⭐)

NDR Management signifies the process through which undelivered orders are handled. Shiprocket provides its ecommerce customers with a system for NDR management that can be tied in with their dashboard.

This service is provided with the sole purpose of reducing RTO numbers for ecommerce companies. 

Pros 

Shiprocket’s NDR management system is definitely miles ahead of the traditional NDR resolution mechanisms that were in place.

Where before it would take upto 24 hours to receive an NDR update informing you of a failed delivery, you can now receive the update on your dashboard as soon as the carrier makes it. 

Through this system, information on each NDR is also connected and customers are contacted via IVR and SMS regarding the same. Updates given by customers are then sent to carriers so fewer reattempts are needed to ensure the undelivered order is delivered.

Cons

One serious drawback of Shiprocket’s failed delivery management system is that real-time updates may be delayed. This is primarily due to the lack of Push API integrations prevalent in high-end shipping software.

Shiprocket's NDR management system is based on a protocol that was first pioneered and engineered by the shipping software, ClickPost. This protocol is rendered largely ineffective if there are delays in updating. 

Shiprocket’s NDR management services are also somewhat limited in terms of the NDR information collected as well as the scenarios in which customers are contacted.

Where shipping software like Shipway and ClickPost provide a wide variety of options for the same, Shiprocket only offers 2-3. Further, IVR communications with customers are only made available to you if you purchase the Advanced or Pro plans.

8) Exchanges and Returns (⭐⭐)

Almost all courier aggregators and shipping software provide a basic process for return of orders and ShipRocket is no exception. Shiprocket is tied up with a variety of carriers that provide reverse logistics services. These return orders can be placed and managed through your Shiprocket Dashboard.

Pros

Shiprocket offers a feature that allows you to reduce the amount of time taken to process return orders. Instead of placing return orders with the respective reverse logistics service providers, the same can be done via Shiprocket in just a few clicks. 

During this process, you can also use Shiprocket to print shipping labels for your return orders. In addition to this, Shiprocket also provides a customer support software which enables you to raise tickets in case of customer complaints for return orders. 

Cons

Shiprocket’s returns system does not provide any streamlined system for exchanges and only facilitates the process of returns.

Meanwhile, shipping software like Narvar and Shipstation enable you to automate the process of creating and tracking return orders.

Some, like ClickPost, even take it a step further by providing a backend for your returns portal to accept or reject return requests received automatically.

Another thing to note about Shiprocket’s returns mechanism is that it does not provide any services for returns exceptions. These are situations in which the return order is unable to be picked up from the customer, resulting in an NPR (Non-Pickup Report) from the carrier.

You would need a system of NPR management to ensure maximum return orders safely reach the origin warehouse.  

9) Analytics and Reporting (⭐⭐⭐⭐)

Analysis is the key to efficiency, at least when it comes to dealing with a complex structure like ecommerce supply chains. Providing analytics reports is therefore an essential part of any logistics service providers role, including shipping aggregators like Shiprocket. 

Pros

For ecommerce companies that request it, Shiprocket reviews your shipping data and provides regular analytics reports that provide a breakdown of various important aspects of shipping.

These reports essentially collate all of your base shipping data into graphs and charts for easy reference, so that you don’t have to. 

Shiprocket’s analytics reports cover a fairly wide range of major metrics. This starts with order analyses, which looks into monthly shipment and revenue numbers, the most popular delivery locations and weigh COD orders against prepaid ones. They dive further into processing and shipping times as well as NDR-related information. 

Cons

Shiprocket does a great job of collecting and charting out your shipping information over designated periods, but it offers a limited purview of analysable metrics. For example, major metrics like causes for delayed deliveries and stuck shipments are not included. NDR management information provided also excludes data on Fake Deliveries. 

Further reviews of Shiprocket and it’s analytics reports show that they provide information to reduce costs and improve operational efficiency for shipping.

However, an important facet of shipping operations is also post-purchase customer experience, for which few insights are provided. 

10) Customer Support (⭐⭐)

Customer support is probably one of the most vital services any company can provide. Tech support is even more important for SaaS logistics service providers like Shiprocket.

Accordingly, the customer tech support provided to ecommerce companies by this courier aggregator is definitely something to scrutinize.

Pros

The good news is that Shiprocket has a fairly robust social media presence, so they are quite regular in checking customer complaints tagged to them on various social media platforms. In addition to this, Shiprocket’s customer support team can also be reached via calls, emails and live chat on their website. 

Cons

Despite having a multitude of different communications channels for reaching out to the requisite teams, Shiprocket’s customer support is not known for its responsiveness. Numerous Shiprocket reviews from ecommerce company representatives indicate the aggregator’s customer support is on the weaker end of the scale. 

Review of Shiprocket's Plans

Now that you have a gist of what is revealed in reviews of Shiprocket along with information on its many features, both the good and the bad sides of them, it’s time to take a look at the price.

Weighing the cost of using Shiprocket against the services they provide and the eventual potential impact on your business is a great way to determine what your needs are.

Since Shiprocket caters to SMBs of varying sizes, this courier aggregator provides multiple payment plans which entitle you to a different range of services in accordance with the per-shipment monthly fee levied. Let’s take a closer look at Shiprocket’s Payment Plans. 

1) Shiprocket Lite Plan

The Lite plan is for ecommerce companies shipping upto 60 orders a month. It is available as a mobile app and has a starting shipping price of Rs.26/500gms.

It gives you access to all carrier integrations and surface logistics partners, as well as bulk order processing. Multi-piece shipping and multi-address pickups are also part of this package along with support services.

However, this plan comes with only 1 user account, 1 channel integration and no setup training or assistance. 

2) Shiprocket Professional Basic Plan

The Basic plan is 1 of 3 Professional plans offered by Shiprocket, starting at Rs.25/500 gms, and is for ecommerce businesses that ship upto 100 orders a month.

This plan has many of the same features and services as the Lite plan. This includes carrier integrations, bulk order creation, pickup from multiple addresses and customer support services.

The only major difference between these two plans is that this plan, the Basic, gives you access to 10 user accounts, returns management, and any 2 channel integrations.

3) Shiprocket Professional Advanced Plan

The Advanced plan is the 2nd out of the available Shiprocket Professional plans. It caters to businesses that send upto 300 shipments monthly, with rates beginning at Rs.23/500 gms.

In addition to all of the services offered in the basic plan, this plan also gives you access to API, all the sales channel integrations and international shipping as well.

Another major bonus of this plan is that it comes with setup assistance and platform-usage training. This ensures that there are no hiccups during the process of onboarding and installation. 

4) Shiprocket Professional Pro Plan

The Pro Plan is the 3rd and final Professional plan available with Shiprocket, and as the name suggests, it’s for the Pros. Any online businesses that send upto 1000 shipments every month can make use of this plan and shipping costs start at Rs.20/500gms.

This plan comes with all the same features in the Advanced plan, which also include NDR IVR calling, and auto-syncing of orders across multiple channels.

The main difference between these two plans (other than the price and orders shipped) is that the Advanced plan has a catalog management capacity for 10000 orders, while the Pro plan has it for 25000 orders.     

Final Reviews of Shiprocket

The truth is going through various customer reviews of Shiprocket can be such a tedious task and often still not help you get the information you need. While they may give you some insight into the services of this aggregator, they account for individual experiences.

The goal of this article has been to give you a clearer understanding of data compiled from Shiprocket reviews. Looking at the big picture, here’s what one can conclude:

Shiprocket provides a wide range of courier aggregation services that are absolutely vital to eCommerce businesses trying to expand their shipping operations.

Looking at the positives, Shiprocket gives you a chance to integrate quickly with multiple carriers, manage, track your orders with them, and even handle NDRs. This is something a lot of AfterShip users lack and therefore shift to AfterShip Competitors and Alternatives like ClickPost & Shiprocket for better NDR resolution.

However, on the other side of the coin is the limited functionality offered by many of Shiprocket's services, especially for larger ecommerce enterprises. 

A seen by the manner in which the Pricing Plans for Shiprocket have been broken down, there is only scope for management of upto 1000 orders per month.

So for companies with more than 1000 orders and even upwards of 10000 orders monthly, a shipping software would provide a greater level of serviceability and actionable improvements when compared to Shiprocket and other shipping aggregators. 

FAQs

1) Who should typically use Shiprocket?

Shiprocket is best suited for SMBs and Ecommerce companies shipping under 3000 orders per month. For larger companies with more than 3000 orders, a more advanced shipping software is needed.

2) What are Shiprocket's Best and Worst Features?