78% of Retailers Ship Freight but Manage it Separately from Parcel

A comprehensive analysis of U.S. retail merchants by ShipStation reveals a critical structural gap in shipping operations: while 78% of retailers now handle less-than-truckload (LTL) freight shipments, the vast majority manage this through separate, unintegrated platforms and manual workflows compared to their optimized parcel operations. This disconnect creates substantial inefficiencies, with 58% of freight-shipping merchants using third-party providers completely disconnected from their parcel platforms, resulting in separate quoting systems, carrier portals, manual tracking, and invoice reconciliation. The operational and financial consequences are significant.

Shipping and fulfillment costs consume over 10% of total revenue for 67% of merchants, with 75% reporting increased costs in the past year. Shipping and freight rate limitations are cited by 62% of merchants as the primary constraint on growth, nearly double the impact of warehouse space limitations. During peak season, when 70% of merchants generate over 25% of annual revenue in a single quarter, these fragmented workflows become acute bottlenecks that teams lack time and visibility to manage effectively.

Merchants recognize the value of integration: 74% report that consolidating freight, parcel, and warehousing on a single platform would be important or very important to their operations. This represents both a significant operational challenge and a clear market opportunity for technology providers and logistics partners capable of delivering unified visibility and automation across both shipping modalities.