How Rithum’s delivery solutions helps retailers save 10% on shipping costs—with no added headcount 

Retail is under pressure from every angle. Rising shipping costs are squeezing already tight margins, while consumer expectations for fast, reliable delivery continue to climb. And surcharges up to 26% push real costs above 10% for many shippers. 

Ecommerce retailers face even tougher challenges. Online return rates reached 24.5% this year, compared to just 8.71% for in-store purchases, according to the latest data from Capital One Shopping. This results in higher fulfillment costs and added strain on operations, challenging retailers to maintain speed and accuracy. 

For retailers operating dropship and private marketplace models, these challenges are multiplied. Managing hundreds of suppliers, each with different shipping capabilities and performance standards, while maintaining consistent customer experience, becomes an overwhelming task that traditionally requires a lot of manual work. 

Rithum’s Delivery Solutions are a comprehensive suite of automated tools. These tools are designed to help retailers of every size and shape cut shipping costs, improve delivery performance, and manage suppliers more effectively without the added headcount. Here’s how it works. 

Shipping Optimization: automated savings without the manual work 

Shipping Optimization is at the heart of Rithum’s Delivery Solutions. Rithum uses an intelligent system that automatically selects the best shipping method and origin for every order based on real-time data. Rather than guesswork, the system is powered by comprehensive data including supplier warehouse locations, current inventory levels, product specifications, and dynamic carrier rates. 

Retailers using Shipping Optimization can save 10 to 20% on their annual third-party shipping costs, especially for multicarrier strategies. This automation runs within Rithum’s dropship network, requiring zero IT integration while delivering substantial cost reductions.  

For one multi-brand home goods retailer managing dozens of suppliers across furniture, decor, and kitchen categories, that meant serious savings. With millions in annual shipping spend, a 10% reduction translates to seven-figure savings annually. That’s money that flows directly to the bottom line while the system operates autonomously in the background. 

While the underlying technology analyzes thousands of variables as they happen, your team experiences it as orders being routed more efficiently, costs dropping, and performance improving without any manual intervention. 

Delivery Promise: faster estimates that drive conversions 

Nothing kills a sale faster than uncertain or lengthy delivery timelines. Rithum’s Delivery Promise tackles this challenge directly by providing accurate delivery dates using sophisticated machine learning models that factor in supplier performance history, weather patterns, current order backlogs, and warehouse fill rates. 

Delivery Promise can improve metrics dramatically. Results depend on your starting point, goals, and implementation approach. We’ve achieved 95%+ early and on-time delivery accuracy with optimized promise dates and measured up to 18% conversion lift for each day removed from Delivery Promise. 

According to industry data from the Baynard Institute, 47% of shoppers abandon carts due to shipping costs. The connection to delivery promises is clear: show accurate, optimized delivery dates upfront with total costs, and you remove the uncertainty that kills conversions. 

Our machine learning models are continuously improving, learning from actual delivery performance to refine future predictions. This creates a virtuous cycle where delivery promises become more accurate over time, further improving customer confidence and conversion rates.  

Ensuring supplier compliance with End-to-End (E2E) Monitoring  

Managing supplier performance across a diverse network has traditionally required armies of analysts to constantly monitor shipment data, chase down exceptions, and manually create reports. E2E monitoring transforms this labor-intensive process into an automated oversight system, saving retailer time and resources. 

Real-time monitoring tracks every aspect of supplier shipping performance, automatically generating reports that provide visibility and accountability across your entire network. This systematic approach enables retailers to achieve 97% or higher SLA compliance across their supplier networks. That’s a level of performance that would be nearly impossible to maintain through manual processes alone. 

The downstream benefits extend far beyond internal operations. Improved supplier compliance directly reduces “Where Is My Order” (WISMO) customer service inquiries, minimizes negative reviews related to shipping delays, and prevents the last-minute scrambling that occurs when shipments go awry. 

With consistent performance standards across all suppliers, retailers can confidently make delivery promises to customers while knowing their supplier network will deliver on those commitments. Rithum documents how shipment and delivery insights expose exceptions early so teams can act before promises are missed. 

Released Q3 2025: Shipping Address Validation 

Rithum continues to develop Delivery Solutions to ease the fulfillment process and cut costs. Shipping address validation released Q3 2025. This feature helps prevent costly last-mile delivery errors. It verifies delivery addresses and classifying them as residential or commercial before shipment. The validation will reduce failed deliveries and the expensive redelivery attempts that follow, leading to significant savings for retailers. 

Address validation represents another layer of automated intelligence that further reduces costs and improves customer experience without requiring additional operational resources. 

Built for dropship and private marketplace complexity 

Traditional fulfillment models, while challenging, operate within relatively controlled environments. Dropship and private marketplace fulfillment introduces exponentially more complexity: hundreds of suppliers with varying capabilities, different shipping standards, multiple inventory systems, and fragmented communication channels. 

Rithum’s Delivery Solutions was purpose-built to handle this complexity. The platform connects disparate systems and automates manual decisions that would otherwise require constant human oversight. That provides retailers with comprehensive visibility across fragmented supplier networks, allowing them to make informed decisions.  

This approach transforms what has historically been a series of manual, error-prone processes into an automated system that scales as your supplier network grows. 

Bring delivery under control with Rithum 

Shipping Optimization, Delivery Promise, and End-to-End Monitoring work together to tackle three daily problems: rising parcel costs, higher shopper expectations, and complex third-party operations. 

Use them to lower shipping spend, give customers clear delivery dates, and keep suppliers on time, all without adding headcount. 

Package Predictor, powered by RithumIQ, automatically predicts package weights and dimensions based on real-world shipping behaviors. For retailers using Shipping Optimization, predictions flow into the label printing process to reduce manual guessing and avoid costly mis-selections. Accuracy stats are forthcoming once broader rollout data is in. 

Ready to see what 10-20% shipping savings looks like for your specific operation? We’ll analyze your historical shipping data—at no cost—to show exactly where dropship rate shopping could impact your bottom line. Contact us for your personalized savings analysis based on your actual shipping patterns and supplier network. 

Connect with Rithum to see what this looks like for your business. Get the tools and intelligence needed to succeed in today’s retail environment. 

Kyle Knoblock is Staff Product Manager, Retailers at Rithum.