Cabot Creamery, a farmer-owned dairy cooperative, is committed to quality in every aspect of its business – including parcel shipping. From curated cheese gift boxes and apparel to cheese accessories, and Vermont specialty products, Cabot offers a variety of dairy products on its Shopify-powered website. Beyond direct-to-consumer sales, the cooperative ships cheese nationwide to support strategic sales and marketing initiatives. 

Managing time-sensitive, temperature-controlled shipments while maintaining cost efficiency presents a unique challenge. To meet these demands, Cabot Creamery has developed a flexible and responsive shipping strategy designed to ensure on-time deliveries while optimizing costs. Here’s a closer look at how the cooperative navigates the complexities of parcel shipping. 

Due to the mix of perishable and non-perishable goods available on Cabot Creamery’s ecommerce site, the retailer needs a way to quickly choose the most cost-effective shipping service for each order while meeting time and temperature requirements. 

Cabot Creamery’s small but mighty warehouse team ships thousands of pounds of cheese each month. In addition to the cheese, gift boxes, branded apparel, and other orders from the ecommerce website are shipped too. “Imagine 2,000+ pounds of cheese, separated into multiple shipments and packed in individual cooler boxes with ice, going out in a single day,” explains Kim Abbot, Corporate Fulfillment Coordinator. 

The dairy cooperative leverages Descartes XPS Ship multicarrier parcel shipping software to speed up operations and lower shipping costs. 

To overcome the challenge of diverse shipping requirements and reduce costs, Cabot Creamery uses discount shipping rates, rate shopping, and custom business rules for shipping automation. “With Descartes XPS Ship, we’ve cut costs by taking advantage of the more cost-effective USPS for shipping small parcels, such as t-shirts and other branded merchandise, while using FedEx to send time- and temperature-sensitive cheese orders that require next-day delivery,” said Abbot. 

With multiple carrier options in one shipping platform, the Cabot Creamery team can easily compare rates and print shipping labels for USPS and FedEx. Business automation rules perform tasks such as shipping service and package type selection, tagging, and billing shipments to the correct department. This reduces manual labor and related costs. 

Cabot Creamery runs a tight, efficient operation without friction in the warehouse. New orders seamlessly flow into the shipping solution via the Shopify shipping integration, and shortcuts such as bulk CSV-format address uploads and prebuilt box options simplify the shipping workflow. Shipping labels print automatically to prevent bottlenecks at the shipping station. 

Because the shipping software is so easy to use, training new employees is a quick process. Cabot Creamery can quickly scale shipping operations to keep up with order volume and ensure on-time delivery, even during unusually busy seasons. The increased efficiency and productivity result in reduced labor costs, fewer mistakes, and happier warehouse workers for less turnover. 

Tools for success: Discounted rates, Shopify shipping integration, Shipping automation, Real-time tracking, live customer support 

“The entire fulfillment process is faster, more efficient, and cost-effective, thanks to Descartes. Shopify orders flow seamlessly into the platform, labels print automatically, and tracking numbers sync back to Shopify as soon as orders ship. We appreciate the ability to customize the platform to fit our needs, from shipping box options to billing numbers that allocate shipping costs to the correct department. It’s effortless!

Kim Abbot, Corporate Fulfillment Coordinator, Cabot Creamery

• Overpaying for shipping – With discounted rates, rate shopping, and the ability to choose low-cost USPS labels for non-food shipments, Cabot Creamery prevents unnecessarily high costs.  

• Excessive labor costs – By eliminating time-consuming, manual shipping workflows, the Cabot team is more efficient, experiences fewer mistakes, and does more work with fewer people. 

• Late deliveries – Cabot Creamery easily scales shipping operations to keep up with order volumes, and they choose the appropriate service to ensure on-time delivery for each shipment. 

You shouldn’t have to deal with unnecessarily high shipping costs, especially while trying to grow your business. If these shipping challenges sound all too familiar, we hope you will borrow a page out of Cabot Creamery’s playbook. It’s time to let technology reduce your shipping costs. 

Want to try the tools to achieve your own success? Descartes XPS Ship is always free for one user, with up to 50 shipments per month. Need more users or shipments? Try it free for 15 days.