Enterprise Shippers Struggle with Rapid Carrier Pricing and Service Changes

Reveel™, provider of the leading Shipping Intelligence™ Platform, today released "The State of Enterprise Shipping 2026," its annual industry research report. This year's edition reveals that while enterprise shippers have significantly modernized their technology infrastructure, many continue to operate with processes built for a slower, more predictable shipping environment.

The third-party research surveyed logistics, supply chain, finance, procurement, and IT leaders across six major industries to examine how enterprise organizations are managing shipping operations. As carriers continuously adjust pricing, surcharges, and service strategies, the research finds that organizations are struggling to match the pace of today's rapidly changing parcel market.

"The shipping industry has fundamentally changed in the face of carriers' increased use of accessorial charges that are introduced with little or no warning," said Jack McCrum, director of optimization and analytics at Reveel. "Technology investments are happening, but our research shows that shippers' operating models simply haven't kept pace. Organizations are still making shipping decisions on quarterly or yearly cycles, while carriers adjust pricing, rules, and coverage area strategies continuously. In order to manage these constant adjustments, companies need the ability to turn an abundance of shipping data into timely, actionable decisions."

This year's report paints a picture of an industry in transition. As predicted in last year's report ("91% expected to expand the number of carriers they utilized"), carrier diversification has become the norm, as organizations seek greater resilience and pricing leverage and carriers demonstrate an unprecedented willingness to walk away from business. In fact, this year's report found that more than half of shippers (56%) are currently managing 3 or more carriers - and 22% manage six or more.

This shift in strategy, however, has also introduced new operational complexity for shippers. Shipping has evolved from a back-office transportation function into a strategic business discipline that directly influences margins, customer experience, and enterprise performance. Despite that, and the impact that shipping performance and costs have on bottom and top-line results, 92% of finance teams do not have real-time access to shipping expenses.

The report's key findings include:

• Carrier Diversification: 56% of enterprise shippers now manage three or more parcel carriers, while nearly one in four manage six or more, reflecting a continued shift toward diversified carrier strategies.
• Review Cadence: While every shipper is subject to today's frequent, year-round carrier rate and surcharge changes, 41% still review those changes only periodically or rarely.
• Price Anchoring: Drilling down further, only 13% benchmark carrier rates outside the annual General Rate Increase (GRI) and contracting cycle.
• Real-Time Data Access: 92% of finance teams lack real-time access to shipping cost data, limiting their ability to proactively manage transportation spend.
• Automation: 75% have standardized or automated carrier selection to help match the right package with the right service, but just 10% leverage dynamic, real-time optimization that adapts to changing market conditions.
• Cross-Functional Ownership: Three out of four organizations lack a cross-functional approach to shipping spend governance, despite shipping's growing impact on financial performance, customer satisfaction, and operational imperatives, such as the optimization of distribution networks.
• Shifting Prioritization: When asked what would create the greatest long-term value, shippers prioritized better execution over new capabilities. Faster issue identification (52%) and greater cost predictability (50%) ranked higher than delivery performance improvements, signaling a shift from reacting to operational outcomes toward gaining greater control over the decisions driving them.

Rather than identifying a technology gap, the findings highlight an execution gap among most shippers. While most organizations have invested in analytics platforms, automation, and multi-carrier capabilities, many (41%) continue to rely on periodic reviews, historical reporting, and manual intervention to manage shipping decisions in a market that changes daily.

Another interesting finding is that a majority of shippers do not have regular insight into carrier performance. Some 86% of shippers make decisions without details about actual conditions. As a result of this passive, retroactive approach, most carrier service issues and exceptions are only considered long after they occur. And only 10% of shippers have the processes and tools in place to automatically recover credits when carriers fail to meet their own service-level guarantees. Notably, Reveel has found that three out of four organizations typically fail to secure credits before they expire.

"The challenge facing enterprise shippers today isn't a lack of capability, it's a mismatch between the speed of the market and the cadence of decision-making," added McCrum. "As shipping becomes more dynamic, it cannot be stated strongly enough how important it is to continuously monitor network conditions, understand shipping economics at the package level, and act before cost increases impact the business, instead of after."

Shipping Intelligence Maturity Assessment The report also includes a "Shipping Intelligence Maturity Assessment," built from the industry insights examined in this year's report. The assessment evaluates enterprise shipping maturity across four critical dimensions: Technology and Integration, Decisioning Intelligence, Contract and Billing Integrity, and Network and Spend Visibility.

Reviewing your processes across these four key areas will provide organizations with a benchmark to assess the effectiveness of their shipping operations and identify opportunities for improved cost control, operational agility, and decision-making.

The report offers a brief, two-minute maturity assessment benchmarked against the leading shippers surveyed for this research, allowing you to identify your current stage and actionable next steps.

About The State of Enterprise Shipping 2026 Report The State of Enterprise Shipping 2026 report was conducted independently by Incisiv and sponsored by Reveel. The study surveyed 240 logistics, supply chain, finance, procurement, and IT leaders across retail, apparel and footwear, life sciences, automotive, manufacturing, and third-party logistics organizations, with the goal of examining enterprise shipping trends amid increasing operational and market complexity, cost pressures, and heightened customer expectations.