FedEx and Adobe Partner to Streamline E-Commerce Logistics

Need to Know

• Adobe Commerce merchants will be able to integrate their storefronts with FedEx ShopRunner, allowing merchants to offer benefits such as free two-day shipping.
• Merchants will also be able to access FedEx logistics data, which will help them decide when to ship orders and how to ensure packages arrive on time in the most economic way possible.
• More than 100 merchants currently use the FedEx ShopRunner e-commerce service, including Hudson’s Bay and Under Armour; Adobe Commerce merchants include Coca-Cola and Unilever.

Analysis

Adobe has signed a partnership with FedEx offering its Adobe Commerce merchants the ability to provide two-day delivery, in a move that will help both companies better compete with e-comm giants including Amazon and Walmart.

Adobe Commerce, which is the company’s online marketplace, will now provide its merchants with the ability to integrate with FedEx ShopRunner, the shipping company’s e-comm platform. In doing so, merchants will be able to offer customers free two-day shipping, in addition to other benefits such as easy returns and a seamless checkout process.

In turn, Adobe Commerce merchants will be provided with post-purchase logistics data and customer insights from FedEx, which will help them better optimize their shipping and selling processes.

“The opportunity to partner with Adobe is another step forward in the FedEx journey to create an open, collaborative e-commerce ecosystem that will help brands and merchants deliver seamless experiences for their customers,” Raj Subramaniam, president and COO at FedEx, said in a statement. “With Adobe’s leadership in customer experiences, the ShopRunner platform and our digital and logistics intelligence, we can increase the competitiveness of brands and merchants and create new possibilities in e-commerce.”

ShopRunner, which FedEx acquired in December of last year, currently hosts more than 100 merchants, including Hudson’s Bay Co. and Under Armour. According to Peter Sheldon, senior director of commerce strategy at Adobe, the new partnership will grant Adobe Commerce merchants access to “millions” of existing ShopRunner members by integrating the FedEx tool into their storefronts. The data provided by FedEx, meanwhile, will allow merchants to become more economical.

“There may be some orders that, because of where the shipping location is, we can happily ship by ground and still meet the two-day promise and so those are ones that are perhaps a lower priority for picking,” Sheldon added. “And there may be other orders that we have to pick immediately and get out of the door in the next 30 minutes because if we don’t, then the only way to meet the two-day promise is to ship by air.”

FedEx launched a number of new programs and tools in 2020, as the shipping company worked to meet a spike in e-comm brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. In September, the company launched real-time tracking with SenseAware ID, a lightweight device on FedEx shipments that can transmit location data every two seconds. A month later, FedEx partnered with Happy Returns to launch contactless, QR code-powered returns for online purchases.