Attempting to avoid a split shipment for multi-SKU orders has become a white whale for many ecommerce shippers — and with good reason. Splitting too many multi-SKU shipments can have one of the most significant negative impacts on your business's margins.
Let’s explore the top strategies to minimize single orders becoming multi-piece shipments upstream in your ecommerce supply chain and ways to manage costs downstream if splitting an order is unavoidable.
Shipping splits normally result from a breakdown across multiple supply chain layers, often where upstream data quality, system interoperability, and fulfillment logic are misaligned.
Legacy shipping technology typically operates in silos, making it difficult to coordinate inventory availability, order routing, and packaging decisions in real time. Without dynamic optimization and centralized visibility, fulfillment teams are left reacting to constraints instead of proactively preventing inefficiencies.
From a leadership perspective, the persistence of split shipments signals deeper problems — either inaccurate or incomplete SKU data, poorly distributed inventory, outdated order management system (OMS) logic, or inflexible carrier rulesets. Even seemingly small issues, such as missing item dimensions or incomplete location cutoffs, can force a downstream split.
We laid out the most common causes of split delivery issues:
| Causes of split delivery | Stage of the fulfillment process | Impact on businesses |
| Inventory misallocation or siloed inventory systems | Upstream (pre-fulfillment) | Orders are forced to pull from multiple DCs or nodes, raising costs |
| Poor demand forecasting | Upstream (pre-fulfillment) | Stockouts at primary fulfillment locations |
| Lack of dynamic sourcing logic | Upstream (pre-fulfillment) | Fulfillment defaults to fixed node logic instead of real-time decisions |
| No SKU bundling logic (e.g., mop and bucket ship separately) | Order management | Missed opportunity to ship like items together |
| No consolidation window or threshold configuration | Order management | Even same-node items ship separately due to timing mismatches |
| Capacity limits at DCs (e.g., daily pick/pack thresholds exceeded) | Fulfillment / Warehouse | Overflow orders rerouted to other DCs |
| Lack of cartonization intelligence or automation | Fulfillment / Warehouse | Warehouse defaults to shipping items in separate parcels |
| Carrier or service method constraints (e.g., HAZMAT, PO boxes, weight) | Carrier / Last mile | Systems split orders to comply with regulations or cost thresholds |
Operators focus intently on ecommerce split shipments because of their effect on bottom lines. Consistently separating multi-product orders into individual packages sent from different — or even the same — fulfillment centers leads to:
While you can take steps throughout the logistics workflow to ensure minimal shipment splits, a more practical approach is to implement measures that limit their likelihood before your customers even finalize their purchase decision.
Here are three effective strategies to consider when trying to avoid a split order shipment:
When implemented correctly, inventory mirroring is one of the more effective ways to avoid shipment splits. It is the strategic practice of distributing your inventory equally across multiple fulfillment centers (FCs). For example, if you stock 100 units of a product, you might distribute 25 units each to four different FCs nationwide.
Mirroring ensures that your products ship from the hub closest to your customers. However, depending on the product range, complete catalog mirroring can increase warehousing and inventory costs.
To effectively balance the reduction of possible shipping splits and warehouse expenses, your strategy should include:
Proactively forecasting demand based on a mix of historical and geographically relevant elements is a strategy that has helped ecommerce leaders like Amazon reduce and manage instances of multi-piece orders. Using a pull-based approach, build an understanding of where your customers are and what they are purchasing so you can work backward, placing items closest to where they are most likely to end up.
For example, assume your inventory includes winter jackets and scarves. Your data will probably show customers located in the coldest states in the country are more likely to purchase these products. That means placing a higher concentration of your inventory in the Minnesota FC vs. your Miami FC minimizes the likelihood of orders being shipped separately and reduces time in transit.
Key elements of this strategy are:
Learn how a closed-loop parcel fulfillment process can help you reduce costs and improve shipping performance.
Consistent, centralized visibility into your inventory levels across all your FCs can facilitate better transparency in the pre-purchase stage of your customer journey, allowing you to minimize split shipments or lessen their effect on your profits.
This consumer transparency can include:
In addition to cost savings for your business, giving customers more control over their purchases enhances their overall delivery experience. According to research by SMG, 90% of satisfied customers are highly likely to repeat purchases and recommend your business.
From inventory constraints and backorders to carrier restrictions and seasonal volumes, there are a multitude of reasons why you may not be able to avoid separating a customer’s order into multiple shipments. However, there are steps you can take to manage those costs when split shipments occur.
Consolidation leverages your transportation network to combine split orders at intermediate points before final delivery. This strategy is particularly effective when regular inter-warehouse transfers, such as nightly trucks between fulfillment centers, allow you to combine order components without significantly impacting delivery timelines.
Just pay attention to:
While shipping splits are difficult for operators to avoid altogether, you can control costs by continually improving logistics processes.
Focus on:
Using a tech partner like Shipium can simplify modernizing and optimizing your current processes. Integrating your existing ERP, OMS, WMS, and TMS systems, our Fulfillment Engine helps intelligently route your shipments, speeding up delivery times, boosting accuracy, and reducing costs by at least 12%.
Adopting the right shipping technology can impact your ability to make the rapid, nuanced decisions necessary to manage every split shipment effectively. The key is implementing solutions that can balance speed, cost, and customer promises in real time.
When selecting ecommerce shipping software, evaluate its ability to:
The Shipium platform empowers ecommerce businesses to consolidate shipments intelligently, reducing instances of split shipment and ensuring the lowest parcel spend for every order fulfilled. Our end-to-end shipping platform selects the best carriers and the right FC, applying real-time decision-making that helps our customers reduce their shipping spend by 10% on average.
Book a demo today and learn how to manage split shipments more effectively with Shipium.
A split shipment occurs when a single multi-product order requires multiple packages to fulfill. Splits typically happen when inventory is available from different FCs or the complete order can't be accommodated in a single box, resulting in customers receiving their purchase in several deliveries.
While often used interchangeably, partial shipments and split shipments have distinct operational causes and implications, especially when evaluating supply chain cost structures and delivery efficiency.
A partial shipment refers to a single order that is shipped in phases and is typically planned and communicated to customers in advance.
In contrast, a split shipment occurs when an order is divided and fulfilled from multiple warehouses or locations, often due to poor inventory orchestration, inaccurate data, or rigid fulfillment logic. In many cases, the full order is in stock across the network, but misalignment in routing decisions leads to multiple shipments.
Ecommerce operators sometimes resort to shipment splits to accelerate order fulfillment. Shipping in-stock items immediately from various warehouses aims to get at least part of the order to the customer quickly rather than waiting to consolidate all items into a single package.
Split shipments should be used sparingly and only when required to meet customer expectations or comply with shipping regulations. Examples include situations where items are subject to HAZMAT restrictions or one item is on backorder. Even then, advanced fulfillment systems should first explore whether alternative routing or dynamic sourcing could avoid the split. See the decision framework:
| Scenario | Consolidate shipments? | Split shipments? |
| Items available at the same node, with shared cutoff | Yes. This strategy reduces cost and ensures timely, complete delivery | No. Avoid splitting when consolidation is possible |
| The customer requested standard or flexible delivery | Yes. Consolidation aligns with customer expectations | No. Maintain a single shipment for a better customer experience |
| HAZMAT or oversized items in the cart | No. May be unsafe or noncompliant to co-pack | Yes. Split if mandated by the carrier or regulatory rules |
| One item is backordered or on preorder | No. Consolidation might delay the entire order | Yes. Ship separately the available items if partial delivery is acceptable |
You should avoid splitting shipments because multiple packages for a single order may cause customer confusion and frustration, potentially increasing your volume of customer service inquiries, such as “Where is my order?” (WISMO). Each package also adds handling and shipping fees, impacting your bottom line and eroding profit margins.