Everyone should be able to afford a good life.
We all know someone who works hard and still can't get ahead.
A grandparent choosing between the pharmacy and the grocery store. Parents doing everything right and still stretching for school clothes in August. Part of what they pay, in every bag and box, is waste.
Most of shipping cost is waste.
Everything a family buys was shipped, and most of what shipping costs is waste1: empty trucks, markups between companies, trucks waiting at docks, half-full loads, paperwork by hand. It's baked into the price of groceries, medicine and clothes, a hidden tax on the people who can least afford it.
- 15¢ Empty miles
- 15¢ Markups between companies
- 8¢ Half-full loads
- 7¢ Paperwork
- 6¢ Excess inventory
- 5¢ Waiting at docks
- 4¢ Port charges
- 4¢ Bad routing
- 3¢ Customs delays
- 3¢ Damage and spoilage
Some waste will always remain. The second bar shrinks each kind by the same share to show the idea.
Eliminate waste from logistics.
A supply chain that gets the best products to every family at a fair price, and gives the best businesses, not just the biggest, a fair shot at reaching the world.
ShipStar, PBC is a public benefit corporation. The mission is in our charter and we report on it.
More underdogs, less waste.
Markups between companies are the second-biggest piece of waste, and they grow when there are fewer companies to choose from.
Small shippers and independent carriers, brokers and warehouses keep prices honest. They're also the first to get squeezed: they pay more to ship and lose hours to paperwork the giants have automated.
So we give them the giants' tools for free, and send every shipper the best price, whoever provides it.
How we count it
1. Our estimate combines published figures (ATRI empty-mile rates and detention study, broker-margin benchmarks, supply-chain waste studies) with operating experience. It is a working estimate, not an audit; we'll replace it with measured data from shipments on ShipStar.