Best Retail Delivery Management Software for Enterprise Retailers

TL;DR

• This guide compares 6 retail delivery management software platforms: Shipsy, Descartes, Bringg, Shippit, DispatchTrack and Locus.
• Shippit and Bringg lead on store-based fulfilment and carrier allocation. Harvey Norman, Petbarn and Coles are named customers.
• Descartes and DispatchTrack are strongest at route planning and appointment-based delivery, including big and bulky orders.
• Shipsy combines route optimisation, own-fleet dispatch and carrier orchestration. It has a case study from an Australian courier network.
• Check store stock links, driver-hours rules and peak capacity before you shortlist any platform.

Australians spent a record $82.6 billion online in 2025, up 14%. About 9.8 million households shopped online, says Australia Post’s 2026 report. For an enterprise retailer, that volume never arrives as one neat flow. Orders leave from stores, depots and warehouses. They travel by own vans and several carriers, and reach customers from Sydney to regional Western Australia.

Retail delivery management software, sometimes sold as delivery logistics software, gives one team a single view of all of it. It decides which site fulfils each order, plans routes for your fleet and hands the rest to carriers. It also tells customers where their order is.

This guide compares 6 retail delivery management software platforms that Australian enterprise retailers use or can buy. It starts with a side-by-side table, explains how we chose them and then profiles each one. Every vendor figure is labelled.

Popular Retail Delivery Platforms

These 6 retail delivery management software platforms cover the main jobs in enterprise retail delivery. Those jobs run from choosing the fulfilling store to planning routes and handing orders to carriers. The table below shows where each is strongest.

How Did We Select These Platforms?

We shortlisted retail delivery management software only where public evidence shows it handles large retail networks, not single-depot fleets. Sources were vendor pages, customer announcements, review sites and press coverage. Every vendor figure is labelled. Five tests decided the final 6:

• Network scale: It copes with many stores, depots and thousands of daily drops
• Store-led fulfilment: It can pick the fulfilling site and handle click-and-collect
• Route planning depth: It plans routes around time windows, vehicle capacity and driver rules
• Carrier mix: It can hand orders to carriers and gig drivers as well as own vans
• Australian evidence: There is a named Australian customer, a local team or a published local result

Tools aimed at small fleets and carrier networks themselves were left out. For a wider comparison across industries, see our guide to delivery management software.

Top Retail Delivery Management Platforms

The profiles follow the table order. Each profile covers what the retail delivery management software does for large networks. It also shows its strongest use and what to check before you commit.

1. Shipsy: route optimisation and orchestration

Shipsy’s route optimisation software builds delivery zones from past demand and driver capacity. It then sequences multi-stop routes against delivery windows, vehicle capacity and driver skills. Routes re-optimise when traffic, cancellations or new orders change the plan. The company says customers commonly see 20%+ less distance driven and 15% more stops per route.

Retail is a named focus. Shipsy describes retailers that replenish hundreds of stores and fulfil home delivery from one fleet. Its omni-channel retail page covers store replenishment, click-and-collect and PUDO on one platform.

In Australia, an ANC case study reports a 10-15% driver productivity lift and about 35% fewer failed deliveries. Driver fatigue plans sit inside the driver app. ANC is a courier network, so treat it as proof of local operations, not of retail results.

• Strongest at: Route planning, own-fleet dispatch and carrier orchestration on one platform
• Gap to check: It is a broad platform, so confirm which modules your network needs

2. Descartes: route planning and appointments

Descartes’ Route Planner builds own-fleet routes. It works with delivery appointment booking, mobile proof of delivery and customer notifications. In Australia and New Zealand it is sold through the partner Bestrane.

Woolworths announced a Route Planner rollout for online grocery in 2013. Sydney supplier BC Sands uses it for appointment booking and route optimisation. ACM Parts uses it for same-day and next-day routes. Descartes’ retail page claims 75% less planning time, which is a company figure.

• Strongest at: Planning own-fleet routes around appointments across many depots
• Gap to check: Routing is its core strength, so ask how it handles carriers and store stock

3. Bringg: carrier and fleet orchestration

Bringg manages its own fleets, third-party carriers and gig drivers in one place. Coles Group, which runs 800+ supermarkets, selected it in 2023. The aim was to allocate home deliveries across its carrier network and track them in real time. Bringg says its network includes 250+ delivery providers.

Its dynamic delivery slots show real-time windows at checkout. In a furniture retailer example on its site, Bringg reports 36% more deliveries per truck. It also reports 56% fewer late deliveries. Both numbers are company figures.

• Strongest at: Allocating orders across own fleet, carriers and gig drivers
• Gap to check: The Coles announcement dates from 2023, so ask for current Australian references

4. Shippit: store fulfilment and carrier allocation

Shippit is an Australian multi-carrier platform that began in Sydney in 2014. It connects retailers to 100+ carriers and handles carrier selection, labels, bookings and tracking. Its ship-from-store tools standardised fulfilment across 180+ Harvey Norman stores. Petbarn runs on-demand and click-and-collect orders from 240 stores.

Shippit says Petbarn’s customers spent 3.5 times more through on-demand delivery. That is a company figure. It also lists Sephora, UNIQLO, Accent Group and INTERSPORT among its customers.

• Strongest at: Store-based fulfilment and carrier choice across Australia
• Gap to check: It is built around carriers, so ask how it plans routes for your own vans

5. DispatchTrack: big and bulky delivery

DispatchTrack combines route optimisation, customer scheduling and proof of delivery software. It opened a Melbourne headquarters in 2022 to serve Australia and New Zealand. Designer Transport and Bigsave Furniture were named as customers. BMD, a building materials business, uses it for route optimisation and digital proof of delivery.

Software Advice shows it at 4.5 out of 5 from 34 reviews.

• Strongest at: Big and bulky retail with appointments and installation work
• Gap to check: Its focus is furniture, appliances and building supplies, so check fit for fashion or grocery

6. Locus: dispatch and slot planning at scale

Locus says it has optimised 1.5 billion deliveries for more than 360 brands in over 30 countries. It has an Australian page for its transport management product and an ANZ business team. Its Delivery Linked Checkout acts as delivery scheduling software. Customers can pick or change a delivery date, even after dispatch.

In 2025 Locus joined Ingka Group, the largest IKEA retailer. Locus says it continues as a standalone company.

• Strongest at: Dispatch and slot planning across large fleets
• Gap to check: Public Australian retail examples are limited, so ask for local references

Core Features of Retail Delivery Software

An enterprise network needs more than a route planner. These 6 features decide whether the retail delivery management software holds up across stores, depots and regions.

Central Order Allocation

Good retail delivery management software chooses the fulfilling store or depot for every order. It weighs stock, distance, site capacity and cost, and it re-allocates when stock changes before picking starts.

Route Optimisation With Real Constraints

Routes must respect time windows, vehicle capacity and driver skills, and they should re-plan during the day. Look for delivery scheduling software that lets customers book slots the routes can serve. Read how delivery slot planning caps slots by capacity.

Driver Hours and Long Distances

Australian distances make fatigue rules a planning input. The NHVR says standard hours allow 12 hours of work in 24 and 7 continuous hours of stationary rest. Check which rules apply to your vehicles, and whether the planner builds them into routes.

Proof of Delivery and Exceptions

Good proof of delivery software captures photo, signature or barcode and logs time and place. Read how electronic proof of delivery works.

Failed visits start with bad addresses. Add address validation before dispatch to catch them early.

Last Mile Delivery Visibility

Dispatchers need live location, ETAs and exception alerts in one view. Strong last mile delivery tools also feed customer tracking pages. Retail leaders then compare stores and depots on the same measures.

Carrier and Gig Orchestration

Most enterprise networks mix their own vans, carriers and gig drivers. The delivery logistics software should allocate across all three by cost, service level and capacity. Read how multi-carrier management automates that choice.

How to Choose the Right Platform?

Start with your network, not a feature list. A retail delivery management software platform that suits a 20-store fashion chain may fail a 200-store grocery network. These steps keep the decision grounded.

1. List every store, depot and carrier, with daily order volumes for each site
2. Pick the first problem to fix, such as allocation, routing or customer updates
3. Test the links to your order, stock and POS systems with live data
4. Double a normal day’s orders in a test and watch what breaks
5. Pilot in a few stores or one region for several weeks
6. Compare cost per delivery, on-time rate and failed deliveries with your current process

Then check the commercial model of each retail delivery management software vendor. Some charge per delivery, some per vehicle and some per user, and the difference matters at peak. Ask for Australian references from a retailer with a similar network.

Conclusion

Enterprise retailers rarely need one tool for everything. Shippit and Bringg are strongest at choosing the fulfilling site and the carrier. Descartes and DispatchTrack are strongest at planning own-fleet routes and appointments. Locus is worth a look for dispatch at scale. The right retail delivery management software depends on which part of your network leaks the most money today.

For route optimisation and carrier orchestration in one retail delivery management software platform, Shipsy is built for that job. It plans routes against real constraints, re-plans during the day and allocates the rest across carriers. To see how it handles your network, you can talk to Shipsy about a pilot.