Trading Spreadsheets For AI: How This Retailer Sped Up Its Parcel Analysis » Sifted

Client Case Study

Trading Spreadsheets For AI: How This Retailer Sped Up Its Parcel Analysis

CLIENT
Specialty Retailer
INDUSTRY
Hardware, Home Goods
COMPANY SIZE
500-1,000
SIFTED SOLUTIONS USED

This client is a specialty retailer selling hardware and home goods through a network of Canadian retail locations and a U.S. distribution center. With a cross-border shipping footprint and a high volume of shipment data to manage, parcel spend had become a serious analytical challenge.

The retailer’s Small Parcel Transportation Analyst, a decades-long veteran of the company, needed faster, more powerful analysis to keep pace with executive requests and complex contract negotiations. By partnering with Sifted, the analyst gained the tools and expertise needed to tackle the analysis spreadsheets couldn’t handle, faster and secured approximately $800K in savings for the business.

Buried in Data, Short on Answers

For years, the workflow was more manual than most analysts would like. UPS invoices alone contained roughly 250 columns of data, with row counts that regularly exceeded Excel’s file size limits. Every time leadership needed a year-over-year cost-per-pack analysis, the analyst was downloading raw carrier data, manually manipulating it, filtering, and analyzing before they could begin to form a presentable answer.

The complexity was heightened by the retailer’s cross-border operation. Historically, there was no way to run in-depth side-by-side analysis on the Canadian and US carrier accounts, a significant gap for a company with the majority of its retail footprint north of the border.

Something had to change.

Action: Analysis at a New Speed

When the team began leveraging the Sifted platform, and eventually adopted SiftedAI Copilot, the impact was immediate.

SiftedAI Copilot

What previously required hours of data gathering, manipulation, and formatting could now be done in a fraction of the time with Sifted’s always-on parcel analyst, SiftedAI Copilot. SiftedAI Copilot is agentic AI trained specifically on parcel, allowing users to ask questions in natural language and do custom analysis. For the analyst, this meant multi-date range comparisons, year-over-year cost breakdowns, and carrier-specific analyses that once consumed significant bandwidth became fast, reliable, and repeatable.

“Super FAST analysis on multiple date ranges. When comparing one fiscal year to the previous, it would take me an enormous amount of time gathering the data, manipulating, filtering where need be, then analyzing and forming a cogent presentable answer to the ask. Not easy when carriers like UPS contain some 250 columns of data with rows often exceeding Excel’s file size limitations.”

Not only that, but SiftedAI Copilot made it easier for them to pull together and analyze carrier data across both Lee Valley’s Canada and US markets without manual effort.

Contract Modeling

When it came time to evaluate a new UPS proposal, the analyst turned to SiftedAI’s Contract Modeling to test it against the retailer’s actual shipping profile. By running the proposed rates against their shipment history across services and zones, they were able to see where UPS’s offer would benefit the business, and where there was room to push back. The analyst used those findings to build a counteroffer supported by the retailer’s own data.

The result: UPS accepted the proposal, securing approximately $800K USD in savings over the life of a 3-year contract.

Ongoing Invoice Reconciliation

Beyond the big wins, Sifted remains a weekly fixture in the analyst’s workflow, turning the retailer’s shipping profile into manageable, workable files, a critical step in their ongoing invoice reconciliation process.

Outcome: Time Back, Money Saved, and Room to Grow

For an analyst managing a complex, cross-border shipping operation largely on their own, the difference Sifted has made is hard to overstate.

“Simply put, it makes my job much easier. Especially with the new SiftedAI Copilot tool, whereby I can get very time-consuming, complex analyses done in super fast time.”

Beyond speed, SiftedAI’s support for Canadian accounts has expanded what’s analytically possible for the team. Executive questions now get answered with greater confidence and less turnaround time. Plus, Sifted’s industry expertise has become a resource in its own right.

“The team is extremely industry knowledgeable, super friendly, courteous, and prompt on client servicing. Quite frankly, don’t hesitate to use Sifted.”