EquaShip plans ‘4th parcel’ carrier platform

   Seattle-based EquaShip plans to re-launch itself in early 2013 as the nation’s “fourth parcel carrier,” with a focus on small and medium-sized online sellers, touting shipper services that will cost between 10 percent and 50 percent less than UPS and FedEx.
   EquaShip announced a temporarily suspension of operations in February, after an initial launch last October. At the time the company said it needed to re-engineer its transportation network, citing customer demand for faster transit times than it could deliver over its original network. 
   It also announced that Datatrac Corp. has been selected to provide a new and customized, cloud-based platform specifically tailored for eCommerce.
   “After vetting virtually all of the existing shipping software platforms in the marketplace we realized that our application is so unique that the optimal solution would really be to build our own proprietary cloud-based platform from the ground up,” said Ron Wiener, EquaShip’s chief executive officer.
   When completed, the new platform will need to support and connect millions of small and midsized Web-based merchants with EquaShip’s network of carriers, postal consolidators and international carrier partners.
   EquaShip is also working on its platform to integrate with carriers that will perform pickups, long-hauls and final deliveries of its parcels, all of which meet strict transit-time requirements from merchants like eBay and Amazon and need to provide unified cargo visibility and tracking. — Geoff Whiting