Carrier Performance Comparison

Read-only: compares delivery times and shipping costs across carriers used in fulfillments to inform carrier mix and contract decisions.

shopify-admin-carrier-performance-comparison


Purpose

Aggregates fulfillments across recent orders, joins them to the shipping line on each order, and compares carriers head-to-head on (a) average transit days, (b) on-time rate (delivered before/at the customer-facing estimate), and (c) shipping cost per order. Surfaces which carrier is the right default per zone, route, or weight class. Read-only — no mutations.


Prerequisites

  • Authenticated Shopify CLI session: shopify store auth --store --scopes read_orders
  • API scopes: read_orders

  • Parameters


    ParameterTypeRequiredDefaultDescription
    storestringyesStore domain (e.g., mystore.myshopify.com)
    days_backintegerno60Lookback window for fulfilled orders
    min_ordersintegerno10Minimum orders per carrier to include in comparison
    segment_bystringnoOptional segmentation: country, weight, or none
    formatstringnohumanOutput format: human or json

    Safety


    > ℹ️ Read-only skill — no mutations are executed. Safe to run at any time. Cost data uses the shipping line price the customer paid, not your negotiated carrier rate; if you want true cost variance you must overlay carrier invoices yourself.


    Workflow Steps


  • OPERATION: orders — query
  • Inputs: query: "fulfillment_status:shipped created_at:>=''", first: 250, select fulfillments { trackingInfo, createdAt, deliveredAt, inTransitAt }, shippingLine { carrierIdentifier, originalPriceSet, title }, totalWeight, shippingAddress, pagination cursor

    Expected output: Fulfilled orders with shipping line and fulfillment timing; paginate until hasNextPage: false


  • OPERATION: fulfillments — query (per fulfillment ID for any order missing inline data)
  • Inputs: id:

    Expected output: Detailed events, deliveredAt, estimatedDeliveryAt


  • Group by carrier (use shippingLine.carrierIdentifier if present, else parse trackingInfo.company). For each carrier compute: avg transit days, p90 transit days, on-time rate (deliveredAt <= estimatedDeliveryAt), avg shipping price, order count.

  • If segment_by is set, repeat the group within each segment (e.g., per shippingAddress.countryCode).

  • Filter out carriers below min_orders and sort by avg transit days ascending.

  • GraphQL Operations


    # orders:query — validated against api_version 2025-01
    query OrdersForCarrierComparison($query: String!, $after: String) {
      orders(first: 250, after: $after, query: $query) {
        edges {
          node {
            id
            name
            createdAt
            totalWeight
            shippingAddress {
              countryCode
              provinceCode
              zip
            }
            shippingLine {
              carrierIdentifier
              title
              code
              originalPriceSet {
                shopMoney {
                  amount
                  currencyCode
                }
              }
            }
            fulfillments {
              id
              createdAt
              inTransitAt
              deliveredAt
              estimatedDeliveryAt
              status
              trackingInfo {
                company
                number
              }
            }
          }
        }
        pageInfo {
          hasNextPage
          endCursor
        }
      }
    }
    

    # fulfillments:query — validated against api_version 2025-01
    query FulfillmentDetail($id: ID!) {
      fulfillment(id: $id) {
        id
        status
        createdAt
        inTransitAt
        deliveredAt
        estimatedDeliveryAt
        trackingInfo {
          company
          number
          url
        }
        events(first: 50) {
          edges {
            node {
              status
              happenedAt
              message
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
    

    Session Tracking


    Claude MUST emit the following output at each stage. This is mandatory.


    On start, emit:

    ╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
    ║  SKILL: Carrier Performance Comparison       ║
    ║  Store: <store domain>                       ║
    ║  Started: <YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM UTC>             ║
    ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝
    

    After each step, emit:

    [N/TOTAL] <QUERY|MUTATION>  <OperationName>
              → Params: <brief summary of key inputs>
              → Result: <count or outcome>
    

    On completion, emit:


    For format: human (default):

    ══════════════════════════════════════════════
    CARRIER PERFORMANCE  (<days_back> days)
      Orders analyzed:        <n>
      With delivery data:     <n>
    
      Carrier        Orders  Avg Days  P90  On-Time%  Avg Cost
      ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
      <carrier>      <n>     <d>       <d>  <pct>%    $<n>
      <carrier>      <n>     <d>       <d>  <pct>%    $<n>
      Output: carrier_performance_<date>.csv
    ══════════════════════════════════════════════
    

    For format: json, emit:

    {
      "skill": "carrier-performance-comparison",
      "store": "<domain>",
      "period_days": 60,
      "orders_analyzed": 0,
      "carriers": [
        {
          "name": "UPS",
          "orders": 0,
          "avg_transit_days": 0,
          "p90_transit_days": 0,
          "on_time_pct": 0,
          "avg_cost": 0,
          "currency": "USD"
        }
      ],
      "output_file": "carrier_performance_<date>.csv"
    }
    

    Output Format

    CSV file carrier_performance_.csv with columns:

    carrier, segment, orders, avg_transit_days, p90_transit_days, on_time_pct, avg_cost, total_cost, currency


    Error Handling

    ErrorCauseRecovery
    THROTTLEDAPI rate limit exceededWait 2 seconds, retry up to 3 times
    deliveredAt is nullCarrier did not confirm deliveryExclude from transit-time average, count as "in transit"
    estimatedDeliveryAt is nullCarrier did not provide an ETAExclude from on-time rate, do not penalize carrier
    carrierIdentifier and trackingInfo.company both nullManual fulfillment without trackingBucket as (unknown), surface count separately

    Best Practices

  • Compare carriers only at min_orders >= 10; smaller samples are noise.
  • Use segment_by: country for international comparisons — a carrier strong domestically may be weak across borders.
  • Pair this skill with delivery-time-analysis for the time-only view; this skill adds cost and on-time dimensions.
  • A carrier with great transit time but high cost may still win if your customers value speed (high AOV stores) — overlay this report with customer-facing NPS or review data.
  • Run quarterly during contract review windows to bring data, not gut feel, to carrier negotiations.