Shipping Coordinator Job Description

A Shipping Coordinator owns the outbound side of a dock: the stretch between an order being released for shipment and a carrier signing for the freight. The job sits above the clerk who builds pallets and prints labels and below the transportation manager who negotiates carrier contracts. In practice the coordinator is the person a sales rep calls when a customer asks where an order is, and the person a carrier dispatcher calls when a driver is sitting at the gate with no door assigned.

O*NET files the title under Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks, listing shipping coordinator among the reported job titles for that occupation. Its task list for the group covers the core of the desk: contacting carrier representatives to make arrangements or issue instructions for shipping and delivery, determining shipping methods, routes or rates, and preparing documents such as work orders, bills of lading or shipping orders. A coordinator does all of that, then adds the planning and follow-through that keep a day's freight from turning into a pile of exceptions.

A working day on the outbound desk

The morning starts with the release list. The coordinator sorts orders by mode (parcel, less-than-truckload, full truckload, and sometimes air or ocean for export), checks which pickups are already booked, and finds the gaps. A truckload order with no carrier gets tendered through the transportation management system (TMS) or a carrier portal; an LTL shipment needs its freight class, weight and dimensions confirmed before the bill of lading goes out, because a wrong class can turn into a reweigh or reclass bill weeks later.

Midday is about exceptions. A carrier rejects a tender, a pallet comes off the line late, a customer moves a delivery appointment, a driver arrives without the right trailer. The coordinator reschedules, rebooks with a backup carrier or a broker, and tells the warehouse lead which loads to stage first. Customer-facing updates go out as shipments leave: a tracking number, a PRO number, an estimated delivery date.

Afternoons tend toward paperwork and follow-up. Retail customers publish routing guides that dictate carrier choice, label format, pallet build and the timing of the electronic advance ship notice, and a missed requirement can come back as a chargeback against the invoice. The coordinator audits outbound loads against those guides, files freight claims for damaged or short shipments with photos and signed delivery receipts, and reconciles carrier invoices against quoted rates.

Who hires them

Shipping coordinators work wherever goods leave a building on a schedule: manufacturing plants, wholesale distributors, third-party logistics (3PL) warehouses, and e-commerce fulfillment centers. On this site the role sits in the transportation group, but the work is shipper-side. The coordinator buys transportation from carriers and brokers rather than selling it, which shapes everything from the tools on the screen to the questions asked in an interview.

Education

O*NET says the occupation that includes shipping coordinators usually requires a high school diploma or GED, and BLS lists a high school diploma or equivalent as the typical entry-level education for material recording clerks. As a rough guide, a coordinator role calls for a step beyond that: time on a shipping desk, an associate degree in logistics or supply chain management, or both. A bachelor's degree in supply chain or business is useful for anyone aiming at transportation analyst or manager roles later, but it is optional for this job.

Experience

As a rough guide, coordinators arrive with 1 to 3 years in a shipping or receiving clerk role, warehouse inventory control, or customer service at a carrier or freight brokerage. The experience that counts is evidence of judgment: a time you rebooked a load when a carrier fell through, caught a classification error before pickup, or recovered money on a freight claim.

Tools and systems

• A TMS such as Oracle Transportation Management, SAP Transportation Management, Blue Yonder or e2open, used for tendering, tracking and freight audit
• Parcel platforms: UPS WorldShip, FedEx Ship Manager, and multi-carrier shipping software
• LTL carrier portals for rating, booking pickups and pulling proof of delivery
• The shipping module of an ERP or warehouse management system, where orders are released and confirmed
• EDI transaction sets, especially the 856 advance ship notice and the 214 shipment status message
• Excel for carrier scorecards, freight spend summaries and claim logs

Regulatory knowledge

Under 49 CFR 172.702, a hazmat employer must ensure that each of its hazmat employees is trained under the requirements of Part 172 Subpart H. Coordinators at those sites need to read a shipping paper, check marking and labeling, and know when a shipment has to stop at the dock. Export desks also handle commercial invoices and the other documents a carrier or forwarder asks for. Working knowledge of how freight claims are filed and documented is part of the job everywhere.

Credentials

None is required. Two that fit the work:

• Certified in Logistics, Transportation and Distribution (CLTD), awarded by the Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM), suited to coordinators planning a move into transportation planning or management
• Certified Logistics Technician (CLT), awarded by the Manufacturing Skill Standards Council (MSSC), a fit for people earlier in the path

What separates strong coordinators

Strong coordinators write clear instructions that a night-shift loader can follow, keep a calm voice with a carrier dispatcher at 4 p.m. on a Friday, and keep records good enough that a claim or a chargeback dispute can be won months later. They also know when to escalate: a recurring late carrier, a customer requirement the building cannot meet, or a hazmat shipment that does not look right.

The federal numbers

ONET places shipping coordinators in Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks, and BLS does not report coordinators separately. For that occupation, the 2025 to 2035 projections show employment moving from 827,700 to 765,000, a decline of 62,800 jobs, or 8 percent. ONET still expects about 61,300 openings a year on average over the decade. For material recording clerks as a group, BLS says openings are expected to result from the need to replace workers who transfer to other occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire. A shrinking headcount for the broad occupation says little about the share of those jobs that carry coordinator scope, and BLS does not publish that split.

Pay data show where the occupation works. In May 2025, transportation and warehousing employed 133,660 Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks at a median of $46,680, and wholesale trade employed 124,950 at a median of $45,250. Both rows describe the whole occupation, not coordinators alone.

Carrier costs and paperwork in 2027

Parcel pricing for 2027 is already set at FedEx, and a coordinator may be the person who explains the new freight bill. FedEx says its package standard list rates for U.S., U.S. export and U.S. import services will increase an average of 5.9% effective Jan. 4, 2027. FedEx is also introducing two paper fees effective Jan. 18, 2027: $25 per shipment when an associated trade document is provided in a non-electronic format before processing, and $5 per shipment for U.S. domestic and export shipments started on manual paper airbills. For a desk that still prints commercial invoices or handwrites airbills, those fees put a direct price on paper, and moving every shipment into the carrier's electronic tools becomes a cost item a coordinator can own.

Broker records and the shipper's side

Coordinators who tender loads through freight brokers have a right under current federal rules to see the paper trail. Under 49 CFR 371.3, brokers must keep a record of each transaction for three years, and each party to a brokered transaction has the right to review that record. Federal regulators have also revisited broker transparency. Transport Topics reported on Sept. 2, 2026 that the agency sent a supplemental broker transparency proposal to the White House for review on Aug. 27, following a 2024 proposal it never finalized; that original version required electronic transaction records and carrier access within 48 hours. The current text of 49 CFR 371.3 quoted above is the rule in force today.

Where AI shows up

Federal data on AI use cover all kinds of firms, not shipping desks in particular. A Census Bureau working paper using the 2026 AI supplement to the Business Trends and Outlook Survey found that 18% of firms across the economy used AI in a business function during November 2025 to January 2026, or 32% on an employment-weighted basis, with adoption expected to reach 22% within six months. For a coordinator, AI use can look like software that suggests a carrier, reads a document or flags a late load inside an existing TMS, while the decisions about a rejected tender, a damaged pallet or a customer's changed appointment stay at the desk.

Where the job leads

Coordinators move into transportation planner, logistics analyst, shipping supervisor or transportation manager roles, and some cross to the carrier or brokerage side in account management. Each step builds on the same base: knowing what freight costs, why it ran late, and how to fix it before the customer calls.

Dear Hiring Manager,

I am applying for the Shipping Coordinator position at Ridgeline Supply. For the past two and a half years I have worked the outbound desk at a building products distributor outside Columbus, first as a shipping clerk and, since last spring, as the person who books and tracks every LTL and truckload order that leaves our two docks.

My day starts with the release report. I sort orders by mode, tender truckloads through our TMS, book LTL pickups in carrier portals, and confirm freight class and dimensions before a bill of lading prints. When a carrier rejects a tender after noon, I work the backup list and our broker contacts until the load is covered, then tell the dock lead which trailer to stage first.

Our largest customer is a home improvement retailer with a strict routing guide. I built a one-page checklist for its pallet labels and advance ship notices, posted it at each door, and walked both shifts through it. Chargebacks from that account dropped from a steady trickle to two in the last six months, and I traced both to a label printer setting that we have since locked.

I also took over our freight claims file. I photograph damaged freight at the receiver's request, collect signed delivery receipts, and follow every open claim to a decision instead of letting it age out. Several claims that had sat untouched for months were paid after I resubmitted them with complete records.

Ridgeline's mix of parcel, LTL and export orders is the range I want to learn next, and I would welcome the chance to talk about how I can help your outbound team.

Sincerely, Jordan Alvarez