The destination carrier has announced a service suspension. The logistics provider already knows which alternate carrier can take the parcels. It is integrated, it has capacity, and it can start today.

It also costs more. Or clears customs differently. Or needs consignee data the brand has never been asked to collect. The route is ready, but the shipment still can't move, because nobody approved what using it would change.

Most disruption plans stop short at this moment. They established only that alternatives exist and someone on the logistics team can be reached. But who is allowed to accept the consequences of using those alternatives, and what that person would need to know to decide, usually goes unwritten. Nonetheless, this decision architecture is as vital as the alternatives themselves.

Routing authority vs. trade-off authority

A capable multi-carrier provider doesn't ask brands to approve every carrier adjustment. If one carrier softens in a market and another qualified carrier can hold the same service level agreement (SLA) at the same cost, there is nothing for the brand to decide. The customer promise is intact and the brand's shipping costs haven't moved.

At ePost Global, we adjust routing across our vendor network and configure contingency networks without customer involvement when the change leaves pricing and service levels where they were. Standard parcel sorting and pre-set vendor allocations run automatically. Broader carrier shifts are enabled by our operators, who also resolve the shipments that fall out of automation because of weight, dimensions, or missing data. Should a carrier change we initiate create a minor cost difference, we may absorb it and leave the retailer’s program undisturbed.

That is routing authority, and it sits with the provider. It is an aspect of the job that a resilience layer such as ePost Global exists to absorb, and it covers a great deal of what happens in a normal month.

Trade-off authority is a different thing. It applies when the only workable response takes the program outside its agreed parameters: a surcharge that has to be passed through, a different service type, a change in how duties and taxes are handled. A logistics provider can’t impose any of those on a brand unilaterally, and shouldn’t be able to. Where the line sits depends on the account and the contract. The clearest case is a move from Delivered Duty Unpaid (DDU) to Delivered Duty Paid (DDP). The switch changes how duties and taxes are collected and accounted for. It also changes what the checkout has to show and what data travels with the parcel, so that decision belongs to the brand.

What rerouting required during the 2024 Canada Post strike

Canada Post workers went on strike for 32 days in late 2024 during the heart of peak season. We covered how much volume we moved during it in Multi-Carrier Shipping vs. Single-Carrier. What matters here is what had to be decided before any of that volume could move.

Our contingency planning and cost analysis started when the risk of a strike or lockout became apparent, well before anything had to be executed. By the time the network stopped, we had designed an alternative route. It was more expensive than the route it replaced, and the difference was large enough to require a surcharge. That put the final decision about each customer's volume with the customer.

The alternative also didn't apply evenly; we had to establish which parcels even qualified for the route. Because it entered parcels through commercial clearance,  the alternative worked for DDP shipments, but there was no equivalent path for DDU shipments. Parcels addressed to P.O. Boxes also had to stay with Canada Post. Then, after determining which parcels could move via the alternative route, we had to establish a sequencing method. We decided to move eligible volume on a first-in, first-out (FIFO) basis.

Customers whose economics changed had to opt in. Where approval arrived quickly, volume moved. Where it didn't, shipments sat on hold with a working route available to them.

None of this is a rule. Another disruption in another market could leave DDU volume fully reroutable or call for a different sequencing method than FIFO. What we'd expect to see again is the shape of it: a route that takes some of the volume, on changed terms, with a decision attached.

Why not every affected shipment can be rerouted

Say a destination carrier suspends service while a brand has orders in flight to that market. An alternate network is ready, but it won't treat every order the same way. The orders sort into four groups.

Shipment group	What the alternative requires	Where the decision sits
Eligible, same SLA, no added cost	Nothing outside existing parameters	The provider, under routine routing authority
Eligible, same SLA, surcharge applies	Acceptance of a cost increase	The brand, with someone empowered to approve the variance
Alternative requires DDP, merchant ships DDU	Changes to tax collection, checkout, and shipment data	The brand, and only if its systems can support the change
P.O. Box addresses	No alternate service exists	Nobody; approval can't create a route

A brand looking at 10,000 affected orders may assume it has 10,000 reroutable orders. It may have a few thousand that move on their own, a larger block waiting for a signature, a third group waiting on a checkout change that takes longer than the disruption, and a remainder that will wait regardless. Saying “we have an alternative carrier" describes all four situations equally well, but it says very little about how resilient the program actually is.

The second and third groups are where a protocol does its work. One needs someone to authorize a cost. The other needs a business that can operate under the terms being approved, which no approval chart supplies.

Rerouting surcharges vs. the cost of waiting

In our experience, the most common approval bottleneck inside a customer's organization is hesitation over cost.

The stall is understandable. A surcharge is immediate and exact. It can be multiplied by volume and compared with margin within minutes. The cost of holding shipments arrives later, in pieces, and in other people's reports: support contacts, refund requests, a gift that misses its date, a first-time international customer who doesn't order again. Add a reasonable hope that the disruption ends in a few days, plus the real work of changing clearance type mid-event, and waiting starts to look like the careful option.

Sometimes it is. A short disruption, a thin-margin product, and customers with flexible expectations can make holding the right answer.

We can't tell a business what a day on hold costs. That depends on margins, reorder cycles, and how forgiving their customers are, and they have to work out that number. We'd only argue that it should be worked out ahead of time, in a quiet week. Mid-event, the method gets invented under pressure while the parcels sit.

Give each kind of trade-off an owner

A response protocol is written as part of the program's structure and used during an operational event. Its job is to reduce how much business judgment has to be invented once shipments are at risk.

Most plans already cover the first part: which markets and how much volume are affected, how long the event is expected to last, and which of those shipments can move through another route once service eligibility, clearance type, address, data, and capacity are accounted for.

They go thin at the next step. Once the alternative is known, what does using it change? Cost, SLA, customs treatment, tax collection, and the promise already made to the customer are all possible changes, and each might fall under a different team’s jurisdiction and need a different owner. Some can be delegated in advance: The brand tells its provider that a reroute preserving the SLA within a stated cost band is pre-approved. Some need a named person at the brand who can be reached and who knows the decision is theirs. A few, such as changing duty treatment for an entire market, may belong with an executive, but sending every reroute to an executive can turn governance into delay. And assigning no owner at all is worse, because then decisions go unresolved while shipments wait.

What the approver needs in the first hour

The brief that reaches the approver should be built for the decision. In our work it carries three things:

• Service impact—the affected region or zone, the volume involved, and how long the event is expected to last
• Cost impact—the surcharge, any price increase, and any other material commercial difference
• Operational requirements—what the merchant would have to do for the route to work, such as a clearance change, new data, or a different service type

A brief that says "Canada-bound volume is affected for an unknown period, roughly 4,000 parcels, the alternate carries a surcharge of a stated amount per parcel, and DDP is required" can be acted on. "We are monitoring the situation and exploring options" can't, however often it is sent.

Pressure-test the protocol before peak season

The Structural Exposure test asks how much volume could move through a qualified alternative within 48 hours. Add one more question to it: If using that alternative raises the cost or changes the service, who can approve it, and how fast?

The easiest way to answer it is to run a recent disruption, or a likely one, through your current setup. Say the alternative keeps the SLA but costs more. Who is the person who can sign off today? Do they know how large a surcharge they can accept before it goes to someone above them? Whose budget absorbs it? Now say the alternative requires DDP and your program ships DDU. Could your checkout, tax collection, and product data handle that switch this week, or would it become a project?

Two more questions worth asking the provider: When only part of the affected volume qualifies, how is eligibility determined and how are eligible parcels sequenced? And can the provider act immediately inside the defined parameters, or does every change come back to the brand for sign-off?

Approval has a limit. Authority can't make an ineligible route executable, and it can't make an unconfigured one work. So we treat a response procedure as tested only when what sits behind the decision has been exercised along with the approval path: carrier monitoring, contingency alternatives loaded in the routing matrix, internal teams trained on the switch, commodity and consignee data checked, compliant labeling confirmed, and systems stress-tested for the volume spike a reroute creates.

How often to run the exercise depends on the program. Before peak season is the obvious moment, since that is when a slow approval costs the most.

Decision authority is part of the resilience layer

Carrier architecture determines which responses are possible. Provider independence, the subject of Who Owns Your Cross-Border Logistics Provider?, determines whether those options stay available under pressure. 

At ePost Global, we maintain direct carrier relationships independent of any platform or carrier parent, giving us true optionality. That means we can hold the alternate capacity, qualify the route, and put the trade-off in front of the right person. But accepting it belongs to the brand. Decision architecture ultimately determines whether the business can use the alternative before the disruption reaches the customer.

Not sure where authority sits in your own program? The ePost Global Market Readiness Assessment is the place to start. Find the gaps in your cross-border shipping setup today.

FAQs

What should a shipping disruption response plan include? Beyond backup carriers and contacts, a shipping disruption response plan should define which routing changes the logistics provider can make on its own, which require the brand’s approval, who at the brand can approve each type of change, and what information that person will receive in order to decide.

Does a multi-carrier provider need approval to reroute shipments? Not for routine changes. When an alternate carrier preserves the same service level at the same cost, the provider can shift volume inside its existing authority. Approval becomes necessary when the reroute materially changes the program: a surcharge or price increase passed to the brand, a different service type, or a different customs-clearance model. The exact boundary depends on the account's contract.

Why would a reroute require switching from DDU to DDP? Alternate carriers don't always clear parcels the way the primary carrier does. If the available contingency route enters through commercial clearance, the shipment may have to move DDP. For a brand shipping DDU or DAP, that affects duty and tax collection at checkout and the data sent with each parcel. This is a condition of specific routes and events, and other contingency routes may carry no such requirement.

Is paying a rerouting surcharge always better than waiting out a disruption? No. A short disruption, thin margins, or flexible delivery expectations can make holding shipments the sound choice. The risk is letting the hold happen by default, even though paying a surcharge might be the better option, because nobody was positioned to decide.

Who should have authority to approve a reroute during a carrier disruption? It depends on what the reroute changes. Changes inside agreed cost and service parameters can sit with the logistics provider. Smaller, pre-agreed variances can be delegated in advance. Larger cost changes or changes to service and duty treatment should have a named owner with authority over those consequences.