Top 12 Shipping Coordinator Skills to Put on Your Resume

A strong resume for a Shipping Coordinator blends sharp logistics judgment with disciplined organization. Show the skills that keep freight moving, orders accurate, and costs in check. Put a spotlight on the tools you command, the processes you tighten, and the records you keep clean under pressure. That’s how you stand out.

Shipping Coordinator Skills

1. Logistics Management
2. Inventory Control
3. SAP
4. Oracle SCM
5. Freight Negotiation
6. Customs Regulations
7. EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)
8. Excel
9. Warehouse Management Systems (WMS)
10. Transportation Management Systems (TMS)
11. Supply Chain Coordination
12. Hazardous Materials Handling

1. Logistics Management

Logistics Management means planning, executing, and controlling the movement and storage of goods and the information surrounding them. For a Shipping Coordinator, that translates to scheduling shipments, aligning carriers, resolving exceptions fast, and hitting delivery windows without bleeding margin.

Why It's Important

It keeps orders on time, spending disciplined, inventory flowing, and customers calm. Miss here and everything downstream wobbles.

How to Improve Logistics Management Skills

Sharper logistics comes from tighter processes and better visibility. Try these:

1. Use the right systems: Lean on ERP, WMS, and TMS for real-time status, label compliance, and clean handoffs between teams.

2. Standardize SOPs: Clear receiving, pick/pack, and ship cutoffs. One playbook. Fewer surprises.

3. Tight inventory signals: Accurate counts, sane reorder points, and credible safety stock so shipping isn’t firefighting.

4. Carrier scorecards: Track on-time performance, claims, accessorials, and response time. Reward reliability.

5. Exception playbooks: Lost, damaged, customs hold, weather. Define actions, contacts, and timelines before it hits.

6. Measure what matters: OTIF, perfect order rate, cost per shipment, dwell. Review weekly, act quickly.

7. Train and cross-train: Backups for critical steps; no single points of failure.

How to Display Logistics Management Skills on Your Resume

2. Inventory Control

Inventory control is the discipline of keeping the right stock, in the right place, in the right quantity. For shipping, it’s the difference between smooth waves of picks and frantic substitutions.

Why It's Important

It reduces carrying costs, prevents stockouts, cuts picking errors, and speeds fulfillment. Clean inventory equals clean shipments.

How to Improve Inventory Control Skills

Make the numbers trustworthy, then make them fast:

1. Cycle counting: Frequent, small counts by ABC class to keep accuracy high without stopping operations.

2. Barcode/RFID discipline: Scan on every movement. No scan, no move.

3. Demand forecasting: Use history, promotions, and seasonality to set reorder points and safety stock.

4. Slotting optimization: Put fast movers closest; reduce travel, cut pick time.

5. Receiving rigor: Count, inspect, and label at the door. Garbage in means chaos out.

6. Vendor alignment: Align lead times, min buys, and ASN accuracy to your cadence.

7. KPI loop: Track accuracy, shrink, turns, and days on hand. Adjust quickly.

How to Display Inventory Control Skills on Your Resume

3. SAP

SAP (including S/4HANA) connects finance, procurement, logistics, and more in one backbone. A Shipping Coordinator uses modules like SD, MM, EWM, and TM to create deliveries, pick, pack, post goods issue, tender freight, and track to delivery.

Why It's Important

One source of truth. Fewer handoffs. Faster, cleaner shipping with audit-ready records and real-time status.

How to Improve SAP Skills

Turn SAP into a power tool, not a maze:

1. Master core transactions: Deliveries, warehouse tasks, freight orders, and GI postings. Practice until it’s muscle memory.

2. Automate where possible: Output determination for labels/docs, batch jobs for wave creation, and rule-based picking.

3. Useful reporting: Build variants and lists for backorders, open picks, and late carriers. Surface issues early.

4. Integrate cleanly: Tight IDoc/API connections with WMS/TMS and carriers to prevent rekeying and errors.

5. Keep data clean: Accurate master data—weights, dims, pack instructions, routes—prevents painful exceptions.

How to Display SAP Skills on Your Resume

4. Oracle SCM

Oracle SCM (including cloud modules like OTM and WMS) ties planning, order management, warehousing, and transportation together, helping coordinators tender loads, rate shop, schedule pickups, and monitor delivery performance.

Why It's Important

It drives consistency across orders, inventory, and freight. Less swivel-chairing, more flow.

How to Improve Oracle SCM Skills

Dial it in so the system works for you:

1. Automate tendering and rating: Use carrier contracts and routing guides to auto-select the smart option.

2. Visibility rules: Configure milestones and alerts for exceptions—late pickup, dwell, missed scan.

3. Analytics: Build dashboards for cost per mile, on-time %, and accessorials to expose savings opportunities.

4. Data hygiene: Maintain accurate item dims/weights, NMFCs, and accessorial defaults.

5. Keep learning: Explore new releases and features, and apply them to shave time and errors.

How to Display Oracle SCM Skills on Your Resume

5. Freight Negotiation

Freight negotiation is securing fair rates and terms with carriers while protecting service levels. Not just price—total landed performance.

Why It's Important

Freight is a big spend. Better agreements drop straight to the bottom line and keep trucks showing up on time.

How to Improve Freight Negotiation Skills

Leverage volume, flexibility, and data:

1. Benchmark often: Know market ranges by lane and mode. Data is leverage.

2. Consolidate and plan: Build density with multi-stop or pooled shipments. Carriers price predictability.

3. Negotiate the whole package: Transit guarantees, accessorial caps, fuel formulas, free time, and claim handling—not just base rates.

4. Diversify wisely: Primary plus backups. Reward performance with volume, not empty promises.

5. Share forecasts: Give carriers a view of spikes and promotions. In return, ask for capacity commitments.

6. Scorecard and renew: Quarterly reviews. Extend what works, fix what doesn’t.

How to Display Freight Negotiation Skills on Your Resume

6. Customs Regulations

Customs regulations govern how goods cross borders: classification, valuation, origin, duties, controls, and the documents proving it all. A Shipping Coordinator keeps shipments compliant and moving.

Why It's Important

Compliance avoids fines, holds, and reputational bruises. Smooth clearance saves days and dollars.

How to Improve Customs Regulations Skills

Clarity first, then consistency:

1. Classify correctly: Assign accurate HS codes and track changes. Misclassification is costly.

2. Know your terms: Use the right Incoterms 2020 so liability and cost splits are crystal clear.

3. Prepare documents: Commercial invoices, packing lists, certificates of origin, and licenses where needed—accurate and legible.

4. Pre-file and pre-advise: Submit entries and security filings early; share ASN details with brokers and forwarders.

5. Stay current: Track rule shifts (for example, EU ICS2 expansions, de minimis changes, sanctions updates).

6. Broker partnership: Align SLAs, escalation paths, and data formats; hold regular post-entry audits.

How to Display Customs Regulations Skills on Your Resume

7. EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)

EDI is the standardized electronic exchange of business documents—850s, 856s, 810s, and more—over protocols like AS2 or SFTP. For shipping, it trims manual entry, reduces errors, and accelerates confirmations.

Why It's Important

It synchronizes orders, shipments, and invoices with trading partners. Fewer keystrokes, fewer mistakes, faster cash.

How to Improve EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) Skills

Reliable, resilient, and clear:

1. Tight mapping: Validate ANSI X12/EDIFACT mappings with strict schema checks and business rules.

2. Acknowledgments: Use 997/CONTRL to confirm receipt and surface failures early.

3. Automation: Auto-generate ASNs on pick/pack completion; auto-ingest carrier events to update status.

4. Monitoring: Dashboards and alerts for failed transmissions, late files, and duplicate docs.

5. Partner playbooks: Document partner-specific quirks, test cases, and SLAs.

6. API bridge: Where EDI lags, bridge with APIs for real-time visibility.

7. Rollback and backup: Message reprocessing and secure archives for audits.

How to Display EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) Skills on Your Resume

8. Excel

Excel is the workbench for shipment plans, cost tracking, carrier KPIs, and ad-hoc analysis. When systems can’t, Excel fills the gaps.

Why It's Important

Quick modeling, clean reporting, rapid what-ifs. It’s where answers appear fast.

How to Improve Excel Skills

Less manual work, more signal:

1. Modern lookups: Replace VLOOKUP with XLOOKUP, combine with INDEX/MATCH, and use SUMIFS/COUNTIFS for precise summaries.

2. Dynamic arrays: FILTER, SORT, UNIQUE to build live reports that update themselves.

3. Data validation: Drop-downs, input rules, and error messages to prevent bad entries.

4. Conditional formatting: Flag late orders, cost spikes, or aging inventory instantly.

5. PivotTables and charts: Rapidly slice lanes, modes, carriers, and service levels.

6. Power Query/Power Pivot: Automate data cleanup and model larger datasets without breaking.

7. Macros: Record repeatable tasks—formatting, imports, exports—to save time.

How to Display Excel Skills on Your Resume

9. Warehouse Management Systems (WMS)

A WMS orchestrates receiving, putaway, slotting, picking, packing, and shipping. For coordinators, it’s the command center for accurate, fast order flow.

Why It's Important

It shrinks errors, speeds picks, and keeps labor pointed at the right work. The warehouse hums instead of stalling.

How to Improve Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) Skills

Turn scans and rules into speed:

1. Pick strategies: Wave, batch, zone, or cluster—match method to order profile.

2. Mobile first: Handheld scanning for every move, with offline tolerance to avoid dead zones.

3. Slotting and replenishment: Auto-replen triggers and velocity-based slotting to cut travel.

4. Label compliance: Retail and carrier label standards configured into the flow—no relabel fire drills.

5. Count discipline: Opportunistic and cycle counts to keep records tight.

6. Integrations: Clean connections to ERP, TMS, and carriers for a single version of truth.

7. Operational analytics: Monitor pick rate, dock to stock, and order lead time. Fix bottlenecks quickly.

How to Display Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) Skills on Your Resume

10. Transportation Management Systems (TMS)

A TMS plans, executes, and optimizes freight moves—parcel, LTL, TL, and beyond. It rates, tenders, tracks, and closes the loop with freight audit.

Why It's Important

Lower costs, stronger service, real-time visibility. You see what’s moving and fix what isn’t.

How to Improve Transportation Management Systems (TMS) Skills

Make the engine purr:

1. Routing guides: Enforce mode and carrier selection by lane, weight, and service level.

2. Optimization: Multi-stop builds, zone skipping, and mode shifts when volumes justify.

3. Automated tendering: API/EDI tender flows with acceptance SLAs and auto-escalation.

4. Event visibility: Live tracking, geofences, dwell alerts, POD capture, and exception triggers.

5. Carrier scorecards: On-time pickup/delivery, exceptions, claims, and invoice accuracy.

6. Freight audit and pay: Auto-match invoices to contracts; flag accessorial drift.

7. Mobile access: Manage tenders and exceptions from anywhere.

How to Display Transportation Management Systems (TMS) Skills on Your Resume

11. Supply Chain Coordination

Supply chain coordination synchronizes suppliers, warehouses, carriers, and customers so product lands where it should, when it should, at a sane cost. Coordination is grease, not glue.

Why It's Important

It trims delay, reduces handoff friction, and raises fill rates. Everyone sees the same plan—and the same changes.

How to Improve Supply Chain Coordination Skills

Make collaboration the default:

1. Shared visibility: One control-tower view of orders, inventory, ETAs, and risks.

2. Cadence and rhythm: Weekly S&OP and daily standups to align demand, supply, and logistics.

3. Clear ownership: Define RACI for exceptions—who decides, who does, who’s informed.

4. Standard data: Common item masters, units, and labeling; fewer translation errors.

5. Continuous improvement: Root-cause misses and adjust process, not just people.

How to Display Supply Chain Coordination Skills on Your Resume

12. Hazardous Materials Handling

Hazardous materials handling covers identification, packaging, documentation, labeling, segregation, and transport of dangerous goods across road, air, and sea—safely and lawfully.

Why It's Important

It protects people and the environment, avoids fines and seizures, and ensures dangerous goods reach their destination without incident.

How to Improve Hazardous Materials Handling Skills

Safety first, compliance always:

1. Know the rules: 49 CFR (US), IATA DGR (air), IMDG Code (ocean), ADR (EU). Keep current—editions change.

2. Use SDS, not MSDS: Safety Data Sheets inform proper classification, packing groups, and emergency measures.

3. UN-spec packaging: Match packaging to hazard class and packing group; verify markings and tests.

4. Labeling and placarding: Correct hazard labels, marks, and documentation (including shipper’s declaration for air).

5. Segregation: Follow compatibility tables. Some materials must never ride together.

6. Training and refreshers: Role-appropriate certification with required recurrence (often 24–36 months).

7. Emergency readiness: Response plan, spill kits, and a 24/7 emergency contact on paperwork where required.

How to Display Hazardous Materials Handling Skills on Your Resume