5 Key Takeaways from Fulfilled 2026

Fulfilled, ShipBob’s fifth annual merchant event in Las Vegas, brought together today’s leading operators, founders, and industry experts to shape the future of ecommerce fulfillment and logistics. 

From how to use AI without adding complexity to scaling without bloating headcount to staying ahead when everything in the industry keeps shifting, the sessions were packed with real insights from brands winning right now. 

But Fulfilled isn’t just an event. It’s a signal of where the industry is headed, what’s working, and what ShipBob is building to help brands scale with speed. 

For those who couldn’t make it to Vegas, we hosted the Best Moments from Fulfilled webinar, a curated replay of the most impactful sessions, insights, and announcements.

Here are the five moments that stood out.

1. Your customers are already global, you just haven’t caught up yet

Alex Yancher, Co-Founder and CEO of Passport, opened the “Playbook for Cross-Border Growth” session with a challenge to the audience: “Every brand is already global on day one. I encourage every brand here to go to their Google Analytics and see where their traffic is coming from.”

He’s right. Most brands are already getting international traffic, but they’re leaving revenue on the table because they don’t want the hassle of navigating the process of going global.

The practical advice: stop treating cross-border as an optional upgrade and start treating it as a conversion problem you can solve today. 

Amanda Flynn reinforced the message: “Most brands treat international as a future-state problem… but Alex’s whole argument was that this is exactly backwards.”

If your site is already getting traffic from the UK, Canada, or Australia, the question isn’t whether you should expand internationally… it’s why you’re waiting.

With partners like ShipBob, Passport, and FlavorCloud, the infrastructure for international shipping is already built, and figuring out challenges like landed costs, compliance, and customs is handled for you. You don’t need to rebuild your operations from scratch to start shipping globally.

2. Omnichannel isn’t a threat to your DTC business: it’s the business

Ali Shahid, COO of Our Place, made the case for omnichannel expansion clear. Our Place started as a DTC-first brand but expanded to additional channels such as Amazon and Costco.

“[We launched on] Amazon two years ago and today it’s almost 30% of our total sales… It also has about 3x the return on ad spend that we are seeing on our DTC business.”

Ali Shahid, COO at Our Place

Between Amazon and Costco, nearly 40% of Our Place’s business now runs through channels that they didn’t utilize a few years ago. And when Ali’s team tested for DTC cannibalization, the results were inconclusive.

The operational piece matters too. Our Place ships over 600,000 items to Amazon annually through ShipBob’s fulfillment network. Costco roadshows, with all their logistical complexity, run smoothly because the infrastructure is already in place.

The lesson isn’t “start selling on Amazon immediately.” It’s that the brands scaling fastest aren’t picking one channel and hoping for the best. They’re building operations that can support growth across multiple channels and reach customers wherever they shop.

3. The industry is evolving, fast. Operators are leading the way.

Breakout sessions are held each Fulfilled to get granular about the challenges brands are facing. This year’s industry sessions featured operators from various verticals, including apparel, health and wellness, beauty, and food and beverage, and the conversations were candid, action-oriented, and eye-opening.

A few themes surfaced consistently:

• Don’t jump before you’re ready. Early momentum is exciting, but operational readiness is what keeps growth from becoming a nightmare.
• Inventory placement is a financial decision as much as it is a logistics one. Getting distribution right matters more than most brands realize until they’re staring at astronomical cross-country shipping rates or high carrying costs for dead stock in the wrong market.
• Virality is a growth driver you can plan for if your ops can handle it. Several operators talked about the moment a product goes viral: a Good Morning America feature, the TikTok moment, an exclusive Costco run. The brands that turn those moments into lasting growth are the ones whose fulfillment infrastructure can actually execute at scale.

The panels were a reminder that the operators building the fastest-growing ecommerce brands are not passive. They’re making deliberate decisions about channels, inventory, and partners, and they’re learning from each other.

4. Delivery promises are only as good as the infrastructure behind them

Melissa Nick, Chief Supply Chain Officer at ShipBob, introduced one of the most anticipated product updates at Fulfilled: ShipBob Promise.

The idea is simple. Instead of showing customers a generic delivery window, ShipBob Promise delivers a specific, ZIP code-level estimated delivery date. “3-5 business days delivery” becomes “Your order will arrive on Wednesday.”

That’s a fundamentally different customer experience. And it’s backed by real-time data from ShipBob’s fulfillment network, proactive package monitoring, and automated exception handling so merchants don’t have to manually chase down delivery issues.

“Special memories don’t reschedule; neither should a delivery date.”

Melissa Nick, Chief Supply Chain Officer at ShipBob

The package someone ordered for a birthday, an anniversary, or a product launch doesn’t become less important because of a carrier delay. ShipBob Promise is built on the belief that delivery accuracy isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s a brand promise that your fulfillment partner should be able to keep.

As Brittany Barron, Sr. Director of Product Marketing at ShipBob, put it: “Every package in our network is someone’s special moment… If your operations fall short, you can’t grow.”

Promise is currently in beta, with general availability coming in 2027.

5. AI is coming for supply chain and ShipBob is building the stack

Every company has an AI story right now. Dhruv Saxena, ShipBob’s Co-Founder and CEO, shared how ShipBob is uniquely positioned to help brands utilize AI as part of their operations.

“A storefront can become AI-ready very quickly, but a supply chain cannot because it involves inventory, human labor, and trust.”

Dhruv Saxena, CEO and Co-Founder of ShipBob

That’s the hard truth most AI hype skips over. Layering AI on top of broken infrastructure doesn’t fix the operational challenges brands face. 

What does? Clean operational data, strong APIs, and a fulfillment network that’s actually connected.

“The companies that win in the AI-native era will be the ones with the strongest APIs and the cleanest operational data.”

Dhruv Saxena, CEO and Co-Founder of ShipBob

That’s where ShipBob wins. Because ShipBob owns and built our tech-stack from the ground up, we’re able to build AI tools that make an impact.

Then Sagar Kohli, Distinguished Engineer at ShipBob, took the stage to show what that actually looks like in practice: ShipBob’s MCP (Model Context Protocol) and ShipBob’s custom Claude connector. Through ShipBob’s MCP, merchants can access 72 tools across 10 domains directly from Claude, with read and write operations including creating replenishment orders and making bulk updates in seconds. 

One-click OAuth setup. No API experience required.

Dhruv and Sagar then wrapped the session with a surprise, introducing Bobby, ShipBob’s new AI agent coming this Fall. Bobby will be available directly in the ShipBob dashboard. 

Bobby is currently on the waitlist, with general availability coming Fall 2026. 

What’s next

Fulfilled 2026 made one thing clear: the gap between brands that scale and brands that stall is operational readiness. The brands on stage in Vegas have figured out how to build infrastructure that grows with them, and ShipBob is building the tools to make that accessible to every brand.

A few upcoming opportunities to stay in the loop:

• Summer ’26 Release: Virtual event on July 30. ShipBob’s product team will go deeper on Promise, ShipBob MCP, and what’s shipping this season.
• Fulfilled Roadshow – London: ShipBob’s first international merchant event, September 10, 2026.
• Fulfilled 2027 in Chicago: We’re headed back to our hometown. Sign up to get updates.

Watch every session from Fulfilled 2026 on-demand. And if you’re ready to talk about what it takes to scale your fulfillment, get a quote.