Global Logistics for Scaling Your Business

The best thing about ecommerce is you can reach customers across the world. To take a brand global, ecommerce businesses must find ways to keep shipping costs down and increase transit times to thrive in international markets.

But shipping internationally isn’t always easy. Many global ecommerce brands partner with an international fulfilment provider like ShipBob. ShipBob offers global logistics solutions with a growing distribution network powered by best-in-class technology.

Although we’re just starting out in Europe and Canada, there is still a lot to learn, but ShipBob has helped us extensively throughout the process and we look forward to accelerating our growth outside of North America.

Nikolai Paloni,

Co-Founder of Ombraz Sunglasses

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What is global logistics?

Global logistics involves the ability to distribute ecommerce inventory across a global fulfilment network to easily expand into new markets and offer customers across the world with fast and affordable shipping.

How does global logistics work?

Global logistics solve many of the common challenges of global expansion. Instead of shipping every order across borders, a global logistics partner like ShipBob can bulk ship inventory to an international location so orders can be shipped within the country (or, for example, within the EU or UK). This process makes it much easier to expand globally while reducing the international shipping risks and costs.

What are the benefits of global logistics?

Here is an overview of why ecommerce brands choose to implement a global logistics solution:

Reach international customers

The biggest benefit of commissioning a well-known logistics solutions company is that it allows you to reach all of your customers, wherever they are in the world. ShipBob offer a growing fulfilment centre network with locations strategically scattered across the globe.

Save on shipping costs

With ShipBob, there are multiple ways you can reduce shipping costs for international orders: you can choose to store inventory domestically and take advantage of ShipBob’s negotiated courier rates, or you can bulk-ship inventory to one of ShipBob’s international fulfilment locations, so you can ship domestically in other parts of the world.

Expand to new markets

ShipBob can help you launch into markets and expand your customer reach while keeping logistics costs at a minimum. Rather than investing time and money into building a global logistics strategy, ShipBob already has the distribution network and technology needed to meet customer demand with faster, affordable, and consistent shipping.

Easily fulfil orders

In addition to offering expedited shipping for international orders, ShipBob can offers international fulfilment centre locations to store your inventory and get your orders delivered faster. With multiple strategic locations, we automatically ship orders from the location closest to the destination address.

ShipBob also uses its own proprietary 3PL software that provides real-time updates on inventory stock levels, orders status, and international tracking for orders that have shipped (e.g., via UPS, DHL, and FedEx). Once an order is shipped, you are sent tracking information, so you can automatically share it with your customers.

“As we expand our online presence into Canada, we knew we needed a trusted fulfilment partner with a physical presence in Canada.

We have seen that Canadian customers order more when they know the order ships from within Canada and they do not need to worry about additional taxes if the order comes from the US.

From our history through the years with ShipBob, it was a no-brainer to expand into other markets with them, knowing that they have done their due diligence to meet the ShipBob standard.”

Marc Fontanetta, Director of Operations at BAKblade

How ShipBob connects with your store internationally in 4 steps

Here’s how to take your brand global with ShipBob:

Step 1: Integrate your ecommerce shop and send ShipBob inventory

ShipBob has native integrations with leading ecommerce platforms and marketplaces. Once your products are synced, you can ship your inventory to one or more of our fulfilment centre locations. Once orders are placed, they will automatically be sent to ShipBob to be fulfiled and shipped.

Step 2: Set up international shipping options

ShipBob can ship orders internationally, but you have to configure your international shipping options to ensure pricing consistency. Through the ShipBob dashboard, you can easily to map domestic ship options to international ones. Learn how to set up your international ship options in ShipBob here.

Step 3: Set up customs information

The next step is to fill in customs information (tariff codes, sales prices, and detailed descriptions) about each inventory item in ShipBob’s dashboard. Getting this step right will ensure that your shipment flows smoothly across the border without delays.

Step 4: Expand into fulfilment centres across the globe

If you’re seeing a large volume of orders in a different country, you have the option to expand into one of ShipBob’s international fulfilment centre locations. That way, you save on costs and speed up transit times by shipping a bulk of inventory internationally and have international orders fulfiled and shipped within the country.

Distributed inventory

With ShipBob’s network of fulfilment centres, you can strategically split your inventory across our locations to get your products from point A to point B more quickly and affordably. Storing inventory near your customers helps reduce the shipping zones and costs associated with shipping orders to faraway destinations.

Distributed inventory also helps you stay competitive by offering fast shipping to your customers. When an order is placed, ShipBob’s algorithm automatically selects the warehouse and courier that will give you the quickest turnaround at the best price. This strategy has helped our merchants bring 13% savings to their bottom line.

100% Coverage Across the Continental US

If you’re looking to expand into the United States, ShipBob has 2-Day Express Shipping that provides 100% coverage in the continental US from even just one fulfilment centre.

You can also distribute your inventory across ShipBob’s fulfilment centres across all regions of the United States. We leave it up to you to decide where you want us to store your inventory.

Order management

At ShipBob, we track your orders from A to Z. Filter orders by status, search for specific orders, see a quick timeline view of where your order is in the fulfilment process (e.g. when an order is picked, packed, or shipped), easily find shipping-related information (e.g., weights, dimensions, or courier service), and get a quick snapshot of any orders that require action.

With order management software for your direct-to-consumer and wholesale shipments, you can manage subscriptions, make changes to your orders post-purchase, map your store’s shipping options to ShipBob, and automatically share tracking information with your customers.

Reporting and analytics

To provide you with visibility into our operations and performance, and also hold ourselves accountable, ShipBob’s free analytics tool is packed with charts to help you with everything from year-end reporting, to better supply chain decision-making.

Data can be a competitive advantage, and our reports show an analysis of which fulfilment centres you should stock, days of inventory left before you run out, impact of promotions on stock levels, each shipping method’s average cart value, shipping cost, and days in transit, your fulfilment cost per order, storage cost per unit, and much more.

End-to-end customer experience

We care about the customer experience as much as you and strive to be an extension of your team. From custom branded boxes to free plain packaging, ShipBob works with you to provide the unboxing experience you want. We also help you offer the fastest, most cost-effective shipping options to meet your customers’ expectations.

As soon as an order ships, tracking is pushed back to your store. We also offer return management services, allowing customers to generate return shipping labels and track returns, while getting your products processed and back into your available inventory as efficiently as possible.

Save on fulfilment costs

Coffee creamer brand Prymal joined ShipBob in 2019 and was quickly able to save $8,000 per month on fulfilment costs, while at the same time achieving 4x growth.

Learn more about Prymal’s growth

Improve your conversion rate

Not only was BAKblade able to scale internationally by partnering with ShipBob, but they found adding 2-Day Shipping increased their conversions as well.

Learn more about BAKblades’s growth

Store, ship, and grow internationally

Sunglasses brand Ombraz distributed their inventory across 3 fulfilment centres in two different countries. This has allowed them to ship to 55 countries on seven continents.

Learn more about Ombraz’s growth