How ShipBob Offers Smart Warehousing Solutions for Ecommerce Order Fulfilment
Smart warehousing has become the new standard for modern ecommerce stores. Fortunately, it’s never been easier to optimise warehouse processes and management through technology and expertise.
ShipBob offers smart warehousing for fast-growing brands. Our growing warehouse network is powered by our proprietary tech stack designed to automate processes and streamline fulfilment.
When I was gearing up to launch the business, I was looking for someone who would automate fulfilment for us. I chose ShipBob, and it turned out to be a very easy and scalable solution.
Josh Hollings,
Founder & CEO of Drop FX
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What is smart warehousing
Smart warehousing refers to implementing technology and other tools to optimise and streamline the warehousing processes, including logistics automation.
How does smart warehousing work for ecommerce?
With smart warehousing, ecommerce brands can outsource fulfilment to a tech-enabled 3PL like ShipBob. With ShipBob’s growing warehouse network powered by our warehouse management system (WMS), orders are automatically processed, order fulfilment is faster, and orders are automatically shipped daily. Merchants can track the entire inventory and order management process all from dashboard.
3 smart warehousing solutions ShipBob offers
1. Automated order processing
Automated order processing refers to the process of automatically syncing orders from a sales channel to ShipBob to be fulfiled in order to reduce manual work and human error, while automating shipping processes.
2. Box selection algorithm using Cubiscan
ShipBob understands inconsistent packaging can result in the inability to predict fulfilment pricing and uses a box selection algorithm in all fulfilment centres that uses dimensions and your packaging preferences to tell us which package size we should use for any order combination, so your orders will have more consistent fulfilment pricing.
To optimise the box selection process for each order, ShipBob also uses a triple Cubiscan process to ensure accuracy when scanning items at our fulfilment centres. This means our associates are prompted to scan each item three times, and we calculate the variance between scans. If the variance is larger than 0.75 inches, an additional scan is required. This ensures that we select the best suitable packaging for the ordered product each time.
3. Automated sorting
ShipBob’s sorting machines scan every single package. We’ve connected automated courier sort machines to our WMS and assign sort lanes and weight/dim validations for orders that go through our Cubiscan sort machine. The sorting machine reads these values when sorting shipments with quality checks to verify package dimensions and weights, and to automatically sort packages into various courier lanes.
The benefits of automated sorting include labour savings, higher order accuracy rate, enhanced scalability, reduced shipping correction costs, and improved accuracy in the chain of custody with couriers.
Have your own warehouse?
ShipBob has a best-in-class warehouse management system (WMS) for brands that have their own warehouse and need help managing inventory in real time, reducing picking, packing, and shipping errors, and scaling with ease.
With ShipBob’s WMS, brands with their own warehouse can even leverage ShipBob’s fulfilment services in any of ShipBob’s fulfilment centres across the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia to improve cross-border shipping, reduce costs, and speed up deliveries.
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.
How ShipBob improves your fulfilment and logistics
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.
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.
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.
