How Geneva10 Fulfillment Has Shipped Nearly 3M Orders Across 3 Fulfillment Centers Through the ShipBob Fulfillment Network [Case Study]

Learn how Geneva10 Fulfillment partnered with ShipBob to scale their operations and fulfill orders for millions of customers.

Key metrics

• 2.97M orders shipped since starting with ShipBob
• 508 ShipBob customers supported
• 3 SFN sites

About Geneva10 Fulfillment

In the early 2000s when Amazon was just an online bookstore and before “Prime” was part of everyday vocabulary, Mark Becker, the CEO and founder of Geneva10, discovered something that altered his professional trajectory: Amazon expanded their offerings to other consumer goods.  Mark saw the potential of this opportunity and started selling consumer products to retailers. 

It was during this time that Mark learned how to warehouse and ship products himself.

Then in 2009, Mark started Geneva10, a fulfillment and warehousing company, and by 2018, the company was shipping goods to every major retailer and ecommerce site.

In 2020, Mark began researching ShipBob, and found a common ground with ShipBob’s co-founder and CEO, Dhruv Saxena. Mark and Dhruv were able to connect and saw some immediate opportunities. 

We spoke with Mark to learn more about how his company started and scaled with ShipBob to help hundreds of merchants selling online.

Comparing ShipBob with other fulfillment networks

As told to ShipBob by Mark Becker, CEO and Co-Founder of Geneva10 Fulfillment.

Running a tech-forward 3PL business with in-house tech expertise and integration capabilities, I was interested in partnering with another technology-first fulfillment solution to help me expand my business. 

Before I evaluated the landscape, I knew I wanted to work with a single partner. I did a lot of research to understand which would be the best partner, not just immediately but for the long-term. 

After looking into a few potential partners, it was clear to me that ShipBob was the obvious choice. I liked that ShipBob had its own warehouse management system (WMS) and training, plus the way the commercial elements were structured made sense to me. 

ShipBob was the complete package.

Other seemingly similar companies make you price out a quote for each of the prospective customers they bring to you and tell you later if you got the business or not, forcing head-to-head competition all the time in their own network. That makes no sense and is not customer centric. On the opposite end of this approach, ShipBob is truly a partner that makes it simple for us by consistently bringing us new business without the grunt work involved in developing prices and negotiating for each additional merchant. That way, we can focus on servicing the merchants and running the fulfillment centers, which is what we do best.

When I was finishing my evaluation process toward the end of 2020, I was able to talk with ShipBob’s CEO, Dhruv Saxena. We spoke for over an hour. Our visions lined up well and the timing was perfect. Dhruv was expanding the ShipBob Fulfillment Network in the Midwest and I had a new 300,000 sq. ft. warehouse in Wisconsin that I was looking to fill quickly.

Within two months of that conversation with Dhruv, we were receiving ShipBob’s customers’ products to fulfill. During that time working with Dhruv, I was also able to work with Todd Bills, ShipBob’s Chief Logistics Officer, and Anthony Watson, their VP of Strategic Partnerships, which included many in-person visits. From working with Todd and Anthony, I knew ShipBob’s team was full of strong talent, so that made me even more sure of partnering with them.

Expanding from one ShipBob fulfillment center to three

We started out by getting ShipBob up and running in the Twin Lakes, Wisconsin facility. The process of integrating their systems with ours went smoothly, and the whole warehouse filled up quickly with new ShipBob customers. Afterwards, the goal was to replicate that model in additional Geneva10 warehouses.

Our next location was in Phoenix, Arizona, where I had an existing warehouse with 30,000 sq. ft. of unused space. ShipBob was able to rapidly fill that space with new customers’ inventory. After a couple months, we knew it wasn’t going to be enough space, so we more than doubled the amount of space for ShipBob in that facility.

Seeing our success not once, but twice made me want to expand even more with ShipBob. There were two reasons that really drove this: 

1. They have an unmatched pipeline of new customers that fit our specific facilities. There is no way I could match their sales and marketing, and I knew I could rely on them to fill any warehouse in a couple months. 
2. Their technology is intuitive and incredibly easy to use. Compared to other WMS options that we have used for the direct-to-consumer fulfillment side, ShipBob’s technology is as good as it gets. 

When Jessica Will, VP of ShipBob Fulfillment Network, asked if we were interested in opening a new facility in Reno, Nevada, we quickly said yes. 

“We opened a 70,000 sq. ft. warehouse dedicated entirely to fulfilling ShipBob’s orders, which was filled in less than a month.” 

Mark Becker, CEO and Co-Founder of Geneva10 Fulfillment

Working with the right partner pays dividends 

When we partnered with ShipBob, we adopted their technology and process for fulfilling orders for the ShipBob Fulfillment Network. Their WMS is intuitive and our team was able to get the hang of it very quickly. The process of picking and packing orders for ShipBob has been seamless and actually makes it easier to get new hires up to speed faster. 

“ShipBob’s warehouse management software and pricing make sense. They’ve been transparent with us about expectations and margins, and we’ve been transparent with them. The communication and partnership goes both ways and has been really good.” 

Mark Becker, CEO and Co-Founder of Geneva10 Fulfillment

I have a lot of experience with fulfillment technology and warehouse operations, so my advantage is I know the inner workings of the industry. As we were opening locations, I saw how well ShipBob navigated the partnership, implemented the technology, and assisted us with set up – and I knew it would work out well.

“Ultimately with ShipBob, we can fill up new warehouses as fast as possible and get thousands of orders per day from them. To get this incremental volume ourselves, we would have to spend millions and millions of dollars on advertising, but now I don’t have to.”

Mark Becker, CEO and Co-Founder of Geneva10 Fulfillment

To be a successful SFN partner, you need to embrace technology and be driven to lead a team that will excel in a metrics-driven environment to meet SLAs. That’s what’s best to properly run your warehouse and give the best experience to your customers, the merchants you are fulfilling for. And that’s how we’ve been able to stand up the SFN operation in our facilities and fulfill the thousands of orders they send our way each day. ShipBob’s technology allows us to be both efficient and effective.

It’s evident that Geneva10 is going to add more locations and space with ShipBob and continue to perform well and meet SLAs. I’m confident we can always be in ShipBob’s top 20% of SFN partners. I believe in SFN and I know that it’s going to be incredibly impactful on the fulfillment industry. What ShipBob is doing is revolutionary – this type of fulfillment model hasn’t been done before. Getting involved with SFN is a no-brainer. I’m in this for the long haul.

ShipBob is invested in the success of their partners and merchants, and holds themselves and their partners to high standards and SLAs. They have an entire field operations team in place to support their SFN partners and ensure that ShipBob’s high standards are maintained. It’s clear that ShipBob really cares about their SFN partners and wants to see us be successful.