Streamline Educational Publishing Fulfillment With ShipBob’s 3PL Network, Technology, and Expertise

Handle semester-driven order spikes and heavy textbook shipments with ShipBob’s fulfillment solutions.

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What educational publishers need from a fulfillment partner

From surging seasonal demand to managing thousands of SKUs across multiple channels, educational publishers face unique logistics challenges. Here’s what to look for in a 3PL that can keep up with your business.

Extreme seasonality tied to academic calendars

Orders surge at the start of each term, so inventory has to move quickly without driving up storage costs in slower months. Choose a logistics partner that offers flexible storage and scalable fulfillment capacity.

Balancing bulk B2B and DTC orders

Publishers often ship pallet loads to campus bookstores and one textbook to a dorm room on the same day. Both experiences must be reliable and fast. Work with a distribution provider that can handle both bulk freight and single-item parcel shipping with equal speed and accuracy.

High shipping costs for heavy printed materials

Dense, multi-pound books lead to high carrier fees, especially when shipped across multiple zones. Leverage a fulfillment network with strategically located warehouses in different regions of the country to shorten shipping distances and reduce carrier costs.

Edition control and expanding SKU counts

New ISBNs and revised editions add thousands of similar SKUs that must stay organized to avoid costly fulfillment errors. Rely on an inventory system with precise SKU tracking and barcode verification to keep every edition organized and shipped correctly.

Labor-intensive kitting for class sets and bundles

Combining books with workbooks, flashcards, and other items before the rush takes time and warehouse space. Choose a fulfillment provider that offers advanced kitting, bundling, and/or rules to set up that dictate what items to automatically add to orders based on what’s ordered, as well as efficient storage solutions, so multi-item sets are ready to ship as soon as orders come in.

ShipBob fulfillment solutions that educational publishers care about

ShipBob’s tech-enabled network is designed to handle the complexities of textbook and learning kit fulfillment. Here are the key ways we help educational brands deliver on time and on budget.

Smarter inventory planning & placement

ShipBob’s platform analyzes your historical sales data and leverages forecasting models to recommend ideal stock levels ahead of each term. Our Inventory Placement Program (IPP) in the US then strategically distributes inventory across different regions of the country for you, so heavy textbooks travel fewer zones and arrive sooner, significantly reducing shipping costs.

One platform for B2B and DTC fulfillment

Route campus bookstore POs, retail EDI orders, and direct-to-student parcels through the same dashboard, all drawing from a shared, real-time inventory pool. Whether it’s a pallet or a single item ordered, you get real-time visibility and control across all channels, without juggling multiple 3PLs and/or freight partners.

Cost-effective shipping for heavyweight books

ShipBob offers USPS Media Mail for eligible media in the US, and our box selection algorithm matches each shipment to the smallest-sized practical box to prevent a higher-than-necessary dimensional weight. By storing inventory closer to major buyer hubs and leveraging zone skipping options through ShipBob Logistics’ middle-mile network, brands keep per-package costs low while still offering dependable delivery.

Organized product catalog & SKU visibility

Centralize all your product editions and variants within ShipBob’s intuitive Product Catalog, merge duplicate SKUs across channels for a single source of truth, and ensure accurate fulfillment with barcode-enabled processes at every step. Your team gains real-time inventory visibility by SKU across all fulfillment center locations, helping to prevent stockouts and improve order accuracy.

Ship at your peak season(s)

Need a class set that includes a workbook and flashcard pack or another combination of various products? You can sell multiple items together pre-checkout, while ShipBob picks and ships the individual components from your inventory to make managing digital bundles a breeze. It’s easy to set up digitally, doesn’t require manual labor ahead of time, and helps you stay lean during peak fulfillment periods.

Straightforward returns management

When products come back, ShipBob can restock, quarantine, or dispose of each unit based on your preferences. Status updates flow to your dashboard so you have the information you need to decide next steps without dedicating internal staff to the process. And returns can be sent back to you or another non-ShipBob location. Companies can also choose to donate eligible items.

Seamless retail distribution & dropshipping

Expand into online and brick-and-mortar channels, like including Barnes & Noble, Staples, and Office Depot, without adding new logistics partners. ShipBob supports EDI-automated fulfillment for both dropshipping and retail distribution, helping you meet retailer routing guides and manage inventory from a single platform.

Educational products publishers ship with ShipBob

Textbooks
Workbooks & study guides
Flashcards
Early learning board books

Classroom activity kits (compact)
Test prep books
Language-learning books

STEM or reading comprehension booklets
Teacher resource books & curriculum guides
Compact educational games, puzzles, or manipulatives

ShipBob services all customers benefit from

Connectivity & integrations: ShipBob’s 50+ turnkey integrations with all major ecommerce channels and tools – including Shopify, Gorgias, Klaviyo, NetSuite, Loop, AfterShip, and more – enable you to grow your business smarter, faster, and stronger than ever before. In addition to the ShipBob App Store that lets you instantly connect your tech stack, you can also leverage ShipBob’s Develop API for custom builds.
Transparent, cost-effective pricing: Unlike many 3PLs, ShipBob has easy-to-predict billing that makes it easy to plan for spend, without too many line items. ShipBob also negotiates rates with carriers and passes those savings on to you.
Real-time visibility: Track shipments, orders, and inventory across locations from one dashboard. Manage one pool of inventory across sales channels and push stock levels back to your store so you don’t oversell.
Full-stack fulfillment platform: With ShipBob, you get an all-in-one OMS, IMS, WMS, RMS, TMS, and analytics for a consolidated tech stack. ShipBob’s platform acts as a mini-ERP, being a single source of truth for your orders and inventory.
Easy, comprehensive onboarding: We’ve onboarded thousands of ecommerce merchants and helped some of the fastest-growing brands scale effortlessly. Our implementation team sets you up for success with everything from configuring your ship options, to syncing your online store.
Support for growth: ShipBob aims to be the last fulfillment partner you’ll need. Whether you’re shipping 1,000 orders per month or 200,000, we have you covered. With a large fulfillment network to scale into, new channels to expand into, and additional capabilities to tap into, you won’t outgrow ShipBob.

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How it works

How ShipBob goes from your online store to your customer’s door

1. Connect
Connect your store, import your products, then send us your inventory.

2. Store
We store your inventory in any combination of our fulfillment centers.

3. Ship
As soon as a customer places an order, we ship it from the nearest fulfillment center.

How it works

FAQs about education and publishing fulfillment

How does ShipBob handle the extreme seasonality of academic publishing?

ShipBob has dozens of fulfillment centers across the world, allowing you to scale up when strong periods of high demand hit. Additionally, our software leverages historical sales data and seasonal trends to provide insights for optimal stock levels. Our Inventory Placement Program (IPP) can even be used to distribute inventory across different regions of the US before your peak season(s), which is especially beneficial for heavier items like textbooks.

This approach helps prevent stockouts and works to minimize overall fulfillment costs by getting products closer to customers.

Can ShipBob fulfill both large volume B2B orders and individual direct-to-consumer shipments?

Yes. ShipBob’s platform supports bulk freight and parcel orders for B2B orders across the world, and retail EDI for major US-based retailers. All these order types can pull from a shared pool of inventory.

Does ShipBob offer USPS Media Mail or other low-cost services for heavy books?

For eligible media items shipping from ShipBob’s US fulfillment centers, you can use USPS Media Mail. The platform also uses a proprietary algorithm to select the most cost-effective carrier option for your order, considering factors like weight, dimensions, and shipping destination. For heavier items, this can significantly impact shipping costs by optimizing the route.

How can ShipBob help us forecast demand and avoid stockouts each semester?

Your ShipBob dashboard provides inventory insights, including sell-through rates, and can let you factor in manufacturer lead times to surface replenishment alerts well before you run low. This allows you to prepare and send inbound inventory to ShipBob to meet future demand.

What safeguards prevent the wrong edition or ISBN from being sent?

ShipBob’s Product Catalog manages unique SKUs and can merge identical products across different sales channels to maintain a single source of truth for your inventory counts.

Can ShipBob kit books with workbooks, flashcards, or access-code cards?

Absolutely. You can provide the components and instructions via a kitting request, and once approved, ShipBob will pre-assemble them into kits under a dedicated SKU, making them ready to ship as soon as orders come in. Or, you can set up product bundles to sell several items as a single product online and have us pick each item individually while deducting individual unit counts from each SKU that makes up the bundle.

How are returns handled?

You can select one of three return preferences (restock, quarantine, or dispose) for each SKU in your dashboard. Once the returned product arrives at a fulfillment center, the chosen action is executed and reflected in your dashboard. Alternatively, you can have returns sent back to you directly or elsewhere. Outside of the returns workflow, for products like textbooks, you can even donate them to nonprofits in need by creating a donation order.

Which ecommerce platforms does ShipBob connect with?

Turnkey integrations include Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Amazon, Walmart, and dozens of other platforms, along with an open API for custom builds to connect your tech stack.

Do you support international shipping for educational materials, and how are duties handled?

Yes. ShipBob can ship to hundreds of international destinations. In addition to Delivered Duty Unpaid (DDU) for international orders, Delivered Duty Paid (DDP) shipping is available to help provide customers with transparent landed costs and prevent surprise fees at delivery, though merchants are responsible for providing complete and accurate customs information for each product shipped internationally.

What kind of real-time visibility and reporting will our team receive from ShipBob?

Your ShipBob dashboard provides real-time and historical visibility into inventory levels by location, order status, transit times, and fulfillment costs. You can also download comprehensive reports or set up automated replenishment alerts to share insights and proactively manage your supply chain.