The early stages of growth are some of the most exciting times for an ecommerce business owner. Orders start streaming in faster and your customer base grows. At this point, it’s time to think through a strategy on how to scale. This is the time that many ecommerce companies consider outsourcing fulfillment to a 3PL.

A 3PL can take all of the hassles of retail fulfillment off your hands, save you a ton of time, and make your shipping more efficient. But not all 3PLs are created equal. It’s important to choose a 3PL partner that will not only save you time and energy, but also help you leverage shipping to grow faster. 

This is where ShipBob comes in. 

ShipBob is a 3PL that brings a unique approach to order fulfillment. We can lower your shipping costs, speed up delivery times, and help boost your bottom line with a distribution model known as distributed inventory.

With this model, rather than shipping from one Ontario-based fulfillment center, you can split your inventory across multiple fulfillment centers spread across the US (from the West Coast in California to the East Coast in Pennsylvania). 

With your inventory stored closer to your customers, you can offer superior rates and delivery times, which in turn leads to more sales and higher average order value (AOV). 

Hear from Canadian company that partnered with ShipBob

Luxury bath brand Bathorium needed a 3PL with a strong US presence, so they partnered with ShipBob. Now, they are able to reduce shipping costs, expedite transit times, and have seen an increase in conversions. 

“Our greatest barrier was how expensive it was to ship from Canada, costing about 50% of our average order value. We spent anywhere from $18 to $25 for a one-pound shipment, and it would take a minimum of 7-10 business days to reach the destination. Since working with ShipBob, we’ve seen a 70% reduction in shipping costs.”

Greg MacDonald, CEO & founder of Bathorium

Hear from a US company using ShipBob’s Canadian fulfillment center

As BAKblade expanded their online presence into Canada, both directly and selling through Walmart, they knew they needed a trusted fulfillment 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

Order fulfillment for Ontario ecommerce businesses

With ShipBob, you can use our Ontario fulfillment centerbut yoou’ll have a whole network of fulfillment centers at your disposal, and you can ship from any one of them and expand into others. 

Here’s how it works: 

• Connect your online store to ShipBob’s platform (that way, we’re notified whenever an order is placed on your store). 
• Choose which ShipBob fulfillment center(s) you would like to store your products and ship your products to us. 
• With your store connected and your inventory with us, we can start fulfilling orders right away. Picking lists are automatically generated and our fulfillment experts prepare and ship the order. 

Additional benefits to partnering with ShipBob

Best-in-class technology

Our distribution infrastructure is linked by proprietary software that integrates with your existing tech stack. We’re partners with Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and other top ecommerce platforms. 

Our platform also comes with built-in inventory and order management technology that gives you both a high-level summary and the details you need to manage your business on a daily basis. 

Incisive data analytics

Your ability to interpret data will play a major role in the success of your business: like ensuring that you have enough inventory and that orders are placed with vendors at the right time. ShipBob makes this easy — we interpret the data for you, with a powerful analytics platform that automatically generates  distribution metrics and can help you optimize your supply chain.

Dedicated customer care

At ShipBob, we understand that you come to us to help make running your business easier, and we make sure to follow through on that by always providing responsive customer care. With dedicated account managers for enterprise clients and on-site customer service reps, you’ll always be taken care of. 

State-of-the-art order fulfillment services in Ontario

ShipBob has worked with thousands of businesses all over the US (and even the world), and we have a proven track record of improving important metrics for businesses. Here are some of the ways our clients have benefitted from partnering with ShipBob. 

Higher AOV

Customers factor the cost of shipping into their purchasing decisions, so when you cut shipping costs by shipping from multiple fulfillment center with ShipBob, then you can expect to see an increase in AOV. This is what happened to sunglasses brand Rainbow OPTX, who saw a 24% increase in AOV once they started offering 2-day shipping via ground. 

[Read more]

Less shopping cart abandonment

The same factors that drive down AOV tend to increase cart abandonment: namely, high shipping costs and long delivery times. When you reduce shipping zones with ShipBob, then not only does AOV go up, but cart abandonment goes down. Case in point: weighted blanket company My Calm Blanket cut a hefty 18% off their cart abandonment rate after partnering with ShipBob.

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Faster scaling

With the resources and infrastructure of a 3PL at your disposal, there’s no limit to how fast you can grow. Better shipping rates means more sales, and there’s no bottleneck on manpower or resources as there may be if you are fulfilling in-house.

We’ve helped companies navigate explosive growth, such as deodorant company Touchland who had 34,000 customers on their waitlist for their hand sanitizer product. 

[Read more]

How do I know it’s the right time to outsource fulfillment to a 3PL?

There’s a sweet spot for when you should hire a 3PL: too soon and you’ll be incurring a significant cost without the underlying ecommerce order volume to justify it, but too late and you may miss out on opportunities for growth.

The right time to outsource fulfillment is different for each business, but here are some common signs that often indicate it’s time to outsource: 

• You and your team spend too much time calculating shipping costs and packing boxes.
• You want to offer faster and more affordable cross-country shipping options.
• Your inventory levels and SKUs don’t match product on the shelf and you need real-time inventory management tools to stay on top of it. 
• You want to expand into new markets but don’t have the resources or infrastructure in place. 
• Your storage fees and fulfillment costs are keeping your profit margins thin.

If the above fulfillment problems match yours, working with a third-party order fulfillment company may help. Whether it be managing ecommerce warehousing, setting up an inventory management system, offering two-day shipping, or just improving your overall fulfillment process, ShipBob can help.

To learn more about ShipBob’s order fulfillment services, fill out the form below to request a quote.

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