Cart abandonment is one of the biggest problems that ecommerce companies face. When a customer sees a high shipping price, they quickly abandon cart. On the contrary, low shipping costs can prompt customers to spend more, increasing average order value (AOV).

A smart fulfillment strategy is a top priority for most ecommerce businesses, and it turns out it is easier said than done. One of the biggest limitations however is only shipping from a single Michigan fulfillment center. 

If you understand the concept of shipping zones, the areas mail carriers use to determine the distance a package must travel, then you know the further away the destination is from the package’s origin, the higher the zone and the more expensive shipping is and the longer the delivery takes. 

If your customers live outside of Michigan (e.g., on the East Coast, West Coast, or in the South), then your shipping costs will quickly rise up.

ShipBob is a 3PL that can solve this problem for you with a vast fulfillment network, allowing you to store inventory in the location(s) that make the most sense for you based on your customer shipping destinations. 

What do ShipBob customers think?

ShipBob works with thousands of ecommerce brands who are based in all corners of the world. By helping merchants understand where their customers are, ShipBob helps them save money and have orders reach customers faster. 

“Speed is important to our customers. Storing inventory in different regions is key to reducing costs and transit times. From expanding into a second ShipBob fulfillment center, we are excited to be able to offer 65% of our customers with 2-day shipping, up from 32% by only having a single West Coast facility. Soon, this will be 100%. Not only is this better for our customers but we also gain a 13% savings to our bottom line.” 

Pablo Gabatto, Business Operations Manager at Ample Foods

Ecommerce order fulfillment in Michigan

With ShipBob, our onboarding process helps you configure your account, connect your technology, and meet your goals. Here’s how it works in a few simple steps: 

1. Sync your store with ShipBob’s platform, so orders can be sent to us as soon as they’re placed.
2. Choose your shipping methods and use our intuitive software to set up your unique solutions for the best customer experience. 
3. Check your data and see where your customers live, and choose a ShipBob fulfillment center (or multiple fulfillment centers) that’s closest to your customer base. 
4. Ship your products to our fulfillment center(s).
5. We pick, pack, and ship each order placed at your store.
6. You and the customer have easy access to package tracking info. 

Distribute your inventory

As your order volume grows, it may warrant you entering new warehouses. One of the big advantages ShipBob can offer you over other 3PLs is our distributed inventory model — a proven way to reduce shipping costs and speed up delivery times by reducing your average shipping zone. You can pass the cost-savings from distributed inventory on to your customers.

Track orders and stock levels

While we take care of the nitty-gritty details of fulfillment, you can supervise the entire process from your ShipBob dashboard. Monitor your stock levels and set reorder points so you don’t run out of inventory, view and search for outstanding orders, and track packages with ease. 

Offer a unique unboxing experience

Unlike many other 3PLs that sneak in hidden packaging fees, ShipBob includes standard packaging in your quote — there are no extra line items for plain boxes, mailers, tape, and dunnage. We also let you offer the world-class unboxing experience you want by using your own custom packaging. 

Order fulfillment services for Michigan brands

With ShipBob, you can optimize your shipping, improve KPIs, save time, and boost customer satisfaction and loyalty without using a single small fulfillment center in Michigan to do it but rather ShipBob’s network not just in the Midwest but even across the globe. Here are some of the benefits our customers have experienced after outsourcing fulfillment. 

Decrease in abandoned carts

The higher your shipping costs, the more likely that customers will abandon their carts. By distributing your inventory and lowering costs, you can charge customers less (or even offer free shipping thresholds using a minimum spend policy). As a result, you’ll see fewer shopping carts abandoned and more sales conversions.

Weighted blanket company My Calm Blanket saw their cart abandonment decrease by 18% after partnering with ShipBob.

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Ship orders the same day they are placed

If you’re fulfilling all of your orders in-house, then retail fulfillment is likely a bottleneck for your business. Your team can only pack and ship so many orders in a day. With ShipBob, you can adopt the resources and infrastructure to ship any amount of orders, and our technology and dedicated fulfillment teams enabled rapid shipping turnarounds.

With ShipBob’s help, luxury pillow brand Doris Sleep was able to reduce lag time from when an order was placed on her site by a major influencer — ShipBob shipped that order out in just 67 minutes and the influencer tweeted about it. And 99.7% of all their orders placed by noon are shipped out the same day. 

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Extend your shipping reach

With just a single Michigan-based fulfillment center, you’ll have to pay a fortune to ship cross-country, let alone to other countries. ShipBob’s infrastructure and reach can extend your shipping capabilities not only all over the United States, but all over the globe. 

We’ve helped thousands of businesses ship countless international orders. 

One of our clients, The Adventure Challenge chose ShipBob for not just US fulfillment services but to expand all over the world. Today, they’re using ShipBob’s fulfillment centers in the US, Australia, Canada, the UK, and the EU.

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

The “right” time will be different for each ecommerce business based on what your challenges are. If your fulfillment team can still comfortably fulfill all of your orders and you can offer decent shipping rates, then outsourcing may not be necessary. But, for businesses struggling to scale or trying to optimize their shipping, a 3PL can be a game changer. 

Here are some common problems faced by commerce businesses that can be remedied outsourcing fulfillment: 

• Your inventory or order management systems are out of date.
• Your warehouse is overcrowded and you’re running out of space. 
• You are using a Michigan fulfillment center and spend too much on cross-country shipping and your customers wait for your products for too long.
• Your fulfillment process takes too long, or your fulfillment team makes too many errors.
• Your team spends too much time packing boxes. 

Ready to get your orders fulfilled by the pros? Contact ShipBob below. 

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We ship all over the world

We use our network of fulfillment centers to help you strategically split and manage your inventory to reduce shipping costs and transit times.

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• Grand Rapids, MI