Want to jump straight to the answer? The best ecommerce fulfillment service for most people is ShipBob or Red Stag Fulfillment.
Warehousing, packaging, and shipping orders to customers on your own is tough to manage at scale. Ecommerce fulfillment services solve this problem by handling these tasks on your behalf.
Outsourcing ecommerce fulfillment ensures that orders get to your customers quickly and efficiently—saving you time and money. This gives you an opportunity to focus on other areas of your ecommerce business that will set you up for exponential growth.
The Top 5 Best Ecommerce Fulfillment Services
- ShipBob – Best ecommerce fulfillment platform
- Red Stag Fulfillment – Best for high-value and large products
- ShipMonk – Best for subscription boxes
- Dot Foods – Best for food and beverage ecommerce
- Easyship – Best for international fulfillment
Whether you’re starting a new ecommerce site or you’ve been selling online for years, this guide will help you find the best ecommerce fulfillment services for your unique needs.
ShipBob — Best Ecommerce Fulfillment Platform
- Two-day shipping
- D2C and B2B fulfillment
- Omnichannel support
- International fulfillment
ShipBob is an omnichannel ecommerce solution that’s trusted by over 7,000+ online businesses. They boast a 99.95% fulfillment accuracy rate and make it easy for brands to scale operations.
As an end-to-end fulfillment provider, ShipBob helps distribute your inventory across its network of fulfillment centers to ensure products are shipped faster and at a lower cost to you. They have global supply chain and fulfillment solutions across the US, Canada, UK, EU, and Australia.
In addition to its exceptional fulfillment services, ShipBob’s web-based fulfillment platform makes it stand out from the crowd. This easy-to-use portal has everything you need to manage your fulfillment needs from a single source of truth.
You can use the platform to track real-time inventory levels from any location and get notifications when you need to reorder. You’ll also benefit from built-in reports and robust analytics related to your supply chain.
The platform supports ecommerce sites, Amazon, Facebook, Etsy, eBay, Walmart, brick-and-mortar locations, and more. You can use the service for B2B fulfillment and retailer dropshipping as well.
ShipBob also offers fast two-day shipping on orders in the US.
Pricing is customized based on your product types and unique needs. It includes picking, packaging, storage, and customer support. The ShipBob software is free with its fulfillment services.
Red Stag Fulfillment — Best For High-Value and Large Products
- Custom package designs
- Optimized packaging
- Two-day fulfillment
- Secure warehouses
Red Stag Fulfillment is an all-in-one solution for ecommerce fulfillment. For six years in a row, they’ve been named the best fulfillment service for larger products and high-value goods.
If you fall into a niche ecommerce category and have unique packaging needs or special shipping requirements, Red Stag Fulfillment gets the job done.
Red Stag Fulfillment has two strategically placed warehouses in different regions of the US. If you keep your inventory at both of these locations, they can offer two-day fulfillment on 96% of orders.
You can rest easy knowing your inventory is safe in a Red Stag Fulfillment warehouse. They use state-of-the-art security systems and have 24-hour monitoring both inside and outside of the locations. This is a nice touch for merchants selling high-value products.
When you partner with Red Stag Fulfillment, you’ll also benefit from its ecommerce logistics expertise. This includes optimized packaging, package consolidation, and custom package designs.
These services help ensure that your products are not only safe and protected during transport but also save you money during the process.
Contact Red Stag Fulfillment to learn more about pricing options. You can sign up for a 30-day risk-free trial to get started. If you’re not 100% satisfied, you won’t be billed for any fulfillment service fees.
ShipMonk — Best For Subscription Boxes
- Starts at $2.50 per box
- Custom packaging
- Volume discounts
- Omnichannel integrations
ShipMonk is a rapidly growing player in the ecommerce fulfillment space. They currently have ten fulfillment centers across the US, Canada, Mexico, and the UK, with new locations in Europe opening soon.
This award-winning fulfillment solution provides a wide range of services for ecommerce sites, Amazon sellers, eBay, Walmart, Shopify, and other sales channels.
ShipMonk offers a unique service—subscription box fulfillment—which isn’t something you’ll find from other brands in this space.
The subscription box service comes with kitting and assembly. This ensures that your customers will have a great unboxing experience. ShipMonk works closely with you to ensure you’re happy with the total presentation of the boxes, including how those products are assembled in the box and how the box looks when it’s closed.
ShipMonk provides custom packaging procedures to accommodate a wide range of needs. If your products are coming from multiple vendors, they strip away any unnecessary wrapping and even remove manufacturer labels.
Pricing for monthly subscription boxes starts at $2.50 per box and includes kitting of five items. They offer volume discounts, so your price per box will actually decrease as your subscription service scales.
Storage, special projects, additional materials, and other one-offs are not included in this pricing. You can get a personalized quote to learn more.
Dot Foods — Best For Food and Beverage Ecommerce
- B2C and B2B fulfillment
- Dry, frozen, & refrigerated goods
- Custom kitting and repackaging
- Real-time inventory management
Dot Foods is the largest food industry redistributor in North America. They offer a wide range of solutions, including ecommerce fulfillment, shipping optimization, samples management, packaging, assembly, and more.
They have 14 distribution centers across the US and Canada that handle over 133,000 unique food service products.
As the name implies, this service is strictly for ecommerce businesses that sell food online. Dot Foods can handle ecommerce fulfillment for both B2C and B2B operations.
They offer solutions for dry, refrigerated, and frozen foods shipped directly to your customers. With multi-temperature storage and shipping capabilities, Dot Foods ensures that your orders stay fresh throughout the process.
Take advantage of custom kits and repackaging services. Not only does this make your products look more professional when it arrives to your customers, but it also helps you save money on storage and shipping expenses.
You’ll also benefit from a real-time order management system and a centralized inventory dashboard.
Contact Dot Foods to request pricing information and learn more about the service.
Easyship — Best For International Fulfillment
- Ships to 220+ Countries
- Crowdfunding Campaigns
- 24/7 Support
- Starts at $29
If you’re running an international ecommerce operation, look no further than Easyship.
Easyship has more than 50+ global warehouses and ships products to over 220+ countries. That’s why these fulfillment services are trusted by 100,000+ happy business customers.
With Easyship, your ecommerce operation is poised for international growth. They work with warehouse partners on four continents to ensure your inventory is close to global customers without having to deal with long-term leases.
Another cool standout of Easyship is its ability to accommodate crowdfunding campaigns. So you don’t have to be a huge company to sell internationally. Easyship makes this possible even for new ecommerce businesses and startups.
Easyship also helps you navigate the rough waters of import taxes, duties, and tariffs. They can help streamline your logistics and supply chain to ensure you’re not paying unnecessary fees as products cross international borders.
You’ll also benefit from exceptional 24/7 support and tight inventory management systems.
Pricing is based on shipments per month and is free for less than 100 orders. The service starts at $29 and $49 per month for up to 500 and 2,500 orders per month, respectively. Easyship offers custom enterprise pricing for businesses that exceed these volumes.
Sign up for a 30-day free trial to get started.
How to Find the Best Ecommerce Fulfillment Services For You
All ecommerce fulfillment solutions have the same basic service offerings. They’ll store your inventory, package orders, and ship goods to your customers.
But within this broad category, there are different solutions on the market that cater to the unique needs of different ecommerce businesses. Websites selling iPhone cases directly to consumers will likely have very different fulfillment needs than a wholesale kombucha provider.
Use the factors and considerations below as a buying guide to help narrow down your options.
Scalability
One of the first things you should do when you’re evaluating an ecommerce fulfillment service is look at the number of warehouses they have and where those distribution centers are located.
This can help determine whether or not you’ll be restricted as your company grows in the coming years.
For example, there are some ecommerce fulfillment services that only have two warehouses located in the United States. This might be fine for smaller companies with a regional customer base. You can still use this service to scale coast-to-coast.
But if you have customers in Canada, Mexico, and the UK, US-based warehouses alone won’t be enough to accommodate your growth.
Supply Chain Expertise
The best ecommerce fulfillment services go above and beyond to ensure products are shipped quickly and at the lowest possible cost. If you have customers located in different regions and countries, you should look for a solution that offers some white-glove consultancy to help you out.
This type of guidance can save you a ton of money on shipping costs at scale.
Try to partner with a fulfillment service that not only has the infrastructure you need to scale but also the consultancy to help you achieve those goals. Having someone you can talk to about expanding to a new region is an invaluable service. They can walk you through any logistical challenges and costs associated with supply chain changes.
Technology
In addition to storing, packaging, and fulfilling your ecommerce orders, you should also look for a provider that offers a robust back-office solution to manage your needs.
This typically comes in the form of a web-based dashboard where you can track inventory, forecast costs, and set up custom reordering.
Every ecommerce business can benefit from this type of fulfillment platform. But this is especially useful if you have uneven sales cycles. For example, if your business is seasonal, software can help you mitigate those challenges and ensure you’re not wasting money on storage costs in July if your busy season isn’t until December.
Product Types
It’s in your best interest to work with an ecommerce fulfillment service that has experience in your product category. In some cases, this is more obvious than others.
For example, if you’re selling food online, you definitely need to work with specialty fulfillment services. They’ll have storage and shipping solutions for dry foods, frozen foods, and refrigerated foods as well.
For those of you who are selling high-value or heavy products, not every fulfillment service can accommodate those needs. Some providers have restrictions and won’t handle any products over 40 or 50 pounds.
Subscription boxes are another unique category in the ecommerce space. Businesses in this segment need to find a fulfillment service that puts the extra effort into custom kitting and packaging—especially if your products are being sourced from multiple manufacturers.
Fulfillment and Shipping Times
We’re living in an era where customers expect orders to be delivered fast. Amazon has really set the bar with free two-day shipping.
For consumer products, you should look for a service that matches this offering.
Saying they offer two-day shipping isn’t the same as delivering on that promise. So just be aware of this as you’re comparing different fulfillment solutions. Always read the fine print to see if they’re held accountable for failing to meet shipping promises.
The best fulfillment services won’t charge you for orders that don’t meet the SLA.
If orders arrive late to customers, it ends up being a poor reflection of you and your business. The end-users don’t care about who is handling your fulfillment. All they know is the brand that they ordered from.
The Top Ecommerce Fulfillment Services in Summary
The best ecommerce fulfillment services make it easy for online businesses to warehouse inventory, package products, and deliver orders to customers. Outsourcing fulfillment can help save you time, money, and poise your brand for growth.
ShipBob and Red Stag Fulfillment are the best fulfillment services for most people. But you can use the buying considerations and recommendations in this guide to help narrow down the best option for you.
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