Oct 22, 2021 | newsroom
According to a new market research report “Smart Warehousing Market by Component (Hardware, Solutions, and Services), Technology (IoT & Analytics, RFID, AGV), Application (Inventory Management, Order Management), Organization Size, Deployment Mode, Vertical, and Region – Global Forecast to 2026” published by MarketsandMarkets™, the smart warehousing market size to grow from USD 14.8 billion in 2021 to USD 25.4 billion by 2026, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 11.5% during the forecast period. Various factors such as the proliferation of smartphones for faster goods management, the rising advancement in the eCommerce industry due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the emergence of multi-channel distribution networks, and the dynamic nature and globalization of supply chain networks are expected to drive the adoption of smart warehousing hardware, solutions, and services. However, the market faces restraints, such as a lack of uniform governance standards in the fragmented logistics industry and growing data security and privacy concerns.
Read more at OpenPR
Oct 21, 2021 | 3PL Warehouse Management, Best Practices, Blog, Fulfillment, Warehouse Management Software
By: Aaron Rubin, Founder & CEO of ShipHero
- You can’t enter the 2021 holiday season without taking a critical look at your inventory and fulfillment procedures. It’s as simple as stepping back from the business and asking yourself: What looks ridiculously stupid here?
- Protect your business now from the ups and downs of peak season staffing changes and current labor shortages. Start with the basics: a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and consistent training protocol.
- Boost your holiday sales with complementary products or by partnering with third-party marketplaces.
If you’ve been in business for a while, and maybe expanded your facilities but would like to scale even further, it’s time to stop trying to be a superhero. Managing all facets of your brand’s operations singlehandedly leaves it vulnerable to mistakes.
Mistakes can be devastating for an eCommerce business during a season as important as the holidays.
I recently spoke with Steve Hutt on the eCommerce Fastlane podcast about how to avoid overselling and other classic faux pas committed by fast-growing eCommerce merchants.
We discussed why you’re most vulnerable to the invisible retention vampire during peak season, how your staffing and inventory management can improve with closer attention to internal processes, and how tools like ShipHero can facilitate the kind of growth you never thought possible.
I lay out five central pieces of advice for you here, but I highly recommend listening to the episode for the full details of our conversation.
1. Look at Your Business From a Bird’s Eye View
When you’re busy overseeing warehouse operations and making sure the day’s orders go out, you get stuck in a dangerous, all-too-common loop. One new hire or unexpected increase in sales can leave you barely managing chaos.
Like many entrepreneurs, you can’t see the proverbial forest for the trees. Then, peak season pops up and only highlights your weaknesses.
Before considering how you’ll profit from Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) 2021, it’s important to zoom out.
Be a drone: Look at your business from an outside perspective and get honest with yourself. Which things are you and your team doing that simply don’t make sense?
It might be helpful to bring in an unbiased friend or family member to observe how things work (or don’t work) in your shipping and receiving methods. You might be surprised at the inefficiencies they catch — and that’s the idea.
Getting radically honest with yourself about what’s not serving your business infrastructure and long-term goals is the first step in making productive change.
2. Prioritize Accurate Inventory
The reality is that most merchants don’t think about having a process for inventory management. They just stick with what they’ve always done, even if their business is no longer in its infancy.
Don’t be like most. Don’t unknowingly oversell.
Telling a customer you can’t follow through on what you said you had in stock might seem like a normal part of the eCommerce business, but it shouldn’t be. You should know what you have in stock at any given moment, and that should be properly reflected live on your website and on any third-party marketplaces.
Overselling is an invisible vampire. It can suck away your potential for customer retention faster than anything else — especially during the holiday season.
Q4 has the potential to be your most profitable — and it has the same potential to destroy your reputation. It’s hard to predict how the courier companies are going to handle the demand this year, so overselling could mean being responsible for holiday gifts not being delivered on time. Disappointed customers will spread their negative experiences with your company all over social media. You may not be able to survive those negative Twitter mentions, so it’s best to avoid them altogether.
Luckily, most of the inventory problems that could lead to the dreaded overselling problem are easily addressable.
???? Check out our video resources on the ShipHero YouTube channel to start reworking your processes before the peak is truly upon us.
3. Protect Your Staff With Defined Internal Processes
In the critical holiday months, there’s no time for delays, but that’s exactly what the industry as a whole may face this year. Things may feel like they’re slowly returning to normal post-pandemic, but you’d be remiss not to prepare for additional COVID variants and restrictions, which could lead to unpredictable staffing issues.
Preempt the effects of the current labor shortage and seasonal staff turnover by delineating your SOP and training protocol now.
One of the best strategies to eliminate some of this risk is to cross-train your team so your key staff members aren’t irreplaceable. You should have training manuals for each role (accessible in the cloud). Set aside time for staff to document how they do their jobs before you hit the peak busy period. That way, anyone can step in if need be.
When you have systems in place, your team and warehouse will be ready to onboard new hires and adjust to temporary employee absences despite an uptick in sales.
4. Adopt Scalable Tools
When you first opened your business, you probably had no choice but to wear all the hats.
From product research and manufacturing decisions to listing optimization and warehouse operations, you learned and did it all. But with growth comes growing pains, and it could be time to bring in some help in the form of automation.
To determine where you could use some tech solutions, start by identifying what you do best and what you like to do. Where are your time and skills most valuable? Stay true to that, and then use tools like ShipHero to replace you in the areas that exhaust your time and energy.
As Steve wisely remarked on the podcast, “Be intentional. Stop using duct tape.”
If you think peak season isn’t the right time to adopt new tools, think again. Of course, you don’t want to be trying out a new IMS during the week of Black Friday, but jumping in head-first in anticipation of your highest sales all year is a great way to test out whether the system will work for you long-term.
At ShipHero, we’re returning to our roots and helping you get rid of any duct tape you’ve been relying on thus far. We know small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) can grow bigger faster with the right guidance.
5. Consider Third-Party Marketplace Opportunities
Third-party marketplaces offer a huge opportunity to eCommerce sellers. With the right inventory management software, you can mitigate the risk of overselling and grow your brand’s reach.
Marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, and Etsy attract millions of buyers every single month. By listing your products with these and other retail giants, you’re putting your products in front of a whole new audience who wouldn’t have otherwise discovered you. It’s the equivalent of coming across an exciting new product on a Target endcap. Smaller brands benefit from the power of big-box visibility, and so can you.
Ideally, you’ll be able to implement omnichannel eCommerce and marketing strategies before the holidays. Bear in mind that this won’t work for you if you’re experiencing inbound stock issues heading into the busy season.
Bonus Quick Wins:
- List complementary products, but make sure to create unique bundle SKUs.
Bundling together appropriate products is a great way of increasing your basket spend and selling more products. Look at your product ranges and see what two or more products could be put together to create a package.
Whether it be a TV with a surround-sound system or mascara with a pocket mirror, you likely have items that can be bundled for a holiday exclusive.
- Deliver to Canada if you don’t already.
Are you open to sending your products to our neighbors to the North? You could see 4-to-5% revenue expansion with no need to change messaging, as the U.S. and Canada audiences are so similar (and speak the same language).
Explore this by targeting Canadian audiences on social campaigns or by listing directly with marketplaces like Amazon Canada.
- Create a plan for handling returns and enhancing the post-purchase experience.
As you well know, returns are part of being in eCommerce. Having a consistent process in place to handle them can result in rescued sales — exchanges rather than refunds — and offer up retargeting opportunities with the same customer.
Don’t neglect post-purchase communication, especially in the height of return season (January).
eCommerce Growth Spotlight: BlackWolf
One of ShipHero’s superstar users is men’s skincare brand BlackWolf. The brand came to us in September 2020, when they were operating out of one 1,250-square-foot facility. Working with ShipHero and using some of the strategies mentioned in this article helped transform the business.
Fast-forward to October 2021: The skincare company now has two large facilities (17,000+ square feet) and ships 20,000 orders per week. BlackWolf’s incredible growth speaks to the power of precise and automated inventory management. |
As counterintuitive as it could seem to take on something new during the holiday lead-up, there’s no better time to solve internal problems.
Be ready to dive into what’s not functioning like it should for the sake of your current and potential lifetime customers — and give them a holiday season to remember.
????We’re offering exclusive deals for eCommerce Fastlane podcast listeners! For Shopify Merchants, receive your first 90 days FREE if you sign up for ShipHero’s Shipping Software before 12/31/2021.
Schedule a meeting today with our experts to learn more about our shipping software on steroids built for eCommerce brands & 3PLs looking to run their best warehouse and how ShipHero works to ensure that organizations invest in the solutions that match their needs, to improve productivity, revenue and success.
Click HERE to Schedule a Meeting Today
Aaron Rubin, Founder & CEO
ShipHero
About the author: Aaron Rubin is the Founder & CEO of ShipHero. He is responsible for planning and executing the overall vision and strategy of the organization. Rubin’s greatest strengths are leadership, change management, strategic planning and a passion for progression. He is known for having his finger on the pulse of ShipHero’s major initiatives, his entrepreneurial spirit, and keen business acumen. His leadership of ShipHero is grounded in providing excellent customer service that drives improved business operations. His passion for ShipHero comes from the culture and his ability to have an impact on the lives of employees, customers, partners, and investors.
Follow Aaron on Twitter & LinkedIn.
Oct 20, 2021 | newsroom
Through a new integration with Google Merchant Center, ShipHero will help our businesses drive more conversions on Google channels by showing customers more accurate, location- and product-specific delivery speed estimates. All that our businesses need to do in order to take advantage of this feature is to link to their ShipHero account in Merchant Center. It’s really that easy!
Shipping speed can play a critical role throughout the purchase journey, from discovery through final purchase:
- 76% of online customers cite fast shipping speed as a top characteristic of a great shopping experience.
- Delivery time influences 87% of online customers’ purchase decisions.
By linking accounts, ShipHero businesses can showcase their investment in fulfillment capabilities to customers on Google across a wide variety of user experiences and journey stages. Moreover, participating ShipHero businesses should find it easier to obtain annotations that drive traffic and conversions, such as the free and fast shipping annotation.
How Google Delivery Speed Estimates Work
When a ShipHero business links their account, recent order tracking data is sent from ShipHero to Google, who then feeds that data into machine learning models to generate delivery speed estimates. On Google channels, customers will see delivery estimates based to the item they are viewing and their current location, among other factors. For example, if an item is fulfilled out of a facility in Pennsylvania, a shopper in Maine might see a 2-day delivery speed, while one in California sees a 5-day delivery speed.
Today, most businesses configure a nationwide shipping speed on Google, leading to customers’ seeing an overly conservative delivery speed that accounts for even the most remote locations. By using this approach, we expect most ShipHero businesses will be able to quote lower and more accurate delivery speeds to customers, based on the performance of similar Google-calculated shipping programs. And, given how critical delivery speed is to customers’ purchase decisions, an improvement in quoted speed should yield more conversions.
Google Delivery Estimate Availability
For now, the ShipHero-powered delivery speeds on Google are only available for orders originating from and delivering to the United States. Furthermore, the ShipHero-powered speeds work for channels managed by Google Merchant Center (link), including Shopping ads (link), free product listings (link), and Buy on Google (link).
How to Link Accounts
1. To link your account, you will first need your ShipHero username and password. If you don’t know these, please reach out to ShipHero Support.
2A. If you already have shipping speed configured on Google Merchant Center, all you need to do is set up ShipHero for shipping data verification by linking your accounts here.
– or –
2B. If you do not have shipping speed configured — e.g., if you use the [shipping] attribute (link) in your product feed to convey shipping cost — you should set up an account-level, ShipHero-powered shipping service here, by doing the following:
- In the “Service Coverage” section…
- Name your service, e.g., “ShipHero US Service”
- Select only the United States as the delivery country and USD as the currency
- Select “At the customer’s address”
- In the “Delivery times” section
- Click on “Show custom delivery times based on your carrier or partner”
- Click on “Your shipping data from partners”
- Click on “Link your ShipHero account” and follow the account linking flow
- Confirm your fallback delivery times, which Google will use while its models gain sufficient confidence in their delivery estimates for your products
- In the “Shipping Cost” section, enter your shipping cost
NOTE – If you have used the [shipping] attribute to provide shipping cost, it will override the account-level shipping service you have set up in step 2B. For this new ShipHero service to work, you must clear the [price] sub-attribute within the [shipping] attribute for the items you want Google-calculated shipping speeds to apply to.
NOTE – If you have multiple shipping options configured for the same country, Google will select the cheapest option to show to the customer. If Google finds that, for a given country, you have multiple shipping options that cost the same amount, it will then select the fastest option among them to display. Your ShipHero service from 2B will not display if it does not “win” that “cheapest, then fastest” logic for the United States.
How to Obtain the Free and Fast Annotation
A key benefit of letting Google calculate your shipping speed is that your items on Google will show a delivery speed that varies by region. So, even if you do not offer nation-wide “fast” shipping, Google will understand the areas in the country where your items will arrive “fast.” For example, if you operate 2 well-placed eFCs and use only ground fulfillment, perhaps 60% of the US will receive items “fast” (in 3 days or less).
So, once you have linked your ShipHero account, obtaining the free and fast shipping annotations is pretty straightforward. You just need to meet the other program requirements, which are as follows (more info):
- Ensure that your shipping service has the cost set to “Free shipping” or “Free shipping over a certain amount.” (If you choose the latter, only individual items priced over the free shipping amount will be eligible for the badge.)
- Turn on web conversion tracking for your Google ads account (link)
- Ensure the messaging on your site about delivery time lines up with Google (link)
- And, when ready, request verification with this form
Getting started with Google Merchant Center
If you don’t yet use Google to connect with customers, you can get started by signing up with Merchant Center here. Since last year, Google has offered a free listings product which may provide you with traffic and sales at no cost. You can learn more about it here.
Getting started with ShipHero
ShipHero can provide turn-key outsourced fulfillment services or help you manage your own fulfillment network with our advanced Warehouse Management Software. If you’re new to ShipHero, you can schedule a call with one of our experts to develop a fulfillment solution that works for you and your customers. Click HERE to schedule a meeting today.
More information
You can read more about how Google calculates shipping speeds here and shipping data verification here. Need help with Google topics? Reach out to Google Support.
Be sure to follow ShipHero on Twitter & LinkedIn today to stay up to date with the latest company news.
Oct 19, 2021 | newsroom
In partnership with Flexport, ShipHero is proud to announce a new shipping option meant to address the current congestion at US ports. Flexport has developed Flow Direct, a less-than-container-load(LCL) shipping option that allows clients to purchase space in shipping containers along with other clients. This allows smaller businesses with less product to get their goods from Shanghai to ShipHero’s Las Vegas warehouse in 23-25 days at just a fraction of the cost.
Flexport Flow Direct is ideal for fulfillment clients who:
- Ship regularly to the US for eCommerce replenishment.
- Already ship LCL to the US.
- Are not first-time shippers.
- Source their goods from within 400km of Shanghai.
- Ship to ShipHero’s Las Vegas warehouse.
- Do not ship hazardous, dangerous or regulated goods including li-ion batteries and no goods that are regulated or subject to Other Government Agency (OGA) review (e.g., FDA, FCC, etc.). This includes cotton products produced in China due to the Withhold Release Order issued in Jan 2021.
For freight shipping in October 2021, Flow Direct costs $325 USD per Cubic Meter (CBM) of space. (This fee includes transportation from our Shanghai consolidation center to the ShipHero warehouse in the US.)
Cargo Insurance, Customs Clearance and Import Fees (duty and tax) are extra because these fees are determined on the type of / value of your shipment – but not to worry, Flexport’s insurance and Customs clearance rates are very competitive. You will find these rates to be comfortably between FCL and standard LCL rates, leaning towards FCL. There is a one CBM minimum charge, and there is no maximum amount you can ship. November rates will be published soon.
This new shipping option is available NOW for ShipHero Fulfillment customers, all they have to do is sign up as a Flexport customer by contacting the sales team at flowdirect_sales@flexport.com.
ShipHero Fulfillment customers may also reach out to their Client Success Manager for questions, HERE.
We are excited to bring ShipHero clients this out-of-the-box option that directly addresses the shipping log-jam that is cramping everyone’s holiday style. At ShipHero, we can feel your clients’ frustration and ShipHero is glad to partner with companies like Flexport to bring solutions directly to our clients.
If you’re new to ShipHero and are interested in learning more about our fulfillment services, please schedule an appointment with our Fulfillment Sales Team, HERE.
About ShipHero
ShipHero is a US-based, leading solution provider in the fast growing eCommerce fulfillment space. ShipHero served over $5 billion of eCommerce orders in 2020 and is growing rapidly. ShipHero provides warehouse management software for brands that operate their own warehouses as well as outsourced fulfillment as a service from ShipHero owned and operated North American warehouses.
Some notable customers include Universal Music Group, Glossier and Canadian Tire. ShipHero is a Shopify Plus partner and we serve more than 10% of Shopify plus stores globally.
Media Inquires: media@ShipHero.com
