Nutraceuticals is a general term that covers products that are known to have additional health or nutritional benefits. These types of products are usually derived from food sources and include vitamins, supplements, anti-aging products, energy bars, and more. Nutraceutical products make up a good chunk of the online market, especially in the health, beauty, and wellness space. 

Below we dive into how nutraceutical fulfilment works, how to find the right third-party logistics (3PL) partner, and other considerations when fulfilling and shipping nutraceuticals products. 

“Now we’re at two ShipBob fulfilment centres, and being able to have the analytics and see how everything is working together has been extremely helpful for me on the operations end. It definitely helps me with inventory management and seeing what’s going on. Even though we’ve grown, I haven’t spent more time on the business from an operations standpoint.” 

Dana Varrone, Director of Operations at Organic Olivia 

What is nutraceuticals fulfilment?

Nutraceuticals fulfilment is the process of storing, picking, packing and delivering nutraceutical products to your customer’s doorstep. The nutraceuticals market is currently thriving – the sale of vitamins and supplements has increased by as much as 40% in 2020 alone. To keep up with these high-demand products, businesses need a sound nutraceutical ecommerce fulfilment strategy.

How ShipBob helps nutraceutical ecommerce brands grow

ShipBob is a 3PL that offers nutraceutical fulfilment solutions to help direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands thrive. ShipBob does this in the following ways. 

Automation

ShipBob owns its entire tech stack — from our merchant-facing dashboard, to the warehouse management system (WMS) that runs our entire fulfilment network — enabling us to automate more throughout enhanced connectivity. From picking items, to real-time inventory tracking and determining last-mile delivery routes, our technology can dramatically increase operational efficiencies for the entire nutraceutical fulfilment process. 

Distributed inventory

With ShipBob, ecommerce brands can split inventory up and store it in our many fulfilment centres across the globe. This helps businesses expand into new regions, spend less money on international shipping, and reduce transit times. When a customer places an order, the goods are automatically shipped from the nearest fulfilment centre, ensuring the most optimal route is selected.

“Our old solution was not scalable, especially if we wanted to continue expanding our business into new countries and demographics. We knew we needed a partner with a global presence, who could handle fulfilment for us wherever we go.

Thankfully, ShipBob has fulfilment centres in strategic locations not just across the US, but all over the world. We’re able to store inventory on both coasts of the US and in the UK and Poland, which cuts our average shipping costs and shipping times considerably.”

— Natalia Lara, CMO of Oxford Healthspan

Challenges of nutraceutical fulfilment

When selling nutraceuticals, not only do you need to meet certain regulatory and legal requirements, but there are also some direct-to-consumer fulfilment challenges you’ll need to consider.

Order accuracy

Fulfilling hundreds of orders a month, human error is always possible, leading to shipping inaccurate orders. Sometimes the wrong products are delivered to a customer because they were picked out incorrectly. Other times, an order may be shipped to the wrong address. This causes a rise in customer service issues and leads to a high volume of returns and exchanges.

A 3PL like ShipBob can help improve order accuracy significantly. Whether it’s assigning pickers optimised routes, opening additional fulfilment centre locations to cut down on shipping times, or improving our warehouse picking and packing processes, ShipBob is constantly looking for ways to improve and achieve higher levels of order accuracy.

Meeting customer expectations

These days, consumers have come to expect 2-day shipping. If your business is taking longer to ship orders, then consumers will turn to other brands or marketplaces like Amazon where they can get a shorter delivery time at an affordable cost.

By partnering with ShipBob, you can offer more customers with fast options by taking advantage of our 2-Day Express Shipping Program, which enables you to deliver orders across the continental US fast for any of our ecommerce store integrations. Learn more about the program here. 

Challenges of shipping nutraceutical products

Shipping nutraceuticals involves carefully packing the right items before shipping them to prevent damage while in transit. This also involves optimising the packaging for dimensional weight, so you don’t you overpay in shipping costs. 

You also want to consider product bundling if your products are low-cost or try offering a minimum spend threshold in exchange for free shipping so you can increase your average order value (AOV) and help offset your costs.  

If you wish to offer a subscription option, make sure you find a 3PL like ShipBob that can take on the nutraceutical fulfilment process on a recurring, predetermined basis.

ShipBob’s nutraceutical order fulfilment process

ShipBob’s order fulfilment process takes care of everything from the moment a customer places an order until it arrives at their doorstep. By connecting your online store and other sales channels with our dashboard and sending inventory to one or more fulfilment centre locations, we take of the fulfilment process for you from there.

We pick, pack, and ship each order, and provide order tracking that can be shared back with the consumer. If you expand into additional fulfilment centre locations, our algorithm automatically routes each order to the location with inventory available that will get the order to the customer as quickly in the most cost-efficient way possible. 

How ShipBob works

ShipBob works with each business to make sure the nutraceutical fulfilment process is happening according to plan.Y ou can monitor everything we’re doing from a central dashboard, view order status, and manage inventory. While we manage the nutraceutical fulfilment process for you, your business can focus more time on growth initiatives and attracting more customers.

Nutraceutical brands that choose ShipBob as their 3PL

DTC nutraceutical brands are seeing tremendous growth due to customers wanting to take charge of and improve their health. ShipBob works with hundreds of brands shipping nutraceuticals-related items. Here’s how ecommerce businesses have benefitted from working with ShipBob.

ZBiotics

ZBiotics is the world’s first genetically engineered probiotic in order to help people feel better the day after drinking alcohol. The quickly growing brand leverages ShipBob’s Inventory Placement Program to reduce the lift required from their team when it comes to managing inventory and balancing SKUs across the fulfilment network.

“All we have to do is send a truckload of product to one location, and ShipBob does the rest. They push the product out with the right SKU mix by fulfilment centre based on calculations for which fulfilment centres need what. It was a no-brainer to start using ShipBob’s Inventory Placement Program program.” 

Michael Mullaney, VP of Supply Chain at ZBiotics

Ample Foods

Ample Foods combines the latest nutrition science with wholesome, real-food ingredients for a great-tasting complete meal replacement with optimal nutrition. With ShipBob’s easy integration with Shopify, it’s been easier for Ample Foods to manage subscription orders, which have become a big part of their business. 

“ShipBob has an easy integration with Shopify. It’s been very simple for us to manage subscription orders, which have become a big part of our business. We’ve made a huge push toward incorporating Ample Foods into people’s daily diets and routine. Thankfully, ShipBob partners with a lot of the tools we use like ReCharge.”

Pablo Gabatto, Business Operations Manager at Ample Foods

MDacne

MDacne sells a fully-customised acne treatment kit, custom made for each consumer by providing clinically-tested, dermatologist-formulated treatments. MDacne provides a personalised product that requires unique configurations, so they couldn’t rely on an out-of-the-box solution. They chose to partner with ShipBob that offers customisation through Developer API.

“Our business is almost all subscriptions, and ShipBob helps us offer reliable, affordable shipping that shows up at the same time each month. ShipBob’s analytics tool is also really cool. It helps us a lot with planning inventory reorders, seeing when SKUs are going to run out, and we can even set up email notifications so that we’re alerted when a SKU has less than a certain quantity left.”

Oded Harth, CEO & Co-Founder of MDacne

Touchland

Touchland is a fast-growing brand that upgraded the hand sanitizing experience to a whole new level. The brand launched in 2018 and grew quickly after a successful Kickstarter campaign, but even faster once the COVID-19 pandemic hit. They sold out the first week of the pandemic and 34,000 customers were put on the waitlist, so partnered with ShipBob to help get orders to customers faster by using our distributed fulfilment network.

“ShipBob has been a great ally as they have fulfilment centres all over the US, facilitating a 2-3 day delivery time for any customer in the US.”

Andrea Lisbona, Founder & CEO of Touchland

Juspy

Founder Juspy Leonie Lynch launched a nutrient-dense powder made with natural ingredients, no refined sugar, no stabilisers, and no additives. When her business grew, she soon became overwhelmed by packing and shipping orders herself. So she turned to ShipBob for help.

“50% of my time spent was packing boxes. Not only that, but it was a constant interruption. I would sit down to do an email marketing campaign, have to attend to new orders, and completely lose my train of thought and flow. I spent about 3 minutes per order on fulfilment. I almost didn’t want orders to come in. ShipBob was the exact solution I was looking for.”

Leonie Lynch, Founder & CEO of Juspy

Getting started with ShipBob is easy

.If you’re looking to optimise nutraceutical fulfilment, spend less time overseeing the day-to-day operations of the business, and outshine the competition, then check out ShipBob. ShipBob is a best-in-class fulfilment logistics provider 3PL. Start the conversation today and request pricing by filling out the form below. 

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