People love all types of games, physical or digital, and the games industry makes up a significant portion of the ecommerce market. If you have a great idea for a game, then it’s a great ecommerce market to launch into. However, it can be a competitive space, and the one way to really stand is by optimizing your retail fulfillment process. Read on to learn more about what the ecommerce fulfillment process entails, and how a third-party logistics (3PL) company like ShipBob can help. 

What is game fulfillment?

Game fulfillment involves the process of fulfilling online orders to ship to customers. Types of game items can include board games, cards, education-based games, and much more. To ensure game sales that are placed online are delivered efficiently, a proper ecommerce fulfillment process must be in place, which includes tracking inventory, picking and packing items, shipping orders to their final destination, and even managing ecommerce returns.

How ShipBob helps you grow game ecommerce sales

ShipBob is a tech-enabled 3PL that provides a robust fulfillment network, proprietary technology, best-in-class support, and expertise that helps direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands that sell games drive more sales. By outsourcing fulfillment to a 3PL like ShipBob, you are able to speed up fulfillment and automate shipping while saving time and money. 

Challenges of game fulfillment

Some common challenges that ecommerce businesses selling games online face include:

Fluctuating demand

The demand for game orders fluctuates seasonally and often peaks around the holidays. Since board games are a popular gift around the holidays, your business will need to be able to forecast inventory demand and keep a close on changing trends to avoid deadstock (i.e., too much inventory that can become outdated or unsellable) or stockouts (i.e., not having enough inventory to meet demand). 

Brand awareness

For new game ecommerce brands, advertising your business can be difficult. One of the ways you can make your brand standout is by packing games in memorable custom packaging that enhances the unboxing experience. 

High shipping costs

Shipping from a single location may seem like an efficient, cost-effective approach, but if customers are located across the US or even internationally, shipping costs and transit times can significantly increase. Instead of utilizing a single location, you can opt to split inventory across multiple warehouses to reduce shipping costs while speeding up delivery times. 

ShipBob’s order fulfillment process

ShipBob’s order fulfillment process is designed to optimize game fulfillment and overcome the challenges that ecommerce businesses often face. Here are some of the ways we’re able to streamline the order fulfillment process. 

ShipBob’s proprietary software

ShipBob’s proprietary software makes it easy to connect your online store and other solutions to our dashboard. Once an order is placed on your online store, it automatically sent to the closest fulfillment center where inventory is stored. You’re also given full visibility into the order fulfillment process in real time.

Warehousing

Ecommerce warehousing involves more than just storing inventory in a warehouse. Our proprietary warehouse management system (WMS) powers our entire network and is connected to our merchant fulfillment software, which shows real-time inventory counts, order status, and much more. If you store inventory in more than one fulfillment center, you can easily track inventory and orders all in one place. 

Quick and cost-efficient deliveries

Our technology can determine optimal shipping routes and carrier services to make sure packages are delivered in the most cost-efficient way possible. We also partner with major shipping carriers to negotiate rates, so you can pass the savings on to your customers and improve your shipping strategy by offering incentives such as free shipping. 

How ShipBob works

Once you sync your online store with our dashboard, you can ship inventory to one or more of our fulfillment center locations based on where your customers are. Once orders are placed, they are automatically sent to ShipBob to be picked, packed, and shipped. You can monitor everything we’re doing from a central dashboard, view order status, and manage inventory. While we manage the game fulfillment process for you, your business can focus more time on growth initiatives and attracting more customers.

How ShipBob has helped game manufacturers and companies

Leading DTC game companies have worked with ShipBob to handle all-things fulfillment. Here are some examples of merchants we’ve helped:

BRIK

BRIK creates wall tiles, laptop cases, and custom-designed BRIKS that are LEGO™ compatible, allowing customers to play with LEGOs™ on their walls, computers, and in other creative ways. Brett Miller and David Dripps founded BRIK in March 2015 with BRIK Books. By partnering with ShipBob, we help BRIK to focus on more business tasks while we took care of game fulfillment for them. 

“Working with ShipBob has allowed us to focus on the important parts of running our business and lets someone else take care of the shipping.”

Brett Miller, CEO, BRIK

Slime by Nichole Jacklyne

Nichole Jacklyne is a viral influencer and entrepreneur in the slime and fidget toy space. As Nichole’s following grew and her orders increased, she didn’t have time to manage certain aspects of her business since backend functions like shipping took up so much time. Nichole knew she needed professional help from a 3PL in order to scale like she wanted to.   

“In switching fulfillment companies, ShipBob made the transition process very professional and seamless. I really valued how structured it was — ShipBob made everything so incredibly easy! I know that I need that type of structure if I’m going to sustain this level of growth. In total, it only took me about 9 days to get started.”

Nichole Jacklyne, Founder of Slime by Nichole Jacklyne

Getting started with ShipBob is easy

If you need a 3PL partner to optimize your game fulfillment process, then you’ve come to the right place. Fill out the form below to get more information and custom pricing. 

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