Ecommerce home and household brands have a lot to manage, and one of the most challenging tasks of running an online store is fulfillment logistics.

Fortunately, a third-party logistics provider (3PL) like ShipBob can help. Read on to learn more about what goes into fulfilling orders for home and household goods, and how easy it is to outsource fulfillment and automate shipping. 

What is home and household goods fulfillment?

Homeware fulfillment requires a more complex fulfillment process than other industries.

When a consumer goes online and orders kitchen accessories, bedsheets, curtains, and other products for the home, there’s an entire process that takes place to ensure order accuracy and the right items are delivered to the customer  efficiently. Many times, business orders will take care of it themselves by renting a warehouse and packing and shipping orders with multiple trips to the post office.

As online brands grow and see a surge in monthly order volume, self-fulfillment becomes unsustainable, and it can be a challenge to fulfill and ship orders accurately, safely, and quickly.

How ShipBob grows homeware ecommerce sales

ShipBob is a logistics service provider that takes the entire homeware fulfillment process off your hands. Our team consists of highly skilled fulfillment experts that can help optimize your supply chain while saving you time and money as you scale your brand.

With ShipBob, online home and household ecommerce businesses can offer faster, more affordable shipping to improve delivery speeds and increase conversion rates — without having to worry about doing it all themselves.

Challenges of home and household goods fulfillment

Home and household goods fulfillment is a vigorous task and requires a lot time and energy.

Here are some of the most common challenges brands face when fulfilling and shipping orders.

Scaling seamlessly

Limiting your scalability leads to stunted growth. Working with a 3PL like ShipBob that can provide the fulfillment infrastructure, technology, and support needed can help you scale and stay competitive. Having enough space, being able to use multiple fulfillment centers to reduce shipping costs and transit times, and get orders fulfilled fast as volume increases is key to seamless growth. 

Warehousing

Ecommerce warehousing involves more than just storing ecommerce inventory in a warehouse. You will also need a process to manage inventory, monitor inventory levels, and order more inventory as needed. You’ll also have to think about location. If you store all your inventory in one location but have customers across the country or even internationally, then you’ll want to consider splitting inventory across locations to reduce shipping costs and transit times. 

Challenges of shipping home and household goods products

Shipping home and household goods can be difficult, but ShipBob can assist in making the shipping process easier. By partnering with a 3PL like ShipBob that offers a network of international fulfillment centers, you have the option to distribute inventory across multiple locations and reach customers across the world. By reducing the number of shipping zones a package must travel, you can significantly reduce shipping costs and transit times.

ShipBob’s technology automatically routes each order to the fulfillment center that’s closest to the shipping destination for the most efficient delivery. We also partner with major shipping carriers who pick up packages daily from our fulfillment centers, and we negotiates shipping rates, so you can pass the savings on to your customers.

ShipBob’s order fulfillment process

Once you connect your store to our dashboard, you can send inventory to one or more of our fulfillment center locations.

Here is a closer look at ShipBob’s order fulfillment process.

Step 1: Receiving inventory

‘Receiving’ refers to the acceptance and storage of incoming inventory at the fulfillment center. During this step, a fulfillment expert will make sure that all the items that were sent have arrived and are in good condition. ShipBob requires merchants to fill out a Warehouse Receiving Order (WRO) and affix the proper labels to each box. This helps us know what to expect ahead of time and to speed up the receiving process while managing inventory for thousands of customers.

Step 2: Items are located and picked

Once an order is placed on your store, the picking process begins. ShipBob is a tech-enabled 3PL, so our proprietary warehouse management system (WMS) automatically assigns similar orders with inventory in the same area of the warehouse to the same picker to reduce the number of steps required to pick orders for a more efficient workflow.

A picking list is automatically generated, which includes the items ordered, quantity, and where each product is located. Each unit that’s picked is scanned from the inventory container so inventory counts are updated in real-time, providing up-to-date stock levels for merchants.

Step 3: The items are packed

The next step is to securely pack them and add the shipping label. All items should be shipped in the same package if possible to avoid a split shipment. At ShipBob, we use standard packing materials — including brown boxes, plain bubble mailers and poly bags, packing tape, and dunnage — at no extra cost. We choose the best packing materials for each order to both protect your products and achieve the lowest practical dimensional weight. We also allow our merchants to use custom packaging.

Step 4: The order is shipped

The last step is to prepare the order for last-mile delivery. With ShipBob, you won’t have to worry about shipping orders yourself as we partner with major shipping carriers to negotiate shipping rates and have them pick up packages daily sorted by each shipping service. To keep customers updated on the delivery process, you can set up proper order tracking on your store.

How ShipBob homeware fulfillment services has helped home goods companies

Leading home goods ecommerce companies have partnered with ShipBob so they can spend less time on logistics operations and more time on what matters most.

Read on to learn how ShipBob’s homeware fulfillment services helps online brands optimize their logistics strategy. 

Doris Sleep

Doris Sleep is a luxury bed pillow brand that makes eco-friendly, machine-washable, hypoallergenic pillows. Each Doris pillow recycles 14 plastic water bottles from landfills to be made into a comfortable pillow that feels gel-like to maintain coolness throughout the night. Doris Sleep partnered with ShipBob when they launched and have saved their team time on time-consuming fulfillment tasks.           

“An hour after ordering, he had already received an email saying his order had shipped. If I was fulfilling orders myself, it would have taken me much longer. This was the perfect example of ShipBob working how it should, automatically sending tracking info and giving my customers everything they needed.”

Tracey Wallace, Founder of Doris Sleep

Calm Blanket

My Calm Blanket is a weighted blanket proven to improve rest, help with ADHD, reduce anxiety and stress, and keep you warm. It is scientifically engineered to respond to your temperature, weight, and shape for personalized comfort and support. Calm Blanket needed a partner to ship their orders quickly at a reasonable rate. ShipBob’s 2-Day Express program proved to be the perfect fit.

“ShipBob’s 2-Day Express Program has been phenomenal for us. Because of Amazon, our customers expect 2-day shipping and we couldn’t find other 3PLs that can provide that. If they do, you are going to pay a lot for it. Without ShipBob, it would cost more than $100 per order to ship that fast.”

Founder of Calm Blanket 

Bathorium

Bathorium is a luxury bath products brand, sourcing the highest grade of ingredients and producing handcrafted bath bombs and soaks. Bathorium needed a 3PL provider with a strong US presence to grow their business. The brand was having to pay a lot for one-pound shipments, and it took 7-10 working days for an order to be delivered. After partnering with ShipBob, Bathorium has saved 70% in shipping costs for US deliveries, and all orders are delivered within 2 days.

“ShipBob was the obvious solution for us. They align very well with Shopify and don’t have older, archaic technology like other 3PLs.”

Greg MacDonald, CEO & Founder of Bathorium

Getting started with ShipBob is easy

Partnering with ShipBob can massively improve your home and household fulfillment strategy, keeping your customers happy while saving you time and resources.
Fill out the form below to learn more about how ShipBob works. 

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