Ecommerce Fulfilment Services for Calgary-Based Brands

Partner with ShipBob, an international 3PL with fulfilment centres in Canada

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As an ecommerce businesses, it’s easy to want to focus on the flashy parts of retail: product development, branding and marketing, and web design, for instance. But order fulfilment is just as important if you want to scale your business. Not only do you need to worry about getting orders out on time, but customers expect affordable shipping options. 

Calgary represents a significant ecommerce market, but ecommerce merchants based in the US will have to pay a premium for international shipping while also settling for slower delivery times.

Fortunately, there’s a better way to approach international fulfilment. All you need to do is partner with a third-party logistics (3PL) company with an international presence, including Canada.

ShipBob is a tech-enabled 3PL with an extensive network of fulfilment centres across North America, including Canada and several locations in the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, and Australia.

If you partner with us, you can bulk ship your ecommerce inventory once to our Canadaian fulfilment centre, and we’ll ship all your Canadian orders from there: no need for each order to go through customs, which saves you money.

“We have seen that Canadian customers order more when they know the order ships from within Canada and they do not need to worry about additional taxes if the order comes from the US. From our history through the years with ShipBob, it was a no-brainer to expand into other markets with them knowing that they have done their due diligence to meet the ShipBob standard.”

Marc Fontanetta, Director of Operations at BAKblade

Calgary ecommerce fulfilment services

Shipping to Canadian customers doesn’t have to be a nightmare for US-based businesses. When you partner with ShipBob, you don’t have to deal with customs duties, extended delivery times, and sky-high shipping costs. We’ve worked with countless businesses on both sides of the border and helped them expand. Here’s how fulfilment with ShipBob works:

  • First, get your store setup with our platform via your Onboarding Dashboard.
  • Check your data, see where your customers live, and ship your inventory to the ShipBob fulfilment centres closest to your customers
  • Choose your packaging materials, and from there we handle the packing and shipping process and ensure your orders are packaged according to your specifications.
  • Finally, you and the customer get tracking info on the package. 

Full-stack fulfilment

Once your products are in our hands, ShipBob takes care of everything up until the moment the product arrives at the customer’s doorstep. Orders placed at your store are forwarded to our fulfilment centre, picking lists are generated automatically, and our pros complete the entire retail fulfilment process process quickly and efficiently to get orders out the door accurately and as fast as possible. 

Cutting-edge fulfilment technology

ShipBob optimises your shipping by allowing you to split inventory across multiple fulfilment centres, reducing shipping zones and therefore shipping costs. But our platform is also integrated with top shipping platforms and mail couriers, so we can automatically search and find the best shipping rates for your packages.

We also offer a free analytics and reporting, so you can get insights into everything from fulfilment performance to logistics costs. Get answers to questions like:

  • Which states do I ship the most orders to?
  • Which orders haven’t been delivered yet?
  • How much inventory do I currently have on hand at each ShipBob fulfilment centre?
  • What were my historical stock levels at any point in time in any location?
  • How many days do I have left until a SKU will be out of stock?
  • By when do I need to reorder inventory for each product?
  • What is the average cart value and shipping cost by shipping method and order?
  • How much money would I save on shipping if I changed the fulfilment centre locations my inventory is in?
  • And much more

Automatic reorder points

Nothing is worse than running out of inventory of your most high-demand products. With ShipBob’s built-in inventory management software, you can optimise your supply chain and put your inventory reordering on autopilot with automatic reorder points. By setting mandatory inventory minimums, you’ll order the right amount at the right time for each product with minimal input.

Why ShipBob is the best 3PL for ecommerce businesses shipping to Calgary

Each ecommerce business has its own unique growing pains, and oftentimes these are related to fulfilment. ShipBob can remove obstacles that come with growth and help you expand into new markets. 

Access multiple fulfilment centres

It’s common to ship from one fulfilment centre near you, but if you’re looking to fully optimise your shipping, consider distributed inventory. Access to multiple fulfilment centres is especially valuable if you’re trying to ship to multiple countries as it allows you to distribute your products from within the country, rather than shipping everything across the border. 

Take the example of Ombraz, a sunglasses company. They were looking to ship to customers in Canada, the US, and Europe. They found ShipBob, a 3PL with fulfilment centres on both continents, and the resources and expertise to help them navigate the complexities of international shipping. Since partnering with us they’ve built an international customer base (including shipping to 55 countries on 7 continents). 

“We want everyone to get their Ombraz in a few days or less with no duties at delivery. Our goal is to remove the barriers to purchase. Now, a customer can get their package without spending an extra 25 euros or Canadian dollars after purchasing a pair of sunglasses.”

Nikolai Paloni, Co-Founder of Ombraz Sunglasses

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Scale with ease

Without the ability to fulfil a high volume of orders on time, it can be a challenge to scale your business. If you’re the owner and you’re spending most of your time pitch in or managing shipping and logistics on your own, then it might be time to outsource fulfilment

Partner with ShipBob and you can continue to grow without allowing fulfilment to hold your business back. One of our partners, personal care brand Boie, started with a Kickstart campaign and jumped to 12,000 orders per month in just a few years.

“ShipBob has been with us since day one of shipping our Kickstarter backer rewards and has since fulfiled nearly a quarter of a million orders for us. ShipBob offers fast order processing, which is important when we’re getting hundreds of orders each day. We wouldn’t be able to fulfil the volume we’ve seen — up to nearly 13,000 orders per month — on our own.”

Manuel de la Cruz, CEO at Boie

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Save on shipping costs

With your inventory distributed and your shipping optimised by our technology, you can reap the rewards of more cost-effective shipping (and grow faster too). Many of our partners are able to significantly cut costs while at the same time increasing delivery speed. 

One of our partners, TB12, a supplement company founded by Tom Brady, saved 25% on their shipping costs after joining with us, while simultaneously experiencing 75% growth. 

“We need to deliver quickly and inexpensively. Since switching to ShipBob from our previous 3PL, our fulfilment cost on comparable orders went down by 25%.”

Michael Peters, VP of E-Commerce Operations at TB12

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Outsourcing fulfilment: when is the right time?

So much goes into fulfilment that it’s easy to get overwhelmed or frustrated with the process. After all, no one got into ecommerce because they’re passionate about shipping and logistics, or inventory management, right? These are the tedious parts of your business, but also the ones that may just determine your success.

Much of the customer experience in ecommerce is defined by fulfilment logistics. Your fulfilment process determines whether or not you have enough product on hand, how much shipping costs, how long it takes, how well managed your warehouse is, and more. 

Problems with your fulfilment process will inevitably hold back your business. Here are a few examples on when it’s time to consider outsourcing fulfilment.

  • You want to ship to customers in Calgary, but are using a US-based fulfilment centre and have to pay a fortune to send your packages through customs.
  • You want to offer faster shipping options, but you don’t have the infrastructure in place to do so without breaking the bank. 
  • You want to improve your inventory and order management systems.
  • You don’t have enough storage space, and your warehouse is getting disorganised and overpacked. 


 Ready to get started with a 3PL? Click below to request a quote from ShipBob.

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