You want to make every penny spent on shipping worthwhile right? Of course you do… because knowing the costs of shipping your products can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars when you choose the best carrier along with the appropriate shipping options. There are many carriers to choose from today as well as a plethora of shipping options, deciding which is best for your business is the first step in saving lots of money. But calculating shipping costs can be confusing. What are the rules that carriers apply when they calculate the cost they pass on to you?
Shipwire has always made it easy to ship goods back and forth between the US and Canada, but it just got even easier. For those merchants in the US or Canada that need to ship freight quantities across the border we made it much easier by upgrading our Shipwire Merchant Freight options.
Just key in any large freight order using our Ship from Warehouse tool and you will see “Merchant Freight” quoted. When satisfied with the quote, select the option and your inventory will be prepped and shipped. Shipwire will do the rest from booking with the carrier, to preparing your Bill of Lading. And as an added bonus this even works via our API so your shopping cart can feature freight shipping quotes.
Couple limitations you know know about. The freight quotes are for the transportation and not the customs and duties brokerages that you may be subject to. It is recommended that you confirm your Canadian and/or US business registrations and Tax ID’s before using cross-border merchant freight to limit any delays.
Shopplugin.net is a new e-commerce extension for Wordpress. Great website, looks very feature rich…and has an integration to 4 (yes all 4) of Shipwire’s API’s. Live Shipwire shipping rates in your Shopp checkout pages. Orders are automatically sent from your Shopp store to your Shipwire account. Inventory is synchronized between the entire Shipwire warehouse network and your store. Tracking numbers are also synchronized for completed orders. Sweet!
Couple things. This is in beta. We are looking for people who want to test the connection. Here is the announcement. Shopp Plugin Shipwire shipping order fulfillment.
Forrester Research just posted a couple updated research reports that give the size of the e-commerce market for the U.S.A. and for Western Europe. TechCrunch actually posted more data and a couple graphs about it that you can’t find at Forrester .
Some of the more interesting thoughts by Forrester for the U.S. Market (Estimates exclude online sales of autos, travel, and prescription drugs):
Shipwire is a proud member of The Small Business Web, a consortium of like minded companies with software and solutions that are easy to use, small business focused and help businesses grow and “bloom”.
We also like to have a good time. If you are going to South-By-South-West (SBSW) come to our happy hour celebration/networking event cleverly named…”SXSBW” (“South-By-Small-Business-Web”). In is on Saturday March 13th from 4-7pm in Austin at PureVolume House, go here from the invite and RSVP.
It’s going to be a great event, with special music guest and it will be an amazing opportunity to network, learn and grow your business…or at least have a few beers with some fun people.
See you in Austin!!!
More info about the Small Business Web and how it can help your business:
Shipwire would like to welcome CoreCommerce into our integrated product family. CoreCommerce is a robust e-commerce shopping cart with lots of bells and whistles and a very easy to navigate look and feel that is built by SumEffect, Inc. Practicalecommerce.com listed them as a “cart-of-the-week” a few months ago and you can see that very favorable write-up here.
Please check out our new partner and if you are a CoreCommerce user we recommend testing this integration. With Shipwire you can get access to a global warehouse network that is completely integrated with your CoreCommerce software.
For complete instructions on corecommerce shipping product order fulfillment
Marketing in Canada can sometimes be a challenge. You are likely already usingmarketplaces like Amazon and eBay or product and search locations like Google Adwords, Yahoo, Bing and Business.com. What are some other options? Here are a few thoughts, please comment with your own.
1) 411.ca http://www.411.ca
According to their marketing “411.ca, Canada’s local search engine, is an online directory service that combines rich content gathered from numerous sources (including directly from companies themselves) with ultra-targeted search tools to help companies tell customers what makes them stand out from their competitors… Every month 411.ca helps more than 2 million unique visitors quickly and easily find listings for businesses across town, across the province or across Canada.” Think “giant phone book”.
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Resources to help you grow your global e-commerce business.