Today Shipwire is releasing some serious new functionality for how we manage package inserts.  To say that insert handling is getting a face-lift is an understatement.

An insert is something that gets put into the box with the product that is being ordered when it is shipped out of the warehouse.  If you have bought anything online, you have probably experienced an insert.  They can be a brochure or a piece of marketing collateral.  Popular marketing collateral that are types of inserts are postcards, stickers, photos, data sheets, brochures, pamphlets and increasingly promotional CD’s and DVD’s.

As the Christmas selling season approaches we wanted to make it easier for our merchants to handle inserts, as we know how important being able to cross-market to buyers can be.

For all details on the enhanced insert features please review our documentation on package inserts.

Insert management seems pretty simple at its most basic – pick up a flyer and throw it into a box whenever you ship an order.  We agree, that is simple.  In reality, today’s fast pace e-commerce marketer has needs that are no longer simple and cross-promotional insert management has gotten more complex.  Promotions have start and end dates.  Specific products get specific promotions.  Different inserts have to be used for different countries.  Some shopping carts have more functionality than others.  Knowing this, we built features that allow a retailer or manufacturer to actually manage inserts and marketing promotions.

Here are just a few of the preferences that can be defined per insert.

• Include the insert in all orders.
• Let the shopping cart tell Shipwire when to bundle an insert with the order.
• Only insert if certain conditions are met.
• Set up start and end times for which inserts will be active.
• Define inserts for products over a certain value.

This gives our sellers a whole new amount of control for marketing and promotional material.  As this holiday shopping season approaches we really hope these new insert and cross-promotional marketing features help you grow your business.

Here are a few screen-shots of what the new interfaces look like.

Details on Insert Management

Add Product Type "Insert"

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After conversations with merchants and tips from our network of global shipping carriers, we are now recommending to our merchants that they think twice before shipping to private individuals in Russia.  One of the biggest issues we have seen is that the carrier gets the shipment to Russian customs only to have it stuck…for a long-time.   As anybody who sells online knows, some overseas buyers will say that is the shipper’s problem and will start canceling orders, initiating charge-backs,  or causing a large support hassle.

Currently Russian customs authorities have a restriction on dutiable shipments sent to private individuals.  What does this mean?   Almost any product subject to tax and duties being sent to a private individual in Russia will be held and inspected by customs.  This can take days and even weeks, where they are being looked at with extraordinary scrutiny in an effort to improve the accuracy of accompanying shipping documentation.  Why?  Foreign country, different laws.  Even after this process has taken place, there is still no guarantee that the package is going to be shipped out. In the event that it isn’t shipped out, it will often be returned to sender, forcing the merchant to pay for the return shipping – expensive and not fun.

This situation is so bad that some carriers, like UPS, have “suspended acceptance of dutiable shipments sent to private individuals in Russia until further notice.”

If you decide you would like to go ahead with your shipment to an individual in Russia; we would like you to consider a few options:

1)      Do not ship anything that is automatically dutiable or needs to be declared.  Here are a few USPS thoughts on their Russian country “conditions” help page.

2)      Make sure you know the 6 digit HS number (Harmonized Tariff Schedule number) to speed things through customs.

3)      Ensure the retail value is less than $100.00 USD  (Standard insurance).

4)      Do not include any prohibited items and it’s best to eliminate any questionable items per the Russian Federation (e.g printed matter may be prohibited, which would require a more detailed inspection).

5)      Send the package via USPS mail, which has simplified forms (but no tracking).

We don’t have a guaranteed solution for ensuring prompt accurate shipping to private individuals in Russia.

If you sell on eBay and value your eBay ratings, really think twice.  Same goes for any public marketplace allowing Russian buyers and has feedback forms.

And remember, even with all this it could get stuck in customs, sent back or both.  You and the buyer will be waiting for two weeks while the shipment clears customs, not having access to information and potentially in a losing situation. A good thought is to modify your returns policy and make explicit to Russian buyers that they take the risk of shipping. Get in in writing if you take credit cards (another concern).

A great way to prevent your orders from shipping out to Russia without your approval or review, is to first look into your shopping cart and change your settings to hold all international orders for review. If you are a Shipwire user, there is a setting in shipping preferences to hold international orders.

The good news we found is that Russian customs says you can still send commercial shipments addressed to businesses.  Take that with a grain of salt and ship at your own risk.

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You’re probably asking… who is this cute little kid? Meet Nathan, who may one day be giving his Oscar acceptance speech thanks to his parents dedication and newly found free time.  Nathan just won a competition at The Swan Hotel at Disney for an acting spot and is on his way to pursuing an acting career.

Why are we blogging about this?  Because, his chance for personal success came because his parents were able to spend more time pursuing the important things in their lives.  His parents created time by outsourcing their business shipping and warehouse headaches.

Nathan’s parents are Marc and Michelle Blaiwes, owners of SeatGlovers, and Shipwire customers.

The Blaiwes now have enough spare time in between running their business to take Nathan to auditions and help him build his resume for what appears to be a very bright future in acting. It’s a beautiful thing to follow your passions, and that’s exactly what all three Blaiwes are doing.

Marc and Michelle Blaiwes began their entrepreneurial lifestyle back in 2001 by creating an eBay liquidator business that then flourished into their own niche product for which they created their own brand, SeatGlovers.com. Like many other small businesses they went through some serious growing pains. As their business took off they needed more inventory and opened up a warehouse in Florida to manage their inventory.  Managing a warehouse brought  a logistical nightmare of lost shipments, warehouse employee problems and scaling their sales to continue growing their business.  They were also stuck in Florida, even when they were no longer interested in living there and wanted to live in the mountains.

“I was spending more time troubleshooting shipping problems and dealing with warehouse employee problems than I was spending in sales. We were just ’spinning our wheels’ with shipping and warehousing issues” says Marc. Clearly they could not keep “spinning their wheels” for much longer.

They went looking for a solution to help them automate and get more time back for their life and to focus on growing their business rather than being controlled by their business.  The Blaiwes found Shipwire and tested the free Free Trial.  They have not looked back since.  They outsourced their Florida facility to Shipwire locations in the U.S.  This means the Blaiwes can live anywhere and they can use their Shipwire account to manage their business from anywhere in the world.

What did they do with their free time and new found flexibility?  They moved to the mountains and focused on their family while continuing to grow their business and expand product lines.

Following your passions is a beautiful thing, if you are a small business owner that would like some of your precious time back why not do what the Blaiwes did, try Shipwire and realize that the sky’s the limit! And remember Nathan’s face… you may see it in a theater near you!

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This blog post is in response to a great many blog posts I’ve seen over the years on how to bring a product to market or outsource your product manufacturing to a contract manufacturing firm. Right about now we’re likely to start seeing more of these posts because the timing is ideal for final manufacture work before the holiday shopping season.  I’ll keep a running list of some of these blogs at the bottom of this post.

Shipwire is pretty lucky in that there are many niche product manufactures that work with us because we take away the hassles of the storage and shipping as they scale their sales.  We also give them a “ship-to” address that can be given to a manufacture sending product from overseas, which can be a really nice alternative to your garage if you are just starting out.

Most of the blog posts out there talking about manufacturing products overseas, product design and manufacturing-on-demand focus on finding a manufacturer, working with the manufacturer to get the product built, getting samples and test products and then scaling up production.

That is all well and good; but, what most new product designers ignore (and even a few seasoned designers have missed) is the importance of packaging and specifically shipping packaging as part of the design process.  Here are a few critical mistakes that we see all the time from new product sellers:

• No thought to shipping
• No thought to packaging
• No thought to labeling for outsourcing distribution or a third-party fulfillment center.
• No thought to leveraging shipping as a sell point, much less offer free shipping options.

So lets dive into each of these and give them some thought.

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Your Shipwire account just got a whole lot easier to use. On your next account login, you should notice a number of changes, including:

Updated Dashboard - This re-designed dashboard makes it infinitely easier to find the key information you need to see in your account right when you login. Color coded “pods” break up the information into logical chunks that are easy to digest: covering account usage, alerts, and order activity. Your order activity is conveniently summarized in tables that provide quick visibility on shipping order activity, back-ordered inventory, etc. Click on the screen shots to zoom in and have a look.

Warehouses View - How many times have you wanted to have a quick look at your business activity by warehouse? The new Warehouses view now gives you that, providing you with a detailed breakdown of all open orders by warehouse – for example: it includes a quick snapshot of all orders on hold, by type of hold. It also provides a convenient point of access to other warehouse-related activities such as reviewing inventory levels, uploading orders, or sending more inventory. You can get to the Warehouses view right from your new Account Dashboard, or from the navigation under ‘My Accounts->Warehouses’.

Preferred Warehouses - One small change you’ll notice is that the new Dashboard and Warehouses interfaces (including where you send inventory to Shipwire) will now only show ‘active’ warehouses, and not all of the warehouses in the Shipwire global warehouse network.  If you want to see all warehouses, or activate a specific one, simply go into your Shipping Preferences(Ship->Preferences), and check additional Preferred Warehouses.

In addition to these very visible changes, we have introduced a number of smaller enhancements with this latest release. Please spend a few minutes and let us know how these changes look to you and where you’d like us to continue improving the platform.  Thank you in advance for taking a few minutes to share any feedback.

The Shipwire Team

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Shipwire was nominated and became a finalist for the Stevie Awards; put on by the American Business Awards.

We’re nominated in the category for e-commerce; which makes total sense.  However, it appears that the ABA doesn’t do a platform award, like our Codie by SIIA (Software Industry Association of America).  The Stevie category is actually for advertising, who would have guessed.

You might ask, what the heck is a “Stevie” and why does the statue remind me of a Pink Floyd album cover?  From the Stevie Website  Stevie is taken from the name Stephen, which is derived from the Greek for “crowned.” Stevie is approximately 16 inches tall, and is hand-cast and finished in 24-karat gold.  The crystal pyramid held aloft by Stevie represents the hierarchy of human needs, a system often represented as a pyramid that was developed in the 1960s by psychologist Abraham Maslow, who observed that after their basic needs are met, human beings seek the esteem of their peers.

Updated on June 30th:  I guess it wasn’t a surprise that I wasn’t called to give an acceptance speech as GoLite won for best e-com advertising campaign.  Makes sense given that Shipwire is a software and services platform,  we power the global expansion of a bunch of e-commerce sites like GoLite, and we didn’t spend millions on a site redesign and relaunch; we did it ourselves.  I like to think we trounced AT&T who was also nominated in our category.  Congrats to GoLite and all the Stevie award winners.  Congrats to the Shipwire team for becoming a finalist (and for trouncing AT&T).

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