Nate Gilmore, our VP of Marketing, has attended the Toy Fair in New York held at the Jarvis Center 2 years in a row and now he has twice the information to share with us! While attending the 2009 Toy Fair, Nate made sure to not only play with as many toys as possible, but also to get a feel for how the attending toy retailers were managing their business and what their concerns were when it comes to storage and shipping logistics. Some important concerns to note from 2009 were (1) “Toy retailers buying smaller amounts, requesting more frequent resupply and not wanting to take on the risk of inventory, (2) Toy packaging and its impact on fulfillment, and (3) Manufacturer drop ship fulfillment options for Toy makers.”
We all know 2009 was a rough year for many due to the economy, so naturally toy retailers were focusing on keeping inventory levels in line with sales (rather than overstocking), optimum packaging options to save money, and also exploring different shipping options such as drop shipping. Read more about Nate’s adventures at the 2009 Toy Fair here.
The concerns from 2009 were still prevalent in 2010, especially interest in Drop Shipping, but according to Nate (who apparently did not have as much time to play with as many toys this year for he talked to 100 toy retailers!) we also see a trend to want to automate processes more, make the shipping process easier for both merchant and consumer, and to grow sales by expanding overseas fulfillment. It’s clear that although there are hurdles to be faced, toy retailers want to address them as well as continue to grow their businesses in a more efficient and cost saving manner. The economy has taught all of us to be frugal again, waste less, and save more. Which is great… and will no doubt lead to more play time. To read Nate’s article on the 2010 Toy Fair go here. If you are a toy retailer and are interested in trying Shipwire out, sign up for a Free Trial here.
To read more from the man himself, go to Nate’s blogs on the 2009 Toy Fair and the 2010 Toy Fair.
Interested in meeting Nate next year? Click below to save the date for Toy Fair 2011:
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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.
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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 has 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
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Some of you may be asking, exactly what are the benefits of drop shipping and/or outsourced order fulfillment? And which one is better to use? The answer to that question has a lot to do with whether you prefer or need to hold merchandise in stock or if you prefer not to sit on inventory.
If you prefer to hold inventory then “Order Fulfillment” would work well for you. “Order fulfillment is the process by which a retailer or manufacturer picks, packs and ships an order to an end buyer.” So this means that your order fulfillment can be done directly by you via your garage or warehouse or better yet through a third party by leveraging outsourced order fulfillment (like Shipwire) that can perform all your storage and fulfillment needs with just one simple and easy to use account. Shipwire offers a Free Trial if you want to test outsourced order fulfillment.
If you do not want to invest up front in holding inventory in your garage or warehouse then “drop shipping” could be your better option. “Drop Shipping is a type of fulfillment, whereby the retailer does not hold any merchandise in stock.” Merchants using “drop =shipping” typically send orders directly to their manufacturers/suppliers who then ship to the buyer. “In other words, the supplier/manufacture is trying to make it easier on the retailer by allowing the retailer to sell the product without investing in inventory.”
If you are interested in knowing more about Drop Shipping versus Order Fulfillment read this article by Skip McGrath.
If you are a product manufacturer or supplier who wants to know how to offer your retailers drop shipping please check out this article by Nate Gilmore on Practicalecommerce.com called “Manufacturer and Supplier Drop Ship Demystified”.
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Shipwire has offered a Zen-Cart shipping fulfillment module for quite some time. It is one of our more used shopping cart shipping warehouse modules. Shipwire is very proud to release an upgrade to the Shipwire Zen-Cart module that will stream real-time shipping rates from a Shipwire account into Zen-Cart checkout. Now, rather than fussing with rate tables, Shipwire powered merchants can get accurate domestic and international shipping rates from 12 global parcel and freight carriers instantly integrated into their Zen-Cart shopping cart checkout. We hope our Zen-Cart powered customers enjoy this. You can access the module in your Shipwire account via the Zen-Cart “Sell Tool” wizard.
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Shipwire is happy to announce that a third-party developer has connected the Interspire shopping cart to the Shipwire APIs. The Interspire shipping order fulfillment module was recently released to a public beta by the developer, Modsbasket.
If you are an Interspire shopping cart customer you can now automate your Interspire product fulfillment. This module currenlty sends orders from your Interspire powered shopping cart to your Shipwire account. Additionally, Shipwire’s real-time shipping rates can be presented within your Interspire shopping cart checkout.
The Interspire-Shipwire module is presented in a public beta with all support provided by the third-party developer.
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Shipwire merchants, we are nearing some cut-off dates that you need to be aware of.
1. Dec 17th is Free Shipping Day. The reason Dec. 17th is Free Shipping Day (and not later in December), is because the cut-off for most ground shipping to get the order for the holiday is Dec. 17th. If you plan to offer free shipping on Dec 17th you may consider registering your website at Free Shipping Day (registration). Not sure you can afford a free shipping promotion, think again. Here are 6 free shipping promotions to consider from the Shipwire blog.
2. December 17th is the last day for Ground shipping to be guaranteed for a holiday order.
3. Shipwire merchants should check their shipping preferences and make sure that you are offering Expedited and Next Day delivery options. This is especially important if you use the Shipwire XML shipping rate feeds to automate shipping rates into a shopping cart checkout. Shopify and Drupal’s Ubercart have easy connections for this or see our Shipwire compatible shopping cart checklist. More of these connections are coming soon.
4. December 23rd is the last day for UPS or FedEx pickup before the Christmas holiday. For orders on this date you may want to notify buyers that “Your order is being quickly processes; but, there is no guarantee of delivery before Christmas”. Make sure they have selected the fastest shipping method that you offer your buyers, or it will not get there.
If you are looking for links and tips to Carrier holiday shipping schedules or Shipwire warehouse holiday schedules please see Holiday Shipping Post from a few months ago. Example what you can learn there, today was the last day to ground ship from the U.S. to Canada for holiday delivery.
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Nate Gilmore, our VP of Marketing, has attended the Toy Fair in New York held at the Jarvis Center 2 years in a row and now he has twice the information to share with us! While attending the 2009 Toy Fair, Nate made sure to not only play with as many toys as possible, but also to get a feel for how the attending toy retailers were managing their business and what their concerns were when it comes to storage and shipping logistics. Some important concerns to note from 2009 were (1) “Toy retailers buying smaller amounts, requesting more frequent resupply and not wanting to take on the risk of inventory, (2) Toy packaging and its impact on fulfillment, and (3) Manufacturer drop ship fulfillment options for Toy makers.”
