Dolcetto @ 2011 Shipwire Holiday Dinner

One of the benefits of living in California is we”re really close to wine country. The reality is we are in the middle of wine “counties”. We”re surrounded!

To the West we have Santa Cruz, Bonny Doon put it on the map. To our South, we get Paso Robles and the surrounding wine area. To the East, go past Sacramento and you will find all the tasting rooms on Hwy 49 and Placer County. A couple hours drive North are the amazing tasting rooms of Napa County that overshadows, for no really good reason (imho), Sonoma and Mendocino County wine.

If the end of the last paragraph didn’t give me away, I”m from Mendocino County! I spent much of my high school on tractors and navigating vine rows in Ukiah and Potter Valley (Never heard of it? Most people living next door haven’t either. I worked many a “crush” and was employed for a couple small wine labels and wineries throughout the year.

For the past 10 years my family has produced an excellent limited production Sangiovese that sells out every year (limited production) under the label Pettrone Family Cellars.   Nothing big time, more of a family bonding experience for my mom and her two brothers. It’s available in California, New York and Virginia.

Pettrone Sangiovese wine has been served at Shipwire Holiday parties since there were 12 of us raising a ruckus in the back room of our friend Fabio’s place, Nob Hill Grille, and then the back room of our buddy Trip’s restaurant, Sauce. Family wine at family restaurants for the Shipwire family. It just makes sense.

Shipwire CEO Damon Schechter raising a toast at our holiday party. Thanks to all our family, friends and partners.

As Shipwire keeps on growing, our cast of characters is getting ever larger. Our employee holiday celebrations outgrew our network of restaurants. As we look to celebrate an amazing 2011 and look forward to an even more audacious 2012, it’s clear that thanks need to go out to more than our employees and customers. Shipwire is supported by a huge network of partners and developers, that introduce us to amazing customers, and hold us up as an example of great system integration to help merchants.   We have spent years evangelizing our technology and the overall outsourced shipping market. We couldn’t do this without friends in the blog and press community willing to challenge the status quo, ask questions and shout about the success of our customers.

We”ve always said we are a part of a larger story.   We’re a platform for entrepreneurs to get their dreams to market.

This year we made some wine to virtually toast our family, friends and partners. We”re shipping some bottles of Docetto 2009 to some of the press and partners that helped us get the word out this year. It’s bottled with appreciation in the family winery this fall. This wine isn’t for sale. You can’t find it in stores or on a menu. It’s as limited as limited gets. Insider only.

It’s a toast of thanks for helping us get to where we are now. And an early toast for some amazing new things we”re about to release in 2012.

Thank you for helping us make 2011 special. Together we’ve helped a lot of entrepreneurs to get their dreams to market. We look forward to 2012 with you.

Happy Holidays from our table to yours!

The Shipwire Crew

P.S. Here are a few “making of” pictures from my phone.

High tech bottling line consists of a barrel and truck. We went up market with CO2 compression to pump the wine (rather than our normal gravity line).

The crew left standing at the end. Thanks family

Nate applying labels and trying not to get glue everywhere

The product, ready for shipping

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Any other time of the year you may have become a little more lax with the intensity of shipping your orders but holiday season is a whole other playing field. It’s not too early to warm up those shipping muscles, double-check those inventory lists, and streamline your order fulfillment processes — the holidays will be here before you know it!

To help you make the most of this holiday selling season, we have refreshed our list of 10 Holiday Shipping Season Tips.

1.    Hammer out the final details of your holiday campaign pushes. Make sure to include Black Friday (11/25), Cyber Monday (11/28) and Free Shipping Day (12/16) into your calendar of events to run creative promotions for. Maybe you want to do shipping promotions, discount coupons, or offer free gifts to loyal customers; give your buyers an incentive to buy from you.

2.    Offer free shipping or free upgraded shipping promotions. Shipping options are strong conversion tools. Free or discounted shipping is one of the top things buyers look for when comparing different sites for the same products. Give them peace of mind when they feel like they’re getting a great deal, and better yet, guarantee shipping to arrive before Christmas day.

3.    Test your e-commerce infrastructure. Now is a good time to test and troubleshoot your technology especially the shopping cart and order inventory management so there won’t be the need to hotfixes, apologies and emergencies during the influx of orders!

4.    Set up a timer: countdown till the holidays! Build up the suspense! Perhaps it’s a friendly reminder, or maybe it’s subtle inception to “get it now before it’s too late”. Implementing a countdown box can lead to impulse buying and increased conversions.

5.    Check your checkout and automate returns. A hassle-free shopping experience is a happy shopping experience. Provide a decent selection of shipping options so customers are not unpleasantly surprised and review your return policy to make sure everything is up-to-date, seamless and straightforward.

6.    Provide shipment ETAs and last day to ship guidelines. This way you are not bombarded with “where is it” queries and can focus on getting orders out. FedEx and USPS provide specific dates by which certain types of orders should be shipped. Keep in mind that December 20th, and 21st are peak volume days for most of the carriers, and that anything you can do to get orders in earlier on those days (or over the weekend) helps.

7.    Slip in some marketing goodies. Could you target your audience any more specifically? This would be a great opportunity to include a marketing insert, a free sample, or a discount coupon to win repeat business.

8.    Stock up on top-selling merchandise. This goes without saying. If you’re using Shipwire’s order fulfillment services, make sure to have your bestselling products out to the Shipwire warehouse locations as soon as possible to prevent unfortunate out-of-stock disappointments for your fans.

9.    Fine-tune your website. You can streamline your website with methods such as search-optimizing your products and making sure your pricing is consistent throughout site and other marketplaces where you may have them listed.

10.  Market yourself with festive cheer! Whether it’s an email newsletter with the latest promotions or ramping up your social media efforts on Facebook and Twitter, make it easy for your customers and fans to know what buzz is going on.

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As the holidays approach, supply chains get tighter and minor delays can cause big stresses. One of the worst stresses for a business owner is not having inventory available for product sales. Stock outs cost money and time.

We’ve talked before about one way to work around inventory “stock outs” – Back Order Management. In this past blog post we talked about breaking down the problem set and presented ways to set up your online store when a stock-out notification was more an indicator of a slight supply chain delay (verse no longer selling the product).   Many sellers are now actively pre-selling inventory before they get it. This can be a great way to increase your sales volumes.

Keeping customers informed that the product will be slightly delayed is a continued challenge. First, you want to tell them before they buy if there will be a delay. This is important at all times; but, particularly if you are selling on a marketplace with an active feedback community. Second, you really want your customers informed of expected inventory availability so they don’t bombard your customer service teams with the same question “When will it ship.”

Some sellers like Angry Birds have taken it to an extreme and have entire web store that is dedicated to “coming soon” products – setting up buyer expectations and streamlining their order management processes by separating the issues of live inventory from pending inventory.

Shipwire just made this entire process a whole lot easier to manage.   We extended our Inventory API to add details for next “expected inventory date” if there are no products in stock. This is a pretty elegant solution to a complex problem.

• Shipwire knows what your inventory levels are and our real-time inventory API can feed this data in real-time to your favorite e-commerce systems and marketplaces.   We have had this features for a long time.
• Shipwire also knows when your next scheduled shipment is coming in to any of our warehouses (or Shipwire Anywhere locations). We know this because of the Advanced Shipping Notice (ASN) informs us what products are coming, in what quantities, to what location, and on what date. Our receiving processes are designed around this.
• Any orders that are sent by your shopping cart/marketplace to Shipwire while inventory is out of stock are automatically held as “back orders” in Shipwire.
• As inventory arrives we can apply the first received inventory to the pending backorders. We’re actually really good at this. Here is a case study of us doing this for 7K orders for TheGlif.com last holiday and getting their entire Kickstart project shipping done in 24 hours.
• This works for inventory going to Shipwire warehouses and Shipwire Anywhere locations.

The <InventoryUpdateResponse> also returns a lot of data about the history and future sales expectations (“backordered”) of this product.

Also worth mentioning here that your Shipwire Account includes the ability to set up alerts on inventory status – such as something running low.

Here is a screenshot of a recent API call where _AvailableDate_ is returned and made available to upstream systems

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Old School Motocycle Kickstart Required Some Balance. Image from The Chopper Saga blog.

Consumers are constantly poring over the latest and greatest gadgets on the internet to share or make theirs. One great idea can pop up in one zip code and go global in a short amount of time thanks to the power of social networking. Kickstarter entrepreneurs for projects like the Tembo Trunks, Glif or Opena, couldn’t agree more. There’s no reason why any entrepreneur should have to limit their reach within their geographical confines. This is where the power of Shipwire for Kickstarter project shipping comes in.

Kickstarter is “an action or event resulting in the reactivation of something”.   In the case of entrepreneurs and products, it’s the successful funding of a product/project idea to give the project creators enough backing to get the project off the ground and into the hands of the first backers.   As a crowd-based funding platform, successful Kickstarter projects have to accomplish quite a lot of shipping in the first few days after the product comes back from the manufacturer. In most cases, it’s thousands of orders to project backers all over the globe.   There is no slow start in a local region for successful Kickstarter projects. They go global in a hurry.

Shipwire CTO models his new Openacase that he backed on Kickstarter

“Shipwire has made our USA and international fulfillment run like clockwork!” praises Rob and Chris, the inventors of the Openas: the world’s first iPhone4 case bottle opener. Despite being produced in Australia, they weren’t fazed at all by the huge number of international backers on their Kickstarter project. They had Shipwire send out over 1,011 Openas to their 578 backers in the US, Canada and New Zealand.

Like most Kickstarter projects, backers come from all over the world and expect to get their investment shipped to them in a timely fashion. Costly and undesirable delays can make or break a business’ first impression. Another Aussie duo who invented the Tembo Trunks, the amplifying silicon speakers, utilized Shipwire’s fulfillment services to get their products to 1,501 believers in the US, Canada, and Europe who pledged to their project.

True to our belief of Enterprise Logistics For Everyone™ , Shipwire enables companies of all sizes to have access to scalable project shipping services as their growth changes with demand. Creators of the Glif, an iPhone 4 tripod mount and stand, can attest to the unpredictable, global nature of investors. “I had originally guessed it (international backers) would be about 5-10% of our total contributors, but it ended up accounting for over 30%. I suppose it’s not surprising; the iPhone is available worldwide and the internet knows no boundaries,” comments Dan Provost, one of the two designers on the Glif, on his well read design blog.

Learn how Shipwire shipped over 7000 Glif iPhone tri-pod mounts in 24 hours to make sure that The Glif’s Kickstarter backers could get their products before Christmas last year.

Shipwire has the experience and capacity to make sure every order is picked, packed and shipped from warehouse locations in the US, Canada and Europe, to their final destinations. Not only do our services fulfill the orders, but you can also monitor your inventory, track and get confirmation for a successful delivery. Let us handle the daunting task of project shipping and fulfillment throughout the US (and internationally) to “kickstart” your global shipping needs so you can focus on improving the world one life-changing idea at a time.

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Shipwire is pleased to announce the availability of a new facility in Philadelphia. After months of testing and a very thorough beta period with select merchants, this new East Coast warehouse is available.

Designed to service the East Coast of the United States, the Philadelphia facility is designed for wholesale shipping, high-volume pick-pack, and direct-to-consumer sales.

All the features that every Shipwire account enjoys are available in our newest facility. For example: Same Day Shipping, Service Level Guarantees and our 100% order accuracy guarantee.

Located in Lancaster which is close to Philadelphia, PA, this warehouse is strategically located with 1 day ground transit to New York City and approximately 45% of the U.S. Population. This will be of huge benefit to Shipwire customers looking to cut shipping costs to customers in the North East of the U.S.A. All without having an actual warehouse located in the state of New York.

The new Philadelphia facility is also located beside major shipping hubs for UPS and Fedex. It is within same-day range of the major USPS shipping hub located at JFK Airport in New York City. The end result: packages will get to buyers faster and for less money.

Shipwire East Coast Facility in Lancaster, PA

The Philadelphia facility is available today in every Shipwire account. It is accessible through your Shipwire account, just like every other warehouse.  There are no extra charges for using the Philadelphia facility: normal Shipwire rates apply to storage, handling and shipping.

If you don’t have a Shipwire account you can get a free trial. You can use your test shipments from any one of our 6 warehouse locations globally, including Pennsylvania.

Learn more about Shipwire warehouse locations by clicking on a tack in the map below. We also have wait lists for new regional warehouses in Asia, Australia and Eastern Europe.

Center of map

map

Philadelphia, United States

1 facility, more than 250,000 square feet

Lancaster, PA 17601
Call (888) SHIPWIRE or 650-561-4800

Behind the scenes - See a warehouse
 - How it works

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Los Angeles, United States

3 facilities, more than 550,000 square feet

Los Angeles, CA 92316
Call (888) SHIPWIRE or 650-561-4800

Behind the scenes - See a warehouse
 - How it works

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Chicago, United States

2 facilities, more than 900,000 square feet

Naperville, IL 60563
Call (888) SHIPWIRE or 650-561-4800

Behind the scenes - See a warehouse
 - How it works

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Vancouver, Canada

1 facility, more than 100,000 square feet

Vancouver, BC V6B 4N4
Call (888) SHIPWIRE or 650-561-4800

Behind the scenes - See a warehouse
 - How it works

map

Toronto, Canada

1 facility, more than 100,000 square feet

Oakville, ON, L6H 6P7
Call (888) SHIPWIRE or 650-561-4800

Behind the scenes - See a warehouse
 - How it works

map

London, United Kingdom

2 facilities, more than 40,000 square feet

Slough, Berkshire, SL1 6BW
Call (888) SHIPWIRE or 650-561-4800

Behind the scenes - See a warehouse
 - How it works

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PayPal, eBay and Magento are up to something these days – A platform called “X.Commerce”. Since we received an investment from eBay a few months ago I’ve gotten a number of e-mails from Shipwire partners in congratulations. However, almost every e-mail has ended with one question, “So, do you know what X.commerce is?”

eBay spoke about investing $1 Billion in technology, wanting more partnerships and not competing with merchants at Internet Retailer this summer. A recent Fast company article (with cool transformer graphic) highlighted their intention to use their latest acquisitions to transform online and offline commerce.   Everybody is aware that eBay is on a Skype sale fueled celebratory shopping spree (RedLaser a while ago, Milo, GSI, Magento, Figtree, Where which included Local Ginger daily deals – the list goes on). The reporters and analysts are aflutter with praise that eBay is evolving and attempting to inject themselves into the buy decision across the landscape of social, mobile, local, digital landscape whether the buyer pushed a buy button online or walked into a store and purchased offline.

Great! Awesome Plan! Sounds like a winner! But, what the heck is X.Commerce? And how does it fit in?

In a few weeks Shipwire will be attending PayPal’s Innovate developer conference in San Francisco.   If you would like to join us, you can register and get $100 off by using promo code “SHIPWIRE100″ (leave off the “”). This is where the eBay/PayPal team unwraps X.commerce to the world.

If you are at all curious about what X.Commerce is, then Innovate Developer Conference should be the place to find out.

What does eBay Say X.Commerce is supposed to be?

Technology has fundamentally changed the way consumers shop. This will only continue.

The line between offline and online has virtually disappeared. There are four mega trends driving this change:
digital, social, local and mobile.

Offline retail used to about location; now, it’s about innovation. The challenge is that it’s easier for consumers to
adopt new technologies than it is for companies. Merchants need to offer their customers a
complete commerce experience from start to finish, one that incorporates whatever capability the
consumer is using (mobile, local, social, digital or whatever happens to come next).

But they also need to focus on their own priorities, such as finding good products to sell.

Enter X.commerce.

For merchants, X.commerce makes the most current commerce technologies easy to access. It
gives merchants the ability to scale quickly without investing in costly, complex configurations and it is
open to merchants of any size, in any location.

For developers, X.commerce puts them in control of defining and building the engine that will power
the new commerce landscape.

Full details about this new technology platform and how developers will help define the future of commerce
will be unveiled at the X.commerce Innovate developer conference, October 12 – 13 at Moscone West in San Francisco.

But what is X.commerce supposed to become?

Here is what I think X.Commerce will become.

X.com is part of the PayPal developer initiative. It’s been a very successful developer initiative by almost any measurement. Since it’s release PayPal has racked up some huge numbers for new subscribers and transaction growth. Better yet, some very innovative solutions have been built on top of it. For example, Payvment social commerce, a Shipwire Partner, is built on top of PayPal X.com and is taking PayPal into the the Holy Grail of potential markets – Facebook.

Shipwire is a X.com platform partner and along with some other fine companies, launched an App on PayPal’s short lived Embedded Apps platform. We embedded full shipping, label printing and order management right into PayPal. This was all very “bleeding edge” development that we were really proud to participate in.

The groundwork is there for X.commerce to become a true eCommerce Intermediary (Sorry, 1999 word there). A combination app store and a “bus” (technical term) to facilitate the exchange of commerce data among app providers. Look for some of the following at Innovate:

• Intention to unite two incredibly powerful developer networks: PayPal and Magento. This will likely be a long-term goal with some short term branding implications. The Magento developer network is 1st class and one of the keys to their success in the marketplace. I can only assume that the strength of the developer network was a driving factor in the Magento acquisition by eBay. The eBay Developer network could also be a huge leveraging factor for X.commerce in the future.
• Massive new set of PayPal API’s released under the X.commerce umbrella. I can’t help but think that X.com platform team didn’t stop innovating while all these acquisitions were going on.   That means that the PayPal team is going to have the most concrete set of functionality available for developers provided X.com will be the underlying foundation for X.Commerce. The PayPal X.com team will have had the longest runway. The Milo, RedLaser and Magento teams will likely be the initial plug-ins to the new framework. It should be exciting to see.
• The framework (or fabric) for a future set of API’s to get access to a huge wealth of data. To be a truly massive data set, the framework will need to incorporate a new idea – the sharing of data between apps that plug into the framework. For example, if Shipwire builds an extension to X.commerce and our friends over at Freshbooks build a connection, the data in our two applications can be accessed via the X.commerce framework (“bus”). This was an idea I heard our CTO talking about during the run up to Innovate last year.
• The future birth of a new apps marketplace. This is my hope for developers. To get access to a huge new set of customers and merchants through a unified app store. eBay, PayPal and Magento Users would be a large enough user/merchant base to make most developers take notice.
• A deferred modality for making money on this. I can’t imagine that the X.commerce teams have been able to think through all the ways that 3rd party developers are going to access data and leverage new API’s. They have a good guess from the X.com platform API usage. The key here is going to be attracting developers and not monetizing the platform. That will come later if they can get traction.

So what is X.Commerce? It will be a super-sized and more flexible version of X.com with a lot of lessons learned from the past few years. We know that the emphasis is on Commerce (hint, it’s in the name) and the eBay want’s to be a part of commerce whether it take place in store locally, through the mobile web, through a social network or in an overseas market. eBay has acquired a bunch of new technology and X.commerce is intended to be the fabric to make all this data accessible and available to a new generation of commerce applications that haven’t been built yet.

This would be a huge amount of work with many pitfalls. What we might see at Innovate in October is the framework, direction and intention. It will take years for the future of e-commerce to develop; but, eBay is going all out to make sure it will be in the middle of commerce.

If you come to X.Commerce, come by Shipwire’s booth and say hello.

Comments welcome!

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