The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2012
Four years ago, Jared Madsen started a company that makes bicycles built for five. He sold his bikes—which had two wheels and a rear bucket big enough to tote four children—wholesale to shops around the country.
But today, 90% of sales at his small business, Madsen Cycles, in Murray, Utah, come from an online store that took his Web designer half a day to embed within his company’s website.
The company’s bikes are now sold by him directly to consumers for about $1,485 apiece, at what he describes as a “way higher profit.” He declines to specify his markups.
Mr. Madsen says he initially thought the online store would just fill in “holes” where he didn’t have distribution. But the benefit to him in the end, he adds, was that the Web store made it possible for him to dramatically reduce his reliance on third-party shops.
As a result, the online store is now his business’s main source of income.
Read the full article here.
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Internet Retailer, May 4, 2010
It’s not just sites like Amazon.com and eBay.com that are doing business overseas, a new study from order fulfillment provider Shipwire reports. More small- and medium-sized merchants are doing business abroad… International orders for the small and medium-sized merchants that do less than $100 million in annual sales and use Shipwire’s services grew 11 percentage points from 9% in 2008 to reach 20% of total shipped orders in 2009, Shipwire reports. Read more. | PDF version.
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Fox Small Business Center, April 30, 2010 (Video)
Spotlight: A One-Stop Storage Startup
Damon Schechter, founder and CEO of Shipwire, interviewed live on Fox Business. Damon discusses how small businesses can expand internationally using Shipwire’s service. Watch the interview here.
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Gourmet Retailer, September 2008
E-commerce via Web fulfillment is another important supply chain consideration. Since this type of service directly impacts your end-consumer and holds a heavier weight on product loyalty, ensure that the provider can seamlessly integrate to your system. It should automatically receive orders for processing and return shipment info, including inventory levels in real time for accurate tracking. If the majority of your business hinges on e-commerce, consider technology that is synced with popular shopping carts offered by companies like Shipwire. Read more. | PDF Version.
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