Today, you may have seen an article on TechCrunch about a brand-new feature for ShipStation. Hidden amongst the talk about AWS and the cloud, you may have noticed something else: we now offer Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). For any of you who fulfill your orders through Amazon, just think of what you could accomplish by using your ShipStation account to fulfill those orders over the process that you have now. Yeah, that’s a lot of time you’d save.
Here’s how FBA works to those of you unfamiliar with it: you have your store on eBay, Shopify, Volusion, Sears, etc. and you get an order. Rather than ship that item yourself, you pay Amazon to keep it in its warehouse for you and use its fulfillment and shipping providers to do everything past the “Yay, I got an order” part. So, once you have your celebration over receiving an order, you let Amazon know to fulfill and ship the order, and they take care of that entire process. Once the order has shipped, Amazon will send you the tracking number and shipment status. You then communicate that information to both your marketplace and customer through a type of copy-and-paste routine. That’s where we come in.
If you’d like your orders fulfilled through Amazon’s FBA service, rather than ship them yourself through ShipStation, you need only move the slider from “Shipment” to “Fulfillment” when you have an order (or orders) selected within the main Orders screen. Then, select “FBA” as the provider, choose the preferred Service, and ship the item! Once shipped, Amazon will immediately notify ShipStation of the tracking number and shipment status where we then instantly and automatically update your marketplace and customer with that information, just as if you had shipped the item yourself, but without the manual steps.
FBA is a fantastic way to easily fulfill and process orders from any marketplace, and now we’ve helped to make the process even easier, especially for those of you who still do some fulfillment in-house. Fulfillment can easily take up most of your time when running an online eCommerce business, and we’re sure that if you’re not already using ShipStation, we can help you cut down on your order processing time. If you decide to also go with FBA for part (or all) of your order fulfillment, our app will help you streamline that process as well, and help you save valuable time.
To sign up for FBA within ShipStation, all you need to do is go to your Settings page, and click the newly renamed Shipping / Fulfillment Providers link. (Previously, it was Postage / Shipping Providers.) Here, simply click on the Fulfilled by Amazon fulfillment provider and follow the on-screen instructions. If you’re looking to help manage your inventory, our friends over at Stitch Labs can help with their recently-announced integration with Amazon and Amazon’s FBA program.
Looking for a bit more info on FBA before you sign up? No worries; Amazon has a few fantastic videos and FAQs for more information.
I’m Erika, the social media & content manager for ShipStation. You’ll find me on Twitter, Facebook, and the other areas of the ShipStation world. In my free time, I’m a lover of video games, my cats, and other generally nerdy things. :)
The sun sets on yet another fantastic conference, this time in beautiful Seattle. The Sellers Conference for Online Entrepreneurs (SCOE) was a 3-day event over the last weekend in September that brought together high energy online business owners to meet with the experts, share ideas, learn new technologies, and discuss future sales strategies. Replete with amazing, experienced guest speakers, SCOE certainly didn’t disappoint. While there, we had the opportunity to meet with the creators of some really cool online tools. One from by a company called Arcball Interactive, and another called SellerEngine with their Profit Bandit app. Check them out and you’ll see what I mean! We also made great friends with “GrannieAnnie” and many other online sellers.
What was the highlight of our trip, aside from meeting all of the incredible folks at SCOE? Well, we of course always look forward connecting with our integrated partners and were lucky enough to do so with Chris and Richard from Endicia, Colby and Marc from Express 1, and Jon from Cloud Conversion. Other memorable takeaways were seeing the beauty of Seattle with blue skies and high temperatures, looking up at the newly painted Space Needle, and walking through the famous Pike Place Fish Market. The highlight of our trip; however, had to be our dining experience at “The Crab Pot”. Touting bibs from neck to belt, and mallets in hand, we pounded on three different kinds of crab and ate until our bellies were full. And I do mean full! Although I was ready to make the attempt, there was just no room left for that delicious looking Mud Pie. Thanks Express1!
Finally, I’d like to announce the winner of our SCOE drawing for a free 1-year subscription to ShipStation. And the winner is…Vincent Lin! Vincent runs his online business, called LiteTrek, out of California. Vincent is currently selling through his own Webstore, Amazon and eBay. Although his Webstore has been live for 8 years, he only started selling on Amazon two years ago, and eBay just three months ago. Congratulations again, Vincent!
We hope to see you at next year’s SCOE conference!
I’m Curtis, the Director of Business Development for ShipStation. When I’m not scouring the web looking for great partner prospects, I’m working with existing ShipStation partners to make sure that our combine offering is the very best that it can be. In my spare time, I can be found laughing with my 9-year old daughter, biking, running, golfing or relaxing in front of a good movie.
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