Shipping & Fulfillment

Our shipping and fulfillment coverage reflects the expectations of many consumers for free and fast delivery. We address topics that help ecommerce merchants meet those goals, including analyses of carriers, free shipping strategies, fulfillment efficiencies (including the use of third-party fulfillment companies), returns and refunds, multichannel integration, drop shipping issues, and much more.

Shipping & Fulfillment
Is Five-Day USPS Delivery Coming?

February 12, 2009 • Armando Roggio

Many online retailers depend on the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to reliably deliver merchandise to customers, since the service is often less expensive than UPS (United Parcel Service) and delivers six days a week, something that UPS charges a significant premium for. But the USPS lost ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
Ecommerce Know-How: The Free Shipping Equation

January 13, 2009 • Armando Roggio

In 2009, every major carrier in the United States will be raising shipping rates. Profit conscience online shopkeepers, therefore, should take pause and reevaluate whether or not offering "free shipping" is really a good idea. There is, of course, really no such thing as free shipping...
Shipping & Fulfillment
The PeC Review: Stamps.com is A Helpful Tool for Many Merchants

December 22, 2008 • Armando Roggio

Stamps.com provides online retailers with a simple-to-use, software-based service that calculates official U. S. Postal Service postage from any PC, formatting printing labels and any required shipping documents. The Stamps.com software, which was developed in conjunction with the Pos...
Shipping & Fulfillment
Shipping Charges: Compromises Required

March 28, 2007 • Pamela Hazelton

You would think online stores would have found it easier by now to calculate and charge accurate shipping fees, let alone set up uninterrupted checkout processes that flow smoothly. Yet I see more and more questions and requests for customizations and fixes than ever before. What makes...
Shipping & Fulfillment
Order Management Software Saves Time, Reduces Errors

January 1, 2006 • Michael A. Cox

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” When Charles Dickens opened his classic A Tale of Two Cities with those words he was thinking only about the French Revolution. But his words strike equally apropos in the entrepreneurial revolution of the 21st century. It is the ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
The Shipping News: Plenty of Carriers for eCommerce Companies

December 1, 2005 • Michael A. Cox

Talk about your needle in a haystack. When you ship one package through the Fedex system it becomes one of more than six million that the company formerly known as Federal Express moves about the globe every day. If you shipped it on UPS it would be one of 14 million handled by the com...
Shipping & Fulfillment
International Shipments Worth the Effort

December 1, 2005 • Brian Getting

One of the greatest attractions of an online business is the vast number of customers that the Internet allows a retailer to reach. Web surfers from all over the world can navigate beyond the boundaries and borders that exist in the physical world to find the products and services that ...
Shipping & Fulfillment
Fulfillment Help: Try Order Management Software

December 1, 2005 • Brian Getting

Online retailers know that there are many steps required from receiving a sales order to actually shipping it. For many retailers, these steps are separate and distinct: Print the order, enter it into accounting software, produce a shipping label, generate an inventory slip, email the c...
Shipping & Fulfillment
A Primer in Shipping Calculations

August 1, 2005 • Pamela Hazelton

Set aside all the cool features you’d love your MIVA Merchant store to have, and those you aren’t sure how to accomplish. The most difficult yet necessary task is tackling the proper means of calculating shipping. It sounds so simple – after all, we can hit UPS.com, USPS.com, FedEx.com...