Shipwire: Good or Bad?

[AgainstAllOdds]

Hey guys,

I'm thinking about shipping some inventory to shipwire. They're a fulfillment center.

Reviews online are mixed, and I can't tell if that's because they're bad, or because the few people that had bad experiences are complaining.

Their pricing is pretty good. But has anyone actually worked with them?

And if you use someone else, who do you use? Is that experience good?

 

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[Insaint]

I tried working with them in early 2016. I shipped them some stock as per their on-boarding experience. It took them 3 weeks to clear it and another 2 weeks to ship it back from the UK to the Netherlands (it should take 2-4 days). So yeah, I bailed.

Their reviews have also really gone downhill over the past year. Shopify/Yelp/Trustpilot all have a lot of horrible reviews recently. One thing to note is that on Yelp the only two 5-star reviews in the last year are made by people with no other reviews. Most of the 'not-recommended' reviews there are 1-stars as well. Take that as you will.

Their pricing may seem interesting, but their shipping calculator is inaccurate at best. Shipping my stock back was at least 30% more expensive than their calculator predicted. More expensive than just going to the local post office. Definitely check their shipping costs before you commit.

Unfortunately I can't help you with an alternative as I use a local fulfillment company now.

 

[hughjasle]

I used them before and dumped them. Very expensive option.

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

I used them before and dumped them. Very expensive option.

Any suggestions on who to switch to?

And was cost the only negative (as in the chart above)? Or were there more negatives?

 

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[hughjasle]

In my case, I had a larger than normal product and the box they chose was insane for shipping. Went from shipping it myself for around $6 to $15 per item with them. So cost was the main issue.

Pretty poor communication as well. Routinely had questions or requests go unanswered for long periods. Found out at one point that they weren't notifying me of returns. So those returns weren't getting refunded and thus having to charge back and cause all kinds of customer service nightmares.

Basically they didn't have their act together for me and lost me as a customer.

Amazon FBA would have been cheaper amazingly. By HALF. Wish I knew they'd have the boxing issue BEFORE I sent them a bunch of units. Ya live and learn.

FWIW I'm in the process of bringing all my fulfillment in house. The

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Aidan Thomas]

Any suggestions on who to switch to?

And was cost the only negative (as in the chart above)? Or were there more negatives?

Hey guys,

I'm thinking about shipping some inventory to shipwire. They're a fulfillment center.

Reviews online are mixed, and I can't tell if that's because they're bad, or because the few people that had bad experiences are complaining.

Their pricing is pretty good. But has anyone actually worked with them?

And if you use someone else, who do you use? Is that experience good?

 

[Aidan Thomas]

Any suggestions on who to switch to?

And was cost the only negative (as in the chart above)? Or were there more negatives?

Check out ShipMonk! You'll get a very personalized level of service, great fulfillment prices, and save lots of time better off spent on business development. There's a quick and simple contact me form on the shipmonk.com home page to get in touch with a rep.

 

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[AgainstAllOdds]

Check out ShipMonk! You'll get a very personalized level of service, great fulfillment prices, and save lots of time better off spent on business development. There's a quick and simple contact me form on the shipmonk.com home page to get in touch with a rep.

I'm assuming you own/work for the company. There's zero reviews of you guys. Where can I find non-biased third party reviews?

 

[MitchC]

I haven't used them yet but I've spoken to the owner of this after seeing him posting in Facebook groups, he seems like a nice guy with very fair and reasonable rates. I will shop around first but I think I will use them when my custom stock is ready, until then I'm drop shipping. He's set me up as an affiliate so if you want to let him know I referred you then you can.

http://www.direct-outbound.com

Heres the convo about his rates:

so on the postage side - actual cost to ship since it falls under 1 lb is all weight based, not distance. so depending on if it falls under 8oz or 9oz based on that, it would be $2.51 for 8oz, $3.05 for 9oz

that's cost with the carrier to ship - all tracked, average delivery 3 days

using UPS mail innovations, which is a combination of ups and the USPS

our actual charges we try to keep as simple as possible - it's based on picks. initial and additional - an initial pick is all order processing, packaging building, and first item in the box, which is $1.65 additional pick is any additional item in the same order for $0.55. we also include a bubble mailer or poly mailer in the initial pick

but if you can combine or we need to get creative for the sample and such we can help out

Storage fees:
we keep them low - either $19 per pallet per month, or $0.30 per cubic foot per month. less than half of amazon's rates for storage

When he set up the affiliate thing he said I'd only get a % of the picks because he doesn't mark-up shipping, unlike everyone else it seems.

If anyone knows anything better let me know, I haven't shopped around yet.

 

[Aidan Thomas]

I'm assuming you own/work for the company. There's zero reviews of you guys. Where can I find non-biased third party reviews?

Of course, in full disclosure I do work with ShipMonk. At the moment we're building out a testimonials page on our site, but you're more than welcome to visit www.ShipMonk.com near the bottom where you'll find a few of our customer's reviews. I'm happy to send over our ShipMonk brochure which includes a few more detailed testimonials. I can even get you in touch with some of our customers that would give you their unbiased opinions of ShipMonk. My email is aidan@shipmonk.com

Looking forward to hearing from you!
Aidan

 

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