Is the economy in a recession right now? It depends on who you ask and has proven to be a surprisingly contentious question. But no matter what, you can prepare for the maybe-happening, maybe-not-happening recession by focusing on recession-proof products. Weirdly, some items just seem to sell more when the...

If you followed the news in the post-pandemic season, you probably noticed that a lot of goods were in short supply. Everything from semiconductors to sausage, rental cars to lumber had been hard to come by. You could blame the pandemic for many of these shortages, sure, but the underlying...

Let’s say you have an amazing business idea–but you don’t have the money to get it off the ground. You’d hardly be alone here, since lack of funding is one of the most common challenges that startups run into. That’s why Kickstarter, and other crowdfunding tools are so attractive. Why...

Subscription boxes seem unstoppable now. But as recently as 2010, the business model barely existed. Rather, it was around 2011 when subscription boxes started to take off, with brands like BirchBox, Dollar Shave Club, and NatureBox becoming household names. From 2011 to 2016, the subscription box industry grew nearly 100%...

Running a small business can be a disorienting, confusing experience, regardless of how much experience you have. It's tough to know where to turn for timely and useful information, reliable data, and time-saving software. That's why in this week's post, we're going to share some of our favorite helpful websites...

Roughly 10% of packages get damaged in the mail. Naturally, this is not a comforting statistic if you are in the business of shipping fragile items. Our source here is the Fulfillment Lab, which considered the average damage rate over 15 billion packages delivered in 2022 and 2023. As you...

You want to launch a Kickstarter. [ez-toc] And, maybe this goes without saying, but you actually want to fund, right? Everybody’s telling you “build an audience” and “generate leads.” But what if you don’t know how to do that? Or what to do when you’re live? What if you want...

Have you ever ordered something online and wondered how exactly it got to your house? You’re certainly not alone – people may shop online a ton, but the order fulfillment process is still a little opaque.

Supply chain management, done well, is a bit like magic. Online shoppers can go their whole lives without really understanding how items get from Point A to Point B. And that’s the way we like it!

But still, you might be curious about how the whole thing works. So to satisfy your curiosity, here are the 11 order fulfillment steps that take place within the walls of our warehouse – and other warehouses like it – that make online shopping possible.

Shipping your own orders gets old fast. But finding the right order fulfillment partner to take care of it is a tough decision and one you want to make properly.

Picking the right order fulfillment partner can save you time, money, and energy. That way, you can focus on growing your business because you’re not the one putting every box in the mail.

But if you pick the wrong one, shipments might get lost and customers might get angry. You might end up paying bills and not entirely understanding why.

It’s complicated. So to help you pick the right order fulfillment – and tell when it’s the right time to be thinking about this in the first place – we’ve put together this guide.

Fun fact - 1.7 million packages are lost or stolen in the United States every day. That's about 620 million packages per year according to a 2023 report by Security.org. Obviously, that is a terrible fact, but it's also an unavoidable one. So it begs the question: "who is liable...

You want to make a board game. But how do you…make a board game? I’m not talking about play-testing or art or any of that. I’m talking about manufacturing. How do you work with a manufacturer to turn that beautiful idea in your head or on some index cards covered...

Manufacturing products – that’s just the beginning. You also need to fulfill orders, and that’s a whole other challenge. And in between, you probably need to book freight.

But how do you do that?

Many business owners find freight shipping particularly daunting because it’s so unfamiliar. But once you get past the headlines and complicated terms, booking freight is more straightforward than you would think.

Ultimately, booking freight for your eCommerce store or Kickstarter campaign comes down to four key decisions.

Here’s what you need to know.