| The_Cynic | 06-26-2008 07:42 PM |
Anyone use outside Fulfillment?
The amount of time, money and space I spend doing my own fulfillment is really getting to me. I have had 4 different part time employees helping me at various times and that hasn't worked out either. So I am doing it myself and I find that the time and effort it takes is really starting to weigh on me.
Plus, what I am doing now is not scalable, I mean how many hours can I work? and the time I spend doing grunt stuff like pick and pack does not pay near as well as my design and web work. And I need some room in my place to live.
So I am looking at outsourcing my fulfillment. I am looking at a local warehouse, Amazon FBA and this Shipwire thing. The problem is that I have over 1400 unique items (but all the items are near identical sizes). I am building an excel/csv to automate my placement on Google base and Amazon (and giving each item a unique id).
-- Right now I spend about $2.80 for US 1st class postage (packaging material included) -- this does NOT factor in my time.
-- Amazon would charge, 2.05 for FBA sales on Amazon -- OR $6.05 per item for sales off Amazon (the fees include handling, postage, packaging and tracking)
---Shipwire wants about $2.60 per item plus postage and packaging
-- I am still waiting on a quote from the local warehouse.
Anyone here use outside fulfillment or have any experience with this?
Right now Amazon looks good for this, since I can funnel my website sales through Amazon, get 4% back (Due to my Amazon affilliate acct) and only pay $2.05 for fulfillment. | 
