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What you need to know about ShipMonk, a company that is revolutionizing the way businesses manage shipping for their customers.
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ShipMonk is a third-party logistics firm (3PL) that offers storage, order fulfillment, and shipping services to small and medium-sized enterprises. Robotic automation and sophisticated warehouse management systems (WMSes) in its three US fulfillment facilities are part of its tech-forward platform, which seeks to cut fulfillment costs and improve operational accuracy.
Go to ShipMonk.com.
When Should You Use ShipMonk?
ShipMonk has a 3.91 out of 5 rating in our review of the finest order fulfillment services, making it one of our top choices. We gave the firm points for its service quality, functionality, and popularity. ShipMonk, on the other hand, received a failing grade in the price area because to its uncompetitive storage and pick-and-pack rates, as well as a lack of billing clarity.
ShipMonk’s services have no minimum order requirement, making it viable for startups and small enterprises to outsource their fulfillment operations. Pick-and-pack costs, on the other hand, have a $250 monthly minimum.
ShipMonk’s cutting-edge warehouses combine flexible storage and robotic picking to produce extremely efficient operations for tiny, lightweight, and controllable commodities. ShipMonk’s operations might possibly hurt your inventory and your financial line if you sell large, big, or delicate items.
ShipMonk is especially recommended for:
- Scaling up small ecommerce businesses: ShipMonk’s services and volume reductions expand with your company, making it a cost-effective option for startups, small businesses, and seasonal swings.
- Stores wishing to develop worldwide by sending occasional purchases outside of the United States would profit from ShipMonk’s efforts to make global shipping simple and affordable. The dashboard includes information that may be used to compute necessary tariffs and/or taxes, as well as speed up the customs procedure. Furthermore, it has a diverse international shipping network.
- ShipMonk provides competitively priced batch programs for restricted commodities like as product launches and crowdfunding projects.
- Sellers on Groupon, Etsy, and subscription boxes: Nontraditional markets like Groupon and Etsy are incompatible with many of the top fulfillment suppliers. ShipMonk is glad to accept orders from these sites and even offers subscription box programs extra choices.
- ShipMonk’s software and services are very compatible with wholesale and B2B (business-to-business) orders, and the company also provides customized retail fulfillment rates.
- ShipMonk is approved for Amazon Seller-Fulfilled Prime (SFP) orders, allowing you to show the sales-driving Prime badge on your Amazon listings without having to deal with FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon). For Amazon sellers, we prefer FBA, but if you need anything else, ShipMonk is a good option. It can also prepare you for FBA so you may use both services.
When to Use a Substitute
- ShipMonk’s facilities are incompatible with big, oversized, or delicate items, from carton-focused storage to robotic picking automation. For any special-handling demands, we propose Red Stag.
- High-value items include: Storage insurance is not available via ShipMonk. You may either add its warehouse(s) to your own insurance and absorb the cost, or you can risk financial loss. Red Stag is completely insured, protected, and guaranteed to cause no shrinkage or mistake, making it the finest option for high-value items.
- Food and beverage, cosmetics, and medical supplies are all examples of health products. These are FDA-regulated products that, in most situations, need FDA-certified handling in order to comply with state and local standards. ShipMonk isn’t a suitable option for these items since it lacks climate control and approved handling. For FDA-compliance in the supply chain, we propose ShipBob.
- ShipMonk may ship globally, although its warehouses are all in North America. ShipBob or FedEx, whose warehouse networks enable businesses to keep sections of their goods in places throughout the world, are preferable options for retailers with a large international consumer base. This method reduces the cost of international shipping as well as the time it takes to receive the package.
Overview of ShipMonk
Go to ShipMonk.com.
ShipMonk reinvents a tried-and-true business paradigm by offering fulfillment services with cutting-edge features. Customer service excellence and increased efficiency are the cornerstones of the company’s platform, which set it apart from its rivals.
The company’s headquarters are in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and it operates two more warehouses, as seen on the map below. Despite its small number of warehouses, ShipMonk’s shipping network is well-developed and offers low-cost, two- to five-day delivery to the majority of the United States.
(Image courtesy of ShipMonk)
Although there is no minimum order requirement for ShipMonk’s services, there is a $250 minimum pick-and-pack cost. If your monthly consumption falls short of that limit, your account will be charged the difference. On ShipMonk’s basic price structure, $250 would complete around 80 orders at the bare minimum of pick-quantity, packing choices, and volume discounts.
The following services are available via ShipMonk:
- Warehousing: Three warehouses in the Eastern, Western, and Southern US coasts, as well as one in Mexico, enable retailers to strategically store and transport product. ShipMonk is a cost-effective solution for items that aren’t high-value or big, thanks to its free receiving and flexible storage choices.
- ShipMonk is able to reach 99.99 percent picking accuracy because to high-tech automation and robotic help. Dimensional scanning is utilized to provide the appropriate packaging for each order based on its size and weight.
- Retail fulfillment: ShipMonk offers fulfillment plans based on the number of SKUs and handling units to assist with retail distribution and wholesale orders.
- Subscription box fulfillment: On a customized pricing model, the provider will construct (or “kit”) batches of boxes according to your requirements.
- Fulfill Amazon orders via FBA without the hassle by having ShipMonk wrap and send a part of your products according to FBA’s exacting rules.
- ShipMonk operates with six different shipping providers, including USPS, FedEx, DHL, DHL Express, Passport, and UPS1, all of which offer lower prices.
- Customer service: Each customer is allocated a dedicated customer service agent, dubbed your own “Happiness Engineer” by the corporation. Support is offered over the phone or via an online ticketing system. In each warehouse’s time zone, customer service hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
- ShipMonk’s interface is mostly used to handle orders and inventories.
- Customization: The organization has a flexible “Special Projects” capability that allows it to provide help wherever it is required.
- ShipMonk connects to the most popular ecommerce shopping carts, marketplaces, tools, and solutions.
- Kitting, bundling, reverse logistics, international shipment, and more services are available via ShipMonk. Sellers may contribute their own packaging components for extra item-pick costs, but the firm does not manufacture branded or bespoke packaging.
- Section 321 Duty-Free Import: Sellers may send products to Shipmonk’s Mexico location and then progressively import it into the US in $800 increments. For volume importers, this removes tariffs.
How ShipMonk Compares to Other Fulfillment & 3PL Companies
Pricing at ShipMonk
ShipMonk provides a number of fulfillment services, including ecommerce fulfillment, retail fulfillment, and subscription box fulfillment, to meet a variety of demands. Each service model is priced differently, and the company’s website includes a simple five-step calculator to estimate the cost of your exact requirements.
Volume discounts begin with a monthly order volume of 500 and increase from there. For customers that process 10,000 or more orders per month, custom pricing is available.
The ShipMonk software’s billing site provides a full overview of your monthly fulfillment charges.
Fuel surcharges and contract issues have caused some consumers to incur unexpected fees. Because ShipMonk’s services may have hidden “fine print” prices and duties, be sure you fully comprehend your fulfillment agreement.
The company’s regular ecommerce fulfillment price is shown below.
Key Features of ShipMonk
Due of their comparable service platforms and accessibility to small and/or atypical enterprises, ShipMonk is usually compared to ShipBob. Here are the qualities that distinguish ShipMonk from rivals like ShipBob.
ShipMonk was created on the principle of providing best-in-class customer service, and it remains a core priority to this day. Dedicated service agents, longer customer service hours, various service centers, and ticket-based resolution mechanisms are just a few of the simple yet effective innovations that contribute to ShipMonk’s reputation as a top-notch support provider.
My interactions with members of the ShipMonk team were less than pleasant. I met with a sales person who was abrupt, hurried, and even arrogant, and I got no useful information or assistance. All subsequent efforts to contact corporate employees were futile.
The majority of user evaluations and firsthand experiences of dealing with ShipMonk back up their claim of providing great service, however it’s worth mentioning that their staff’ commission-based objectives influence how they manage customer and public relations.
ShipMonk distinguishes itself from the competition by using high-tech advancements throughout the fulfillment process. These warehouse improvements promote productivity, optimize space use, improve ergonomics, increase throughput, improve product security, and boost overall efficiency.
The company’s operational accuracy rates are very high—99.99%—suggesting that the robotic technique is effective. ShipMonk claims that the increased efficiency translates to decreased fulfillment expenses for its customers. ShipMonk is able to select 4x quicker than the industry average and has a 400% boost in storage efficiency thanks to the robots.
Storage and retrieval machines (SRMs) perform automated picking tasks in ShipMonk’s warehouses. (Image courtesy of ShipMonk)
ShipMonk tags and tracks storage locations using warehouse management systems (WMSes) using RFID technology, enabling its system to determine when product bins are being restocked, picked, or transferred. This doesn’t help with security (since RFID tags are often utilized), but it helps make inventory management more dependable and real-time.
A dimensions scanning technology is also used to determine the best and most protective packing for each individual item. Red Stag, ShipBob, and other rivals employ similar devices.
When it comes to packaging, ShipMonk is quite accommodative, trying to offer the customer complete flexibility over how their items are packaged. Each packaging station even has a camera that allows customers to see how their items are handled and packed.
With its kitting initiatives, the firm is versatile, allowing merchants to incorporate customized add-ons such as thank you letters, discounts, branded package materials, and samples. ShipMonk also features well-developed subscription box and other non-traditional sales schemes.
ShipMonk’s interoperability with particular sales platforms, such as Etsy and Groupon, is one of the main reasons why some merchants prefer it over ShipBob. ShipBob is unable to fulfill orders from such marketplaces, which would result in a significant loss of revenue for some businesses.
ShipMonk’s services are adaptable to a variety of markets and business formats, including Amazon Prime sales, crowdfunding campaigns, product launches, and subscription boxes.
ShipMonk’s proprietary software, according to a spokesman, is “simply an inventory management system” that is “simple and very clear.” Unlike more expensive systems like Whitebox, every account comes with a dashboard, although it’s significantly lacking in features and usefulness.
It handles orders, inventory, and delivery choices without a hitch, however it lacks reporting and analytics features. We choose ShipBob’s superior proprietary software because visibility into key performance indicators and expected demand may have a substantial influence on a company’s trajectory.
Integrations with ShipMonk
ShipMonk integrates with a wide range of ecommerce systems and tools, including all of the major shopping carts and marketplaces. These direct connections are easy to set up and use, and many of them are two-way compatible.
Because the firm doesn’t provide on-demand integrations as a paid service (like ShipBob does), you’re out of luck if none of your mission-critical solution suppliers are listed here. ShipMonk has a form on its website that acts as a “vote” method for new integration requests. There’s no way of knowing how efficient or dependable this method is.
A comprehensive list of ShipMonk’s current direct integrations can be found here.
- 3dcart, AmeriCommerce, Big Cartel, BigCommerce, Cratejoy, CoreCommerce, CS-Cart, Ecwid, FoxyCart, Magento, MijoShop, Miva, Neto, OpenCart, Oxatis, PayPal, PrestaShop, RevolutionParts, Shopify, Shopify Plus, Soldsie, Squarespace, UltraCart, Volusion, Weebly, WooCommerce, X Cart, Zen Cart, Zoey, WooCommerce
- Bonanza, Bandcamp, Cratejoy, eBay, eBay.ca, eBay.co.uk, eBay.com.au, Etsy, Groupon Goods, houzz, Jane, Jet, Newegg Marketplace, OpenSky, Reverb, Sears, Storenvy, Tophatter, Walmart.com, Wish, Yahoo, Best Buy Marketplace, Marshalls, T.J. Maxx, QVC, Target, Walmart, Walmart.com, Walmart.com, Walmart.com,
- Brightpearl, Channel Advisor, ChannelSale, Commerce Cloud, Linnworks, Sellbrite, SellerActive, Stitch Labs, SureDone, QuickBooks Commerce multichannel management
- ShipStation and Rakuten Super Logistics are two companies that provide freight and shipping solutions.
- Acumatica, Cin 7, DEARsystems, Freestyle Solutions, Skubana, Returnly, GeekSeller, Optoro, Spark Shipping: operations, inventory, and order management
- BlueVin, Brex, KickPay, Stripe Relay, PayPal: payments, accounting, tax, and funding
- Fullscreen Direct (StageBloc), Salesforce (Demandware), and LaunchBoom are some of the marketing and CRM tools available.
Ease of Use with ShipMonk
- ShipMonk will pay either the return postage or the replacement value of wrong products delivered (whichever is smaller), send the new order, and waive any related costs in the case of a fulfillment or shipping mistake. Only non-valuable commodities benefit from this strategy. ShipMonk allows for a 2% breakage rate owing to insufficient wrapping. We choose Red Stag’s 100 percent guarantee for providing delicate items since claims can only be filed if your inventory is damaged above that level.
- Free Reception: The company’s free inbound-shipment receiving is attractive, but there are some restrictions. Your inventory will not be tallied or audited; instead, it will be entered on a “good faith” basis, which means that the amount you report will be the number ShipMonk records. If you send orders directly from a third-party manufacturer to your fulfillment partner, this strategy might lead to inventory shortages and accuracy issues. The free receiving service provided by ShipMonk has rigorous packing and quantity limitations. Most sellers should be able to follow them without difficulty, however if your cargo deviates from the guidelines, ShipMonk retains the right to postpone or reject the shipment without obligation. Inbound shipments that meet the criteria are received and stored within three business days.
- ShipMonk’s accuracy percentage in completing and dispatching orders is 99.99 percent.
- Customer Service: Each account is allocated a dedicated client support professional (referred to as your “Happiness Engineer”) during onboarding, who will be your primary point of contact throughout the business relationship. Support is available by phone, email, or ShipMonk’s ticket-based resolution tool. Each fulfillment facility has additional customer service facilities, which are open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
- Order Processing Transparency: ShipMonk’s dashboard gives you some visibility into where your orders are in the fulfillment process, but it’s not nearly as polished or comprehensive as Red Stag’s.
- Billing Transparency: Monthly invoices are provided in the Billing page of the dashboard, with charges broken down by line item.
Alternatives to ShipMonk
Are you unsure which fulfillment business is the greatest fit for your needs? Our guide to the finest order fulfillment services can be found here.
Users’ Opinions on ShipMonk
ShipMonk has a positive reputation among its users. Almost all of the firm’s web evaluations are good, and some customers express their complete happiness with the organization.
Many reviews praise their devoted “Happiness Engineers” for their expertise and responsiveness, even going so far as to say they feel like part of their own team. In ShipMonk’s evaluations, excellent customer service is a recurring topic. Users also appreciate efficient services, quick order response times, and satisfaction with the software’s simplicity.
Although there are few bad reviews on ShipMonk, the current 1-star comments are very detailed and subjective. One customer said that the firm made multiple, repeated mistakes throughout their contract, and that they were eventually given a $250 payment in exchange for signing a non-disparagement agreement.
Another customer wrote a review about their bad experience with ShipMonk, which culminated in a demand that they sign a non-disparagement agreement in order to get their goods back.
Other complaints include difficulties in ending the business partnership and unhappiness with residential delivery prices and gasoline surcharges that were disguised in the small print.
- Trustpilot: 170+ reviews yielded a 4.2-star rating.
- Capterra has a 4.3-star rating based on over 100 reviews.
- G2: 15 reviews yielded a 3.9-star rating.
Conclusion
ShipMonk is a wonderful option for small businesses wishing to outsource their fulfillment—as long as their items are tiny, lightweight, shelf-stable, and otherwise controllable.
Overall, the company’s cutting-edge approach to warehouse automation and robotic help promotes efficiency, as seen by its remarkable accuracy statistics. Furthermore, ShipMonk’s customer service looks to be among the finest in the market.
ShipMonk’s regulations and billing system, on the other hand, aren’t very user-friendly, particularly for sellers that offer high-value products. Another issue is the limited warehousing network. To establish a solid fit between you and your fulfillment supplier, we suggest comparing different possibilities.
Broker services like FulfillmentCompanies.net match your exact requirements to 500+ pre-screened businesses to discover the greatest fit for your company. Furthermore, the service is entirely free to use.
Go to FulfillmentCompanies.net for more information.
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ShipBob is a fulfillment service that has been around since 2011. The company offers free and paid plans, as well as their own shipping software. They also offer an alternative to Amazon Fulfillment Services called ShipMonk 2022. Reference: shipbob review.
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