Webshop fulfilment: outsourcing your logistics

With webshop fulfilment (also e-fulfilment or webshop fulfillment) you outsource the logistics of your webshop: a fulfilment company stores your stock, packs each order, ships it and processes the returns. Your store stays yours; orders come in automatically through an integration.

Often from about 50 to 100 orders a month, if you count your own hours. 31 companies name no minimum number of orders, so smaller stores can start too. See fulfilment for a small webshop.

For picking and packing you usually pay €1.60 to €2.40 per order; half of the companies with a published price charge €1.85 or less. Shipping, packaging and storage come on top. All items with worked examples: what fulfilment costs.

Usually through an integration with your store platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, Lightspeed, Magento) or your shipping software. Orders then go to the warehouse automatically and the track & trace comes back in your store. Ask whether it is their own integration or an app, and whether your stock is written back.

Shipping yourself mainly costs time: packing, labels, collection and returns. A fulfilment company does it at scale, has better shipping rates and often a late cut-off. You keep time for purchasing and marketing. You do pay per order and for storage, and you give up control over the packing.

Look at your own orders: number per month, size, number of products and where you ship to. Then compare integration, cut-off, carriers, returns processing and the total cost per order. The match does that based on your own order data.