What Is a 3PL and Why Are They Important to Retailers?

(This article was last published on May 12, 2016. It has been updated for accuracy and completeness.)

Providing a good delivery experience can determine whether a customer buys from you again or not.  

According to ShipStation’s latest report, 83% of consumers are less likely to re-purchase from a retailer after a negative delivery or shipping experience. 

Unfortunately, a lot of online sellers struggle with delivery, causing their business to suffer. But, building and managing your own logistics network is challenging, as it’s expensive and time-consuming. 

To meet customer expectations and protect their bottom lines, merchants are partnering with 3PLs to outsource their fulfillment needs. In the years to come, 3PLs will be critical to competing online and growing your business.  

Shopify Plus reported that demand for 3PLs is set to nearly double to $408 billion in the first half of this decade. 

So, what is a 3PL exactly? What role can they play in your business? And, how to do pick the right one to partner with? 

7 Apps That Will Improve Your BigCommerce Web store

(This post was last published on January 6, 2015. It has been updated for accuracy and completeness.)

BigCommerce is one of the most popular ways for small businesses to sell products online, and it offers robust ecommerce tools out of the box. That said, users can also take advantage of hundreds of add-ons, customizations, and apps to supplement the platform’s core features and take their ecommerce strategies to the next level.

In this article, we’ll cover seven of the most effective apps for BigCommerce users. These cover everything from A/B tests to omnichannel marketing and live chat support. Adding apps to your BigCommerce approach gives you the opportunity to craft a unique customer experience that will resonate with your audience

Everything You Need to Know about Partial Shipment

(This article was last published on June 29th, 2016. It has been updated for accuracy and completeness.)

You can’t always ship an entire order at once. You might even prefer to ship items separately to ensure they arrive on-time. Some items could ship from a service like Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) while others are fulfilled from your own warehouse.

Fulfillment of a single order in multiple shipments is referred to as partial shipment. While often necessary, it’s difficult to monitor on the backend of your operations. How do you track partial shipments in your systems? How do you ensure orders are mark completed only once all items are fulfilled?

Before executing partial shipment, you’ll need to know what the process is, why it’s important to get it right, and the best way to do it.  

How to Choose the Best B2B eCommerce Platform for Your Business

(This post was originally published on April 4th, 2019. It has been updated for accuracy and completeness.)

According to Forrester, US B2B eCommerce is expected to reach $1.8 trillion and account for 17% of all B2B sales in the US by 2023. B2B eCommerce is on pace to be twice the size of B2C eCommerce.

However, many B2B sellers are still in their infancy for building out strategic online channels. So far most have been slow to adopt eCommerce best practices. If there’s one thing to learn from B2C selling, it’s how crucial it is to choose the right platform to power your online business.

This article aims to show B2B merchants the role eCommerce technology plays in building a user-friendly online experience and how to evaluate which B2B eCommerce platform is best for your business. (more…)

Overcoming Common Fears of eCommerce Replatforming

(This post was last published on December 20, 2017. We’ve updated it for accuracy and completeness.)

The idea of replatforming your eCommerce store strikes fear in most merchants. It appears too risky. There’s seemingly so much that can go wrong during the process. But, avoiding a migration to a new platform for the wrong reasons can hurt your online business in the long run.

By sticking with your old technology, you won’t be able to provide the experience that your customers demand. You could be wasting thousands of dollars trying to fix the same problems over and over again. You could be holding your business back from growth.

To help you build confidence to take on this initiative, we’ve put together a list of common replatforming fears and how to avoid them. Put your mind at ease and don’t be afraid to grow your business by upgrading your eCommerce platform.