Getting the right fulfillment partner is one key to win the holiday sales battle. Are you looking for a new fulfillment service provider for your eCommerce business? Are you thinking of upgrading your current service to a better one? About making the fulfillment part global, here is the side-by-side comparison, NextSmartShip Vs. Shipbob.
First, let’s talk about the common ground. Both NextSmartShip and Shipbob provide full-service order fulfillment and 2 days shipping. That means all the eCommerce business owners need to do is sending the items in bulk to one of the fulfillment centers, NextSmartShip or Shipbob will take care of the rest, and the consumers will happily get the items they order in just 2 days.
The specific services include:
- Item inspection (quality control )
- Inventory management
- Ecommerce platform integration (order sync )
- Custom packaging and other value-added services
- Pick and pack
- Global shipping
- Item return and restock
Second, here are 4 differences between NextSmartShip and Shipbob.
Table of Contents
4. Fulfillment center locations
1. Inventory receiving
To receive goods, Shipbob’s charging method is special, they calculate the cost by working hours. That is to say, regardless of the size and weight of the items, ShipBob will charge by the working hour when handling them: first 2 hours: $25/hour, after the first two hours: $35/hour. And ShipBob also sets a minimum charge, 2 hours, they consider the receiving fees for less than 2 hours as 2 hours in total. This is unfriendly for eCommerce businesses with a lot of SKUs or small inventories.
NextSmartShip doesn’t charge any receiving fee. NextSmartShip does not charge for anything except the handling fee, warehousing fee, and shipping fee. Compare to the working hour charging method, which seems to be a little confusing and opaque, the word “free” is so easy to understand and pleasing.
2. Handling fee
ShipBob’s handling fee is also a little complicated, including standard packing fee, over 5 SKUs per order packing fee, sticker fee, labeling fee, packing material fee, etc. Every operation step will generate a cost, and the minimum cost is 10 dollars.
NextSmartShip charges the handling fee by item weight, the minimum handling fee is very low, only $0.99. Handling fees comprise all the manual packing, labeling, and other operating costs, no hidden cost, or incomprehensible charging items.
3. Warehousing fee
ShipBob charges the storage fee by inventory volume and time. Inventory should not sit in ShipBob’s fulfillment center for long (maybe more than a month), or the merchant might get stuck paying high warehousing fees.
NextSmartShip provides 30 days free storage in Shenzhen, China, the USA and Europe, leaving eCommerce business owners longer turnaround time and less risk of stock up during the shopping season.
4. Fulfillment center locations
ShipBob has 5 fulfillment centers, all over in the United States. Depending on the address of each warehouse provided on the website, these warehouses are in various regions of the United States: California, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Texas. Many people are curious about ShipBob Europe fulfillment centers or Australia fulfillment centers. By far, ShipBob don’t have warehouse facilities there. So for online stores focus on European and Australian markets, it will be difficult to fulfill the promise of “2 days shipping”.
NextSmartShip has fulfillment centers in China, the US, Europe, Canada, and Australia.
7 fulfillment centers (more are being put into use in succession because of the growing demand for order processing during the shopping season) form a global fulfillment network, no matter the consumers are in the east coast or west coast of the USA, in Europe or Asia, they can get items they ordered in 2 days. More than that, for the eCommerce business owners whose manufacturers are in China, the fulfillment center in Shenzhen will provide very affordable and easy fulfillment service, just as affordable and risk-free as dropshipping from China.
In conclusion, we can make a side-by-side form to compare NextSmartShip pricing with ShipBob pricing.
| ShipBob | NextSmartShip | |
| Receiving | Inventory receiving fee: minimum $50 | FREE |
| Storage | Warehousing fee: calculate by volume and time | FREE for first 30 days |
| Handling | Standard packing fee + sticker fee + packing material fee + labeling fee…minimum cost $10 | Charge by weight, minimum cost $0.99 |
| Fulfillment Center Locations | USA | Shenzhen, Hong Kong, USA, Europe,Australia, Canada |
