It’s no wonder ship from store has taken off in the last few years. It speeds up inventory management (allowing retailers to hop on trends), offers customers speedy delivery and has its sustainability perks.

With delivery speed a crucial customer demand, ship from store helps hard-pressed retailers develop a critical route to market, whether as an independent store or a large corporation.

What is Ship from Store?

Ship from store is a fulfilment model that uses stores as mini warehouses – rather than using a centralised warehouse or distribution centre – so products can be delivered quickly to local areas. It helps businesses with physical stores to compete with online-only providers who have established delivery networks.

How does it work?

The fundamentals of ship from store are straightforward: 

Customers place their orders online > Orders are picked and packed from a local store > Parcels are collected by a courier > Then delivered to customers – often in hours, sometimes in minutes.

Ship from store: benefits for retailers

Offer on-demand delivery

When speed is critical, and hours or minutes count to your customers, ship from store allows you to offer on-demand delivery. And it’s easier, cheaper and quicker to set up than you think. 

We went from a ship-from-store pilot with Co-op to over 200 stores in just 6 months.

Lower shipping costs

Have products located in your core markets when you need them instead of shipping them individually from a central warehouse far away from your customers.

Greener deliveries

With stores acting as mini-warehouses, you can use more local delivery vehicles like push bikes and cargo bikes, reducing Co2-emissions that might otherwise be emitted via vans on longer journeys.

Faster inventory turnover

Using the stock available in physical stores to fulfil online orders, instead of waiting for goods to travel from a central warehouse, reduces the time it takes for items to reach customers, resulting in quicker sales and replenishment cycles, and helps to maintain fresher stock.

Getting started with ship from store

So, you’re on board with the idea of ship from store. Here’s a few things to set up to get you get started:

An Order Management System (OMS) 

Make the best use of an OMS to bring together all aspects of a customer’s order – products, volumes, delivery location, special requests. Shopify or Metapack are some solid OMS options used by some of our trusty retail clients.

You can also use an OMS to match orders with stock locations so that a delivery in London, for example, is fulfilled from a local postcode. An OMS can also help you consolidate orders if products need to be delivered near to each other.

A solid pick and pack process

Nail the pick and pack process by training staff and carefully consider how your packing stations are laid out (Screwfix uses easy-to-navigate wide aisles). 

A delivery provider (pref. with smart routing technology)

Some deliveries will be a straightforward journey from A to B, others might involve multidrops. So you’ll either need to input accurate delivery details into your chosen carrier, send them a list of your delivery locations, or – even better – build a bespoke API with them to automate the best routes.

 

Ship from store is a sure fire way to tackle rising customer expectations – it covers convenience, cost, customer service, even sustainability. And, pairing it with a solid last mile delivery solution can help maximise the value of ship from store for your customers.

If you have any questions about how we can help you set up or improve your ship from store offering, please drop us an email at partnerships@gophr.com.