
Show HN:ShipHero Marketplace - Network of 3PL Partners for E-commerce Brands - russelh15
https://marketplace.shiphero.com
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limeyndr
TLDR

Running an ecommerce business and need to ship? You can do it yourself, run
the warehouse etc or, you can outsource.

Outsourced shipping warehouses are called 3PLs. They typically suck, use
outdated tech and there's no reliable way of knowing until it's too late.

So, Shiphero Marketplace - like an Airbnb / Yelp for 3PLs. Helps you find the
right partner, with reviews etc. And, because we've also built the software
that powers warehouses, everyone is using the same tech - (like a standard OS
used by 3PLs) so no integration bs. Switch as you need.

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russelh15
OP here. Just wanted to provide a bit more information on the story behind the
marketplace.

To plan my first vacation without my family - this was around 1999 - me and
some college friends went online to find a place to go. We found a gorgeous
all-inclusive resort in Cancun, Mexico that also was within our meager college
budgets. Perfect! Of course it wasn't. When we got there the resort was
nothing like the pictures we saw. Maybe it looked like that 30 years before, I
don't know.

This business model of screwing tourists made financial sense even if it
wasn't very ethical. It's not like people go back to the same resort again -
so they didn't lose any repeat business, and we had no way of telling other
people to stay away. So why invest in updating your rooms when you can invest
in some doctored pictures instead?

Airbnb solved this. You check the reviews before you book. If you go a place
and it isn't exactly what you expect or the place isn't clean, you leave a
negative review and future potential guests simply find a better place to
stay. Therefore hosts invest in making sure the place is nice and clean and
they don't lie about what the place is.

Most of us wouldn't think twice about staying in an Airbnb because we didn't
believe the pictures. This is great for guests and even better for the honest
hosts who now have a reliable method of attracting customers to their great
place.

3PLs are stuck in 1999. It's not that they know you won't come back, it's that
they know you'll never leave, which means the same lack of incentive to do a
good job once you have the customer. And you have same issue of no reviews. If
you have a horrible experience, how can you let the other potential customers
of that 3PL know? You can't.

ShipHero Marketplace is solving that.

First let’s tackle "It's not that they know you won't come back, it's that
they know you'll never leave,"

Without ShipHero, if you're not satisfied with your current 3PL A, how do you
switch to their competitor 3PL B? First you build a new integration with 3PL
B. Then you test the integration and revise. Then 3 months later when you
think - to the best of your ability to test - the integration is probably
working, you decide to commit to the change and call your contact at 3PL A and
say "You guys suck, please box up all my products and ship them to your
competitor 3PL B. Oh, and while you do so, you horrible bastards, make sure to
pack everything neatly and prioritize this over your other work so this
happens ASAP."

Then you wait for them to box the product. Then you wait for it to move on a
truck to 3PL B. Then you wait for 3PL B to sort through the mess of the
product they just got in and get it put away in on the shelves. Best case this
is a week. 2-3 weeks are more likely. During that period your products can't
be shipped. If you cannot ship, you cannot sell. Most e-commerce companies run
on tight margins and even tighter cash-flow. Shutting down for 2-3 weeks means
they lose money for the year and for some it would mean going out of business.
So yeah, no one switches 3PLs.

Ok, you can't switch away from your crappy 3PL. How can you at least tell
everyone to avoid a 3PL? Yeah, you can't.

How do we solve that?

First, we make switching between 3PLs running ShipHero orders of magnitude
simpler.

New integration? Not needed. You don't even have to update data, orders or
your rules, all that lives in your account not the 3PLs - no migrations or
work of any kind needed.

Physically moving product? That's not needed either. This is my favorite part.
Call 3PL B and tell them you want to work with them.

Don't call your good friends at 3PL A. When you reorder from your vendors, you
have your vendors ship those new products to 3PL B. You set the rules in
ShipHero to deplete the stock from 3PL A and then fulfill orders out of 3PL B
when stock isn't available in 3PL A. Eventually 3PL A has little or no stock,
3PL B is fulfilling all your orders.

You've migrated! No downtime, no shipping all your products from one warehouse
to another, and a ton less stress and opportunities for bad things to happen.

Once you switch, you can tell the world about your experience with both 3PLs
by leaving verified feedback in the ShipHero 3PL Marketplace.

That's how 3PLs go from 1999-2018.

Ok, now why should 3PLs participate? This is my second favorite part. 3PLs are
an undifferentiated market, there are over 1,000 in the US alone and no one
can tell the difference between one and the next. So, if you're in an
undifferentiated market, how do you attract customers? You spend a lot of
money on sales and marketing and be aggressive, and if you find a potential
customer you make sure to close them, even if they’re not really a fit for
your business. This is expensive and doesn't match how a lot of people prefer
to do business.

3PLs now have a better way of doing business: use the Shiphero Marketplace. We
bring leads and allow 3PLs to provide a quote and compete based on
performance, reviews and pricing. There's no up front cost, 3PLs pay for what
you earn. How much money is spent on 3PLs a year? Among Shopify merchants it's
tens of billions of dollars a year. Globally 3PLs generated over $800billion
in revenue last year.

So access to potential customers is a good reason to join ShipHero, but it
gets better. If you have an e-commerce brand and you're looking for a 3PL,
will you choose one your locked into, even if they sound fantastic, or would
you prefer to work through a network where you have the flexibility to switch
between 3PLs seamless whether because you are not satisfied, or you found a
cheaper option, or you want to expand into more markets? The network of
course.

And if e-commerce brands want to work through ShipHero, the 3PLs that want to
serve them need to be where their customers are, which is on ShipHero.

