Shopify’s investment into e-commerce fulfillment is paying off. Last year, the website marketplace platform made investments into a warehouse and delivery network for its online business customers to more easily get their goods to consumers.
The company even bought 6 River Systems to build warehouse robots. Now these moves are proving to be quite prophetic as e-commerce sales have surged during the COVID-19 pandemic and fulfillment becomes a competitive advantage for retailers that can deliver.
The following excerpt from Wall St. Journal article reports more on the topic:
Shopify Inc.’s recent expansion into physical distribution is looking prescient, as surging digital sales during the coronavirus pandemic boost demand for the e-commerce technology company’s fulfillment services.
The Shopify Fulfillment Network that handles the storing, packing and shipping of goods for online sellers “enrolled more merchants and increased our fulfillment volume…by two-and-a-half times over Q1” in the second quarter, Thomas Epting, director of the network, told The Wall Street Journal. “We’re seeing good in-year growth and certainly ample demand.”
The expanded business for handling physical goods is part of the growing demand Shopify has seen for its main business providing the digital tools for retailers to reach consumers online.
That capability has become critically important for many merchants as the coronavirus pandemic has upended American life and the U.S. economy, triggering a rush of e-commerce orders from homebound shoppers and a scramble by smaller sellers to scale up to compete with online heavyweights such as Amazon.com Inc.
Overview by Raymond Pucci, Director, Merchant Services at Mercator Advisory Group