Melbourne gives expansionary platform presence in fifth country
US-based e-commerce service provider ShipBob’s first Australian fulfilment centre is officially open for business.
The Melbourne fulfilment centre is close to Tullamarine airport.
The burgeoning cloud-based logistics platform for small and medium-sized businesses notes that the location allows for easy access to the east coast, where about 80 per cent of the population lives.
“By being located in Melbourne, ShipBob customers will be able to ship domestically and reduce shipping costs, improve the customer experience with shorter transit times, remove import duties and reduce purchase barriers for their Australian customers,” the company says.
“ShipBob partnered with Australia Post, securing discounted shipping rates and fast delivery times, with a majority of shipments arriving in 1-3 business days.”
Read about Amazon’s fulfilment centre in Sydney’s west, here
The firm aims to assist customers through the process of becoming a non-resident importer and sending freight to the Australian fulfilment centre with the option to leverage its relationships with cross-border freight specialists.
“Our mission is to democratise fulfilment for direct-to-consumer brands of all sizes around the world, and our customers have expressed interest in expanding their reach into Australia,” ShipBob CEO and co-founder Dhruv Saxena says.
“Like our entire fulfilment network, our Australian fulfilment centre will be held to the ShipBob promise of reliable, fast and inexpensive shipping with end-to-end transparency from one dashboard, managing all of our customers’ inventory, orders and sales channels.”
ShipBob recently opened four new US fulfilment centres in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and California to further expand their regional fulfilment network and increase capacity there.
Last week, it announced a US$200 million (A$268 million) Series E funding round, led by Bain Capital Ventures, valuing the company at more than US$1 billion.