There are many reasons why getting someone else to ship your books, CD’s or other products makes good business sense.

What is “fulfillment”?

Fulfillment is the act of shipping, or fulfilling orders from Readers who purchase your book or product off your website or through your company. Fulfillment providers will sometimes even manage your entire inventory for you, keeping monthly counts, packing, documenting, and of course shipping orders, sending out larger shipments to retail stores, and then billing you at the end of the month for that service.

There may be some confusion between the terms fulfillment providers, and those who call themselves “drop shippers”, which does not really apply to self-publishing Authors. A drop shipper owns the product until you tell them to send it to your customer. Drop shippers will then typically send you a check at the end of the month for the difference between your cost on the product, and what it was sold for to the consumer. In the case of a fulfillment provider, YOU own the product, be it a book, CD, or whatever. Somebody else is just warehousing it for you, and sending it out when  you send them a packing slip. At the end of the month, you pay them a fee based on volume.

Perhaps you’re casually saying to yourself right now, “But I have plenty of time – I can easily ship my own orders for now.” That may be true – for the short term. But be honest with yourself: how many hours a day are you spending managing logistics instead of creating new products? Do you even enjoy shipping? Does it take time away from your family? Does the money you save equal what you could have earned in the time it took you to do all of that work? (Experience tells me that no, it didn’t.)

Even if time and enjoyment were not issues, perhaps ask yourself if you should be shipping your own products, when your time is better spent running your business. After all, what is your “real job”? Instead, what would happen to your business if you spent that time setting up affiliate relationships to sell your products for you?

(By the way, if you’re looking for the plug in this post, here it is: I have used Michael Bickler of EG Liquidation in Washington State for a number of years. He’s amazing! He ships anywhere in the world for me at an unreal price, and he actually *cares* about his customers. You can email him through info_at_egliquidation.com and tell him I sent you.)

What does it cost?

Fulfillment providers will typically charge a fee based on orders that leave their warehouse, plus a pallet fee for storing your product for each monthly cycle.

Here’s a cost worksheet based on a provider that shipped 100 books for you last month:

Basic pallet storage fee:                                         $____.____

Packing cost per book:                                           $__.____*
Label/envelope cost** per book shipped:     $__.____
Actual freight or postage per book:                  $__.____***

Cost per book:                                                            $__.____ (caution – heavily estimated)
Times 100 books:                                                      $______.____
Plus pallet charge:                                                     $____.____
Total monthly charge:                                             $______.____

Charge per book to ship (revenue):                   $__.____
Times 100 books:                                                      $______.____

Remaining profit:                                                       $____.____

The idea would be to leave a small additional overhead to cover things like returns, delivery problems, etc. A provider should agree with you in advance on a specific cost for things like accepting returns, replacement shipments, and forwarding shipments to you at your own address. While this worksheet assumes that the last line would be two digits, this really shouldn’t be thought of a profit center – it’s more like a slush fund for “just in case” situations.

* This cost can vary widely, and fluctuate from time to time. This can be much lower or much greater depending on volume, item type, packaging, etc.

**Often the post office or courier will provide envelopes or even cardboard boxes at no charge to ensure consistency for their agents.

** Bear in mind that postage rates vary widely based on things like weight, dimensions, book thickness and so on.

The next time you’re thinking about where to store your books, CD’s or other products, why not think instead about what you could create in that extra couple of hours per day.