shopify shipping canada to usa
Things You Need to Know When
Shipping from Canada to the US
Running an online Shopify store in Canada and thinking to ship to the US? For most online stores, access to the U.S. market is very easy. Fulfilling orders from Canada to U.S. and International customers can be seamless and cost efficient if you team up with the right fulfillment partners.
What are some common problems?
Choosing a Non-Domestic vs Domestic eCommerce Fulfillment Partner
A common problem area for Canadian Shopify store owners is setting up multiple fulfillment points to handle US and International customers. Occasionally, a Canadian Shopify operator might set up one, or more, fulfillment partners in the U.S. thinking they’re closer to the end-user. In our experience, few Canadian Shopify store operators have the order volume that would make the complexities of distributed warehousing worthwhile. They might also find that U.S. based fulfillment partners are not as attuned to non-domestic orders as Canadian fulfillment partners.
Subtle Costs to Your Shopify Business When Managing Fulfillment Across Borders
A key term to note is ‘management drag’. It’s when you’re taking time away from the fundamental mission of acquiring customers and selling your products. While management distraction is a real cost and difficult to calculate, all strategic partners in business require management attention. This is a simple fact of business. Factors that can mitigate this ‘drag’, are the maturity and experience of your strategic partner in the area of ‘Direct to Consumer’ fulfillment, (which requires a different culture and skill set than ‘Business to Business’ fulfillment as discussed in an earlier white paper). Complicating the relationship can be simple factors such as time zone, distance and currency. To launch into establishing a second fulfillment location without taking into consideration these costs is definitely an area that we have seen some Canadian Shopify operators regret and we have assisted some stores move back their fulfillment operations.
Shopify Stores Shipping From Canada to the US: Incremental Inventory Costs
The third poorly understood area is the costs associated with investing in incremental inventory when establishing a distributed warehousing model. This is a very technical subject, so be warned. While a distributed warehouse model can make economic sense where shipping costs/cubic weight issues are apparent, or time to market is a critical competitive advantage; for most Canadian Shopify store operators, these factors do not apply. Even with the more advanced inventory management systems available today, the truism that “horse is only as good as its jockey’ remains. A study conducted by Stanford University some years ago concluded the minimum expected additional inventory investment required to support an additional warehouse of the same product was 1.7X the investment required for a single warehouse. It’s rarely the case that if 35% of product is destined for the Canadian market and 65% is destined for the US market that the inventory can be divided on a similar ratio with no incremental investment. In addition, tracking inventory and avoiding stock outs in two warehouses is a good example of an additional management drag on your store operations. Should your products have a high number of SKU’s, for example, in apparel products, the complexity of efficient management of inventory over multiple warehouses only increases.
For most Canadian Shopify store operators serving customers in the USA and Internationally, an experienced Canadian based fulfillment partner with a mature and tested distribution network can save you lots of time, management costs and inventory investments. And when the time comes to scale, your Canadian fulfillment partner will probably be a critical resource in choosing and establishing a value-added, secondary fulfillment site.
