New Partnership Between Shopify and Target: A Game-Changer for Shopify Brands
In an exciting development for e-commerce, Shopify has announced a strategic partnership with Target, one of the largest retail chains in the United States.
This collaboration is set to provide Shopify brands with unprecedented access to Target’s extensive customer base and robust retail infrastructure. Here’s a closer look at what this partnership entails and how it can help Shopify brands reach new audiences.
What the Partnership Entails
The partnership between Shopify and Target aims to bridge the gap between online and offline retail, providing Shopify brands with new opportunities to expand their market reach.
Key elements of this partnership include:
- Integration with Target’s Platform: Shopify brands can now seamlessly integrate their products into Target’s online marketplace, Target Plus. This means that Shopify merchants can list their products on Target.com, exposing their brand to millions of Target’s loyal customers (Target Corp News & Careers) (DNyuz).
- Access to Target’s Stores: In the future, selected Shopify brands might have the opportunity to sell their products in Target’s physical stores. This omnichannel approach allows customers to discover and purchase products both online and in-store (Target Corp News & Careers) (DNyuz).
Benefits for Shopify Brands
The partnership between Shopify and Target offers numerous benefits for Shopify brands, particularly in terms of market expansion, brand visibility, and customer engagement.
1. Access to a New Audience
One of the most significant advantages of this partnership is the access to Target’s vast and diverse customer base. Target boasts millions of shoppers who trust and regularly shop at their stores and online platform.
By listing products on Target.com, Shopify brands can reach a broader audience, including customers who may not have discovered their products otherwise (markets.businessinsider.com) (DNyuz).
2. Increased Brand Visibility
Being associated with a reputable and well-established retailer like Target can significantly boost a brand’s visibility and credibility. Customers are more likely to trust and purchase from brands that are available on Target’s platform, enhancing brand recognition and trustworthiness (Target Corp News & Careers).
3. Omnichannel Retail Opportunities
The integration of Shopify products into Target’s ecosystem facilitates an omnichannel retail strategy. Customers can discover products online and choose to pick them up in-store or have them delivered to their homes.
This flexibility caters to modern shopping preferences and increases the likelihood of conversion (DNyuz).
4. Operational Efficiency
Shopify brands can benefit from Target’s operational expertise and infrastructure. Leveraging Target’s logistics, warehousing, and distribution capabilities can streamline operations and reduce the burden on Shopify merchants, allowing them to focus on core business activities like product development and marketing (Target Corp News & Careers) (DNyuz).
How Shopify Brands Can Leverage This Partnership
To make the most of the Shopify-Target partnership, brands should consider the following strategies:
- Optimize Product Listings: Ensure product listings on Target.com are optimized with high-quality images, detailed descriptions, and competitive pricing to attract Target shoppers.
- Promote Omnichannel Shopping: Encourage customers to utilize both online and in-store purchasing options to maximize reach and convenience.
- Leverage Marketing Opportunities: Utilize Target’s promotional and advertising channels to increase product visibility and drive sales.
Conclusion
The partnership between Shopify and Target marks a significant milestone in the e-commerce landscape, providing Shopify brands with unprecedented opportunities to expand their reach and enhance their operational capabilities.
By integrating with Target’s platform and leveraging its extensive customer base, Shopify brands can enjoy increased visibility, access to new audiences, and improved customer satisfaction.
Additionally, Innovative Warehouse Solutions offers same-day shipping and existing integrations with Shopify, enabling brands to take full advantage of this new sales opportunity. Their world-class software and fulfillment services ensure that inventory is managed efficiently and orders are processed quickly, allowing Shopify brands to meet the high expectations of Target’s customer base.
For Shopify brands looking to grow and succeed in a competitive market, this partnership offers a powerful avenue to achieve these goals. Embrace the opportunities presented by this collaboration, and watch your brand thrive in both the digital and physical retail spaces.
For more details on the partnership, you can check the official announcements and detailed reports on Target’s official press release and Business Insider.
The True Cost of Self Fulfillment
Want to scale your home based self fulfillment? For any founder getting traction and finding a market for their item is incredibly rewarding. That is until they find them themselves using their home as a makeshift self fulfillment center and using all of their favors with friends and family to come and help them pack and ship their items. This process of undervaluing ones personal time as well as undervaluing the free labor they are receiving adds tremendous value to the company early on. However it also has the possibility to inform decisions that can stunt a companies growth. Business leaders that excel understand that the bootstrapping that is done early on is intended to provide higher margins that can be used to fuel the business. The savings that come by ownership providing free labor help to provide needed cash for purchasing inventory and marketing. The potential down side is when business owners assume that scaling their in-house self fulfillment will help to keep their margins at the bootstrap level. Below is a deep dive of what goes into self fulfillment and what the pros and cons are to developing an in-house self fulfillment center.
Know Your Cost Center for Self Fulfillment
The first step is clearly identifying what the cost to scale in house self fulfillment is. Get a specific look at warehouse space, look into racking and equipment, get quotes on insurance, speak with a staffing company about the costs associated with finding and training labor.
Space:
Warehouse space is important. Commit to too much space and be forced to carry the monthly rent bill for space that is not used. Don’t commit to enough and find yourself short on space during your peak season. Additionally what does your business need? Is ceiling height important? Are bay doors vs dock doors important? If you found a space but it was on a 2nd story and requires a freight elevator, what would this mean to your receiving process?
Equipment
What type of equipment does your business require? Do you need forklifts to get items into pallet racking? Do you need conveyor systems to streamline order self fulfillment? What type of racking? Pallet? Rivet Racking? Are these items scalable with your business? Does the racking you can afford today work when the business grows 10x? If a leased building has 16′ ceilings and you purchase 12′ racking what happens when you need a larger building and can locate a building with 25′ or 30′ ceilings. The 12′ racking can be used in the new building but at what cost? The empty space above the 12′ racking is critical to optimizing the businesses sales per SQFT. The key with any equipment purchase is to purchase items that can be used today as well as down the road. As the saying goes “penny wise dollar foolish.”
Insurance
Most at home self fulfillment operations don’t pay much mind to things like insurance. Most owners assume the home has insurance and I am the only one working on the business so no need. This unfortunately does not carry over once you lease a building. Landlords will require warehouse insurance, content insurance, workers compensation insurance etc. These insurances can cost $20,000, $30,000, $50,0000 per year and are usually tied to the companies sales, so as your sales go up so does your insurance.
Software
What software will be used to run the warehouse? Is this software scalable? What happens if the software goes down, what is the backup to still process and ship timely orders? Do you need an onsite or remote tech support company to manage the internal infrastructure of the company? Internet, routers, switches, cameras all made by different companies all receiving frequent updates can be a technological nightmare. When investing in software for a small business it is crucial to have fundamental in house understanding how how the software works and how to fix small day to day issues.
Labor
Labor is often times the cost center that is most overlooked. Labor can account for 20%-40% of total costs. Owners may have experience self fulfilling their own orders and may have identified it takes “x” minutes to get the item, pack it up and create the shipping label. However these time are almost never met once the fulfillment process is handed off to a non owner worker. Owners have the understanding that things need to get done quickly and they need to get done correctly. Unfortunately these traits may not be found in staff that is hired. To run an efficient labor force there needs to be 3 things.
– A process that is in place. This process will make sure that warehouse staff knows what to do the moment items arrive or the moment an order comes in.
– Oversight: someone that understands the way the warehouse needs to work and is constantly monitoring to make sure the processes in place are being followed.
Warehouses are simply liabilities that are needed for an end goal, if you can reach that goal without the liability do it.
Denis Robinson
If your business is growing and you think it’s time to expand your self fulfillment operations check out Innovative Warehouse Solutions. We may be able to get you back to selling and marketing and out of shipping orders you already acquire.
Written by:
Jason Steinman:
Jason is a content contributor at IWS with over 15 years in the logistics space. Jasons goal is to help small to mid sized brands by providing content that helps them plan for growth rather than react to it
Dimensional Weight and How it Impacts Your Shipping
What is Dimensional Weight, why does it exist and how can you try and avoid over paying for your shipping.
The What and the Why?
Dimensional weight is a calculation that all carriers use in determining the actual shipping weight of a package. There was a time when carriers would take packages simply based on their weight. As time went on this process proved to be advantageous for the shipper but not for the shipping company.
Imagine the carrier picks up 2 packages – 1 from customer A and 1 from customer B. Customer A is shipping toaster ovens. The box is 16″ x 10″ x 10″ and when placed on a scale comes in at 20 lbs. Customer B is shipping plastic chairs. The box the chair comes in is 26″ x 18 x 18 and when placed on a scale it weighs 20 lbs. Based on a per weight only method both of these packages will be billed the same rate. However the cost to transport these items is not the same. A standard delivery truck would be able to fit 2.5x more toaster oven than chairs. If the items need to be transported on a plane again fewer items will fit based on the size.
This discrepancy in the actual cost to transport an item is what led all carriers to adopt a dimensional weight system. This allows the carriers to make sure each square inch of their trucks and planes are producing similar returns.
How is Dimensional weight calculated:
Dimensional weight is calculated using a simple formula. The length of a product times the width times the height divided by a DIM factor
Take the 2 examples above:
Company A
Item: Toaster Oven
Box weight: 20 Lbs
Box size: 16 x 10 x 10
Dimensional weight: ((16 x 10 x 10)/166) 9.63 Lbs
Since the actual weight is more than the dimensional weight this package would ship at 20 Lbs
Company B
Item: Plastic Chairs
Box weight: 20 Lbs
Box size: 26 x 18 x 18
Dimensional weight: ((26 x 18 x 18)/166) 51 Lbs
Since the dimensional weight is more than the actual weight this package would ship at 51 Lbs
How IWS can work to decrease the impact dimensional weight
Dimensional weight can be mitigated a few ways:
- Most products don’t present a dimensional problem alone. They face a dimensional problem when multiple units are being shipped at the same time. For this reason having access to a multitude of packaging materials can be the solution. Since customer orders can and will vary there is most likely not one or two shipping options to keep costs inline. Many other 3PL providers try and standardize all their customers orders into 10 or 15 total packaging options. While this may help to reduce the 3PL’s cost it is may not be the best thing for their customers. IWS stocks over 40 different shipping boxes and bags allowing IWS to most closely match box sizes to the items shipping. As an additional benefit items that are shipped in boxes with limited empty space tend to have fewer damages while in transit
- Shipping rates. Utilizing IWS’s highly discounted rates can help to decrease the impacts of dimensional weight.
Written by:
Jason Steinman:
Jason is a content contributor for IWS with over 15 years in the logistics space. Jasons goal is to help small to mid sized brands by providing content that helps them plan for growth rather than react to growth.
