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Learn how Ancestral Supplements partnered with ShipBob for order fulfillment to save money, improve shipping times, and maintain a lean operations team as a result.  

Customer Profile

Ancestral Supplements specializes in supplements inspired by primal living. With products like grass fed beef organs and wild caught fish eggs, the brand’s supplements are aimed at getting nutrients from animal parts that modern diets often leave out. Ancestral Supplements has been featured in Fortune, CNN, GQ, and more. 

Key metrics

• 3-person operations team 
• 30 SKUs
• 30k+ shipments per month
• 4 ShipBob fulfillment centers used in the US
• $4.11 per order saved on shipping
• 4.9 stars with over 10k reviews 

About Ancestral Supplements

Ancestral Supplements is known as the founder and leader of “the beef organ supplement movement.”

Ancestral Supplements’ philosophy centers on the idea that modern diets have left us lacking, but ancestral wisdom offers a simple solution. By reintroducing traditional foods like organ meats, the company believes individuals can nourish themselves from the inside out, leading to increased energy, vitality, and overall well-being. 

To help quickly and cost-effectively reach their customers, Ancestral Supplements tapped ShipBob as their fulfillment partner and leveraged ShipBob’s Inventory Placement Program to delight customers, save time, and cut down on costs.

Unlocking improved customer experiences across channels and seamless lot product fulfillment with ShipBob 

As told to ShipBob by Jay Stephens, Director of Operations, and Ania Giuffra, Supply Chain Manager, at Ancestral Supplements.  

Before partnering with ShipBob, Ancestral Supplements only used one fulfillment center with our old 3PL, which was purely for ease of our logistics team. We’ve had a small operations team from the beginning, and with our last fulfillment provider, it was challenging to manage more than one facility with their platform. Having inventory in just one fulfillment center resulted in slower shipments and led to less-than-excellent experiences for our customers. Some shipments were taking 8-10 days to get delivered, and some still hadn’t been delivered after 3 weeks.

As we were evaluating new fulfillment partners, one of our main priorities was dialing down on delivery times. When we spoke with ShipBob, we really liked their positioning of multiple fulfillment centers in different regions and all of the benefits it affords businesses like ours. 

“While we spoke to many fulfillment companies, we ultimately went with ShipBob, which has been a great advantage for our brand. We have been able to save $4.11 per order on shipping since switching our fulfillment to ShipBob and distributing inventory throughout the country to place it closer to customers.” 

– Jay Stephens, Director of Operations, and Ania Giuffra, Supply Chain Manager, at Ancestral Supplements

Our fulfillment is really seamless through ShipBob. Whether it’s fulfilling Amazon orders for our starter packs, shipping out TikTok Shop orders, or ensuring subscriptions go out on time, ShipBob has done a great job of making sure orders, regardless of the channel, end up at the customer’s doorstep quickly. 

Plus, ShipBob’s lot management capabilities have helped us gain more visibility into how much inventory we have left of a certain lot number from a specific production run. This is especially helpful because we have different versions of our labels, so we’re always able to differentiate them. 

Saving time, money, and headcount thanks to ShipBob’s Inventory Placement Program 

Soon after partnering with ShipBob, we joined their Inventory Placement Program (IPP), which automatically distributes and replenishes our inventory throughout their network of US fulfillment centers. Leveraging IPP has been super helpful for us because it takes a lot of stress off of our very small operations team, especially in terms of planning how many units of our products need to go in each fulfillment center.  

“IPP has allowed us to keep our team lean. We have inventory shipments going out almost daily, so managing that process would be a huge undertaking for our 3-person team. What ShipBob handles for us, around making decisions where shipments should go and locating those deliveries, would take us hours per week and lead us to add headcount.” 

– Jay Stephens, Director of Operations, and Ania Giuffra, Supply Chain Manager, at Ancestral Supplements

Plus, ShipBob’s reporting in the dashboard is really great. We’re able to easily log in and gain visibility into IPP, dig into our inventory movement, and reroute any units on the fly based on certain factors that are specific to our business. 

Thanks to ShipBob, order fulfillment largely takes care of itself. I don’t have to sort out issues or dedicate time to figuring things out; it’s a section of the business where I don’t have to spend a lot of time. ShipBob has allowed us to focus on other aspects of the business, which has allowed us to grow considerably.  

Leaning on an industry-leading partner for guidance and world-class support 

ShipBob has been a really great partner to us. We’ve been able to streamline projects and expedite orders when needed.  

ShipBob has been receptive to our feedback throughout our entire partnership, which wasn’t the case for other 3PLs we’ve used. Many were very difficult to work with and lacked communication. If we requested information from the warehouse, inquired about stock levels, or asked about something else altogether, it was always a challenge. That has never been the case with ShipBob. ShipBob has always been incredibly helpful and, flexible, and is able to accommodate our requests with ease.  

It’s important for us that our partners are at the forefront of their industry and are an authority over what’s going on. ShipBob is a leader in the logistics, supply chain, and order fulfillment spaces. Conversations come up periodically, whether it’s for insurance purposes or from a risk mitigation standpoint throughout the supply chain, and every time ShipBob is already on top of it and in the know. ShipBob having GMP and GFSI warehouse certifications is a great example of that.  

“Fast-growing ecommerce brands like us aren’t experts in supply chain, and we don’t have large operations teams to navigate the industry’s complexities. We’ve been able to lean on ShipBob to help guide us. Having a partner that can bring ideas to the table and have conversations about how we can level up is helpful.”

– Jay Stephens, Director of Operations, and Ania Giuffra, Supply Chain Manager, at Ancestral Supplements 

ShipBob’s core competency is order fulfillment and logistics, so it was nice for me to have a partner that expertly handles that side of our business. With that off my plate, I have been able to tighten up operations (like better planning and forecasting), scale the business, and continue our growth. ShipBob has been a crucial partner in this journey. 

Collaborating with a fulfillment partner that feels like a member of the team  

We feel very connected to the support team. Everyone we’ve worked with has been a rockstar. It really feels like ShipBob is a member of our team. They’ve helped us a lot along the way.  

Our Merchant Success Manager has done a great job supporting Ancestral Supplements, but also our other sister brands under the Tip of the Spear brand umbrella. He has done a good deal of analysis to help bring them into the ShipBob ecosystem and allow them to piggyback off of our volume, which allows them to reallocate funds from fulfillment into marketing so they can grow faster.  

What’s next for Ancestral Supplements  

Our future plans include significant growth of our current SKUs, launching new products, and scaling our five or six sister brands under the Tip of the Spear umbrella. 

Our collaboration with ShipBob has been a game-changer, allowing us to streamline operations, save costs, and focus on growth. The flexibility, responsiveness, and technological support provided by ShipBob have made them an invaluable partner. 

Ancestral Supplement’s team at ShipBob

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