Learn how Geneva10 Fulfillment partnered with ShipBob to scale their operations and fulfill orders for millions of customers.

Fast forward a year and a half later: learn how Geneva10 and ShipBob have deepened our partnership and enjoyed mutually beneficial growth.

About SFN

ShipBob powers a fulfillment network of franchised warehouses known as the ShipBob Fulfillment Network (“SFN”). The expansive network consists of over 20 3PL providers with 30+ facilities across the world, providing both DTC and B2B fulfillment to ShipBob customers. The SFN facilities are state-of-the-art warehouses, thoroughly vetted by ShipBob. Each SFN site is equipped with ShipBob’s proprietary technology, offering customers the entire ShipBob experience.

Key metrics

• >7M orders shipped since starting with ShipBob SFN in 2020  
• >3.M DTC orders shipped YoY 2023-2024 
• 16k hours of B2B kitting work YoY 2023-2024 
• >1,200 ShipBob customers supported (140% increase since 2022) 
• 3 SFN partner sites 

About Geneva10 Fulfillment

In the early 2000s when Amazon was just an online bookstore and before “Prime” was part of everyday vocabulary, Mark Becker, the CEO and founder of Geneva10, discovered something that altered his professional trajectory: Amazon expanded their offerings from just books to other consumer goods.  Mark saw the potential of this opportunity and started selling consumer products to retailers. 

During this time, Mark learned how to warehouse and ship products himself.

Then in 2009, Mark started Geneva10, a fulfillment and warehousing company, and by 2018, the company was shipping goods to every major retailer and ecommerce site.

In 2020, Mark began researching ShipBob, and found a common ground with ShipBob’s co-founder and CEO, Dhruv Saxena. Mark and Dhruv were able to connect and saw some immediate opportunities. 

We spoke with Mark to learn more about how his company started and scaled with ShipBob to help hundreds of merchants selling online.

Comparing ShipBob with other fulfillment networks

As told to ShipBob by Mark Becker, CEO and Co-Founder of Geneva10 Fulfillment.

Running a tech-forward 3PL business with in-house tech expertise and integration capabilities, I was interested in partnering with another technology-first fulfillment solution to help me expand my business. 

Before I evaluated the landscape, I knew I wanted to work with a single partner. I did a lot of research to understand which would be the best partner, not just immediately but for the long-term. 

After looking into a few potential partners, it was clear to me that ShipBob was the obvious choice. I liked that ShipBob had its own warehouse management system (WMS) and training, plus the way the commercial elements were structured made sense to me. 

ShipBob was the complete package.

Other seemingly similar companies make you price out a quote for each of the prospective customers they bring to you and tell you later if you got the business or not, forcing head-to-head competition all the time in their own network. That makes no sense and is not customer centric. On the opposite end of this approach, ShipBob is truly a partner that makes it simple for us by consistently bringing us new business without the grunt work involved in developing prices and negotiating for each additional merchant. That way, we can focus on servicing the merchants and running the fulfillment centers, which is what we do best.

When I was finishing my evaluation process toward the end of 2020, I was able to talk with ShipBob’s CEO, Dhruv Saxena. We spoke for over an hour. Our visions lined up well and the timing was perfect. Dhruv was expanding the ShipBob Fulfillment Network in the Midwest and I had a new 300,000 sq. ft. warehouse in Wisconsin that I was looking to fill quickly.

Within two months of that conversation with Dhruv, we were receiving ShipBob’s customers’ products to fulfill. During that time working with Dhruv, I was also able to work with Todd Bills, ShipBob’s Chief Logistics Officer, and Anthony Watson, their VP of Strategic Partnerships, which included many in-person visits. From working with Todd and Anthony, I knew ShipBob’s team was full of strong talent, so that made me even more sure of partnering with them.

Expanding from one ShipBob fulfillment center to three

We started out by getting ShipBob up and running in the Twin Lakes, Wisconsin facility. The process of integrating their systems with ours went smoothly, and the whole warehouse filled up quickly with new ShipBob customers. Afterwards, the goal was to replicate that model in additional Geneva10 warehouses.

Our next location was in Phoenix, Arizona, where I had an existing warehouse with 30,000 sq. ft. of unused space. ShipBob was able to rapidly fill that space with new customers’ inventory. After a couple months, we knew it wasn’t going to be enough space, so we more than doubled the amount of space for ShipBob in that facility.

Seeing our success not once, but twice made me want to expand even more with ShipBob. There were two reasons that really drove this: 

1. They have an unmatched pipeline of new customers that fit our specific facilities. There is no way I could match their sales and marketing, and I knew I could rely on them to fill any warehouse in a couple months. 
2. Their technology is intuitive and incredibly easy to use. Compared to other WMS options that we have used for the direct-to-consumer fulfillment side, ShipBob’s technology is as good as it gets. 

When Jessica Will, VP of ShipBob Fulfillment Network, asked if we were interested in opening a new facility in Reno, Nevada, we quickly said yes. 

“We opened a 70,000 sq. ft. warehouse dedicated entirely to fulfilling ShipBob’s orders, which was filled in less than a month.” 

Mark Becker, CEO and Co-Founder of Geneva10 Fulfillment

Working with the right partner pays dividends 

When we partnered with ShipBob, we adopted their technology and process for fulfilling orders for the ShipBob Fulfillment Network. Their WMS is intuitive and our team was able to get the hang of it very quickly. The process of picking and packing orders for ShipBob has been seamless and actually makes it easier to get new hires up to speed faster. 

“ShipBob’s warehouse management software and pricing make sense. They’ve been transparent with us about expectations and margins, and we’ve been transparent with them. The communication and partnership goes both ways and has been really good.” 

Mark Becker, CEO and Co-Founder of Geneva10 Fulfillment

I have a lot of experience with fulfillment technology and warehouse operations, so my advantage is I know the inner workings of the industry. As we were opening locations, I saw how well ShipBob navigated the partnership, implemented the technology, and assisted us with set up – and I knew it would work out well.

“Ultimately with ShipBob, we can fill up new warehouses as fast as possible and get thousands of orders per day from them. To get this incremental volume ourselves, we would have to spend millions and millions of dollars on advertising, but now I don’t have to.”

Mark Becker, CEO and Co-Founder of Geneva10 Fulfillment

To be a successful SFN partner, you need to embrace technology and be driven to lead a team that will excel in a metrics-driven environment to meet SLAs. That’s what’s best to properly run your warehouse and give the best experience to your customers, the merchants you are fulfilling for. And that’s how we’ve been able to stand up the SFN operation in our facilities and fulfill the thousands of orders they send our way each day. ShipBob’s technology allows us to be both efficient and effective.

It’s evident that Geneva10 is going to add more locations and space with ShipBob and continue to perform well and meet SLAs. I’m confident we can always be in ShipBob’s top 20% of SFN partners. I believe in SFN and I know that it’s going to be incredibly impactful on the fulfillment industry. What ShipBob is doing is revolutionary – this type of fulfillment model hasn’t been done before. Getting involved with SFN is a no-brainer. I’m in this for the long haul.

ShipBob is invested in the success of their partners and merchants, and holds themselves and their partners to high standards and SLAs. They have an entire field operations team in place to support their SFN partners and ensure that ShipBob’s high standards are maintained. It’s clear that ShipBob really cares about their SFN partners and wants to see us be successful. 

While we could look at ShipBob as a competitor, I think we’re stronger together. We’re excited to continue our partnership with ShipBob for years to come.

Geneva10 Fulfillment and ShipBob, a year and a half later 

As told to ShipBob by Mark Becker, CEO and Co-Founder of Geneva10 Fulfillment 17 months after the original conversation from above.  

Geneva10 launched with ShipBob in 2020 and every year we’ve experienced very nice improvement.  

We still have the 3 same fulfillment center locations set up with ShipBob since we last spoke in 2022. At that time, ShipBob claimed around 60% of our total capacity in those facilities. Today, it’s safe to say they’re all optimally full and we’re playing a little bit of Tetris to see where we can fit in some more space. 

Geneva10 as a whole has doubled in size every year. To meet that scale, we’ve added more racking, more scan guns, more packing stations, more employees, and more space. Each year we continue to add more resources to keep up with demand. Since day one of our partnership with ShipBob, we’ve been growing. 

It’s been really neat to be a part of the SFN journey with ShipBob.  

Branching into new geographic regions with ShipBob 

Being a ShipBob SFN partner has allowed Geneva10 to branch into new regions of the US. ShipBob has launched with us in several markets that are mutually beneficial.  

Recently, I’ve been talking to ShipBob’s SFN team about the need for a new facility in their West region. It’s neat for me to be able to reach out and say, “I’m exploring this area, and I only need around 15,000 sq.ft. of warehouse space. Do you have a need for space here?” And they’ll come back to me and say “Yeah, we could use 50,000 sq.ft.”  

From there, I can go into a region and look at 65,000-75,000 sq.ft. warehouses. And where the SFN model works really well is with the backing from ShipBob and their square footage needs, I can get more space for a better deal.  

I can make a 75,000 sq.ft. warehouse work much better than 15,000 sq.ft. warehouse in a target region all by myself. That’s true for a couple of reasons:  

1. I have to sign a 5-year lease and because it’s a smaller space, I don’t have room to grow. 

2. It’s a 15,000 sq.ft. warehouse which means I don’t get great pricing. 

I’ve been able to lean into larger spaces knowing that ShipBob can help me fill them.  

Not only is the ability to grow and fill warehouse space incredible, but ShipBob’s technology makes warehouse operations seamless. I always get rave reviews from my warehouse managers about ShipBob’s DTC shipping abilities. The ShipBob WMS does a great job with prioritizing both picking speed and picking efficiency. That’s a huge strong suit of ShipBob’s WMS. 

Partnering with a best-in-class team 

I really enjoy working with the team at ShipBob. Being a part of the SFN model, we’re frequently in touch with members of the ShipBob team. ShipBob does a great job of hiring because everyone we work with is great to work with.  

The support we get from Holly Woods, Regional Director of Fulfillment and Ben Lomax, Senior Regional Manager, is first class. We have weekly, if not daily, communication with Regional SFN Managers. That’s a big part of why this partnership works as well as it does. The way ShipBob has structured the partnership, helps with training, and assists with the ebbs and flows of forecasting, is really appreciated.  

When issues arise, we come up with a fair resolution almost 100% of the time. And when I have feedback, I feel like I’m always heard.  

Embracing continual operational improvements 

Over time, the fulfillment processes continue to get smoother.  Each year, peak season planning gets better, and we improve at onboarding new merchants. It’s working better now than ever before. 

ShipBob continues to make improvements and helps us grow. We recently went to ShipBob and asked how Geneva10 could be a little more profitable. ShipBob put together a team and did a case study to find optimizations we could make.  

They came back and provided details about how we could better use ShipBob’s replenishment tool to optimize inventory and improve slotting for high-velocity items. On paper, that puts us on track to save over a hundred thousand dollars every year. We’re really looking forward to rolling that out. 

We’re both dependent on each other to be successful. I’ve always been impressed that ShipBob’s maintained a close partnership with us and are constantly looking for ways to help us improve and be profitable ourselves.  

Leveraging ShipBob’s merchant base to scale 

If a fulfillment center is interested in joining the SFN program, I absolutely recommend partnering with ShipBob. 

For a company like ours, the big advantage of working with ShipBob for SFN is that ShipBob can fill space faster than we can.  

When we do have more space, it doesn’t take much time for ShipBob to fill it. Over the course of our partnership, ShipBob has gotten better and faster about filling space. 

“We don’t have to drum up new sales. ShipBob does an unbelievable job of getting new merchants into your building. To be able to tap into ShipBob’s sales and marketing machine is something we see great value. As long as you can operate a 3PL well, ShipBob’s team and systems will help you be successful.”  

– Mark Becker, CEO and Co-Founder of Geneva10 Fulfillment

I have three years of experience with SFN, proving that ShipBob is a good partner. 

What’s next for Geneva10 

For the SFN side of Geneva10, I am constantly in communication with ShipBob to see where we can open a new warehouse. Our facility in Reno is getting maxed out so I can see us transitioning into a larger space in Vegas in the coming months.  

We’re looking forward to finishing 2024 and seeing how close we get to hitting our targets. 

The post How Geneva10 Fulfillment Has Shipped Nearly 7.5M Orders Across 3 Fulfillment Centers Through the ShipBob Fulfillment Network [Case Study] appeared first on ShipBob.