076: Warehousing, Fulfillment, and Shipping to Customers

Product Startup · 19 May 2021 · 33m

What this episode covers

Bill Carlin, founder of ShipMate Fulfillment, explains how startups and small manufacturers can leverage third-party logistics (3PL) to handle warehousing, fulfillment, and shipping. He details the operational lifecycle, including receiving inbound freight, managing continuous inventory via API dashboards, and executing kitting and bundling services to meet retailer demands like Costco. Carlin emphasizes that outsourcing fulfillment allows founders to focus on sales while avoiding the operational bottlenecks of scaling from garage operations to volume production.

Mentioned

Companies
ShipMate Fulfillment, Mako Design + Invent, Amazon, Costco, Lululemon
Also
Shopify, UPS, FedEx

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • The Startup CPG Podcast · 47m

    #251 - Scaling the Brand: Ops, Systems, and Simplicity with Mezcla and Doss

    Yoga Charya, President and COO of Mezcla, and Sebastiaan Debrouwe from Doss discuss how Mezcla scaled from a specialty retail niche to national distribution in Target, Whole Foods, and Costco. Charya explains their operational philosophy of 'simplicity scales,' including consolidating to a single Midwest 3PL and using a turnkey co-manufacturing model to maintain focus on product quality. Debrouwe highlights how Doss’s adaptive ERP helps brands manage this complexity without sacrificing their unique brand magic, detailing Mezcla’s transition from Google Sheets to Airtable and finally to Doss to automate sample orders and ensure traceability.

  • The Startup CPG Podcast · 34m

    #227 - Operations Ask-Me-Anything with Jamie Valenti-Jordan

    Jamie Valenti-Jordan, CEO of Catapult Commercialization Services, explains how early-stage CPG brands can navigate product development, sourcing, and manufacturing partnerships. He details the high costs of direct-to-consumer frozen logistics, recommending retail channels or large basket orders to mitigate dry ice and packaging expenses, and advises sourcing ingredients through local distributors rather than big-box retailers. Valenti-Jordan also breaks down the operational realities of co-manufacturing, highlighting the conflict between low minimum order quantities and tunnel pasteurization, and emphasizes the importance of transparent, long-term relationships over rigid contract enforcement.

  • The Startup CPG Podcast · 39m

    #134 How to Make and Scale Your Product with Jamie Valenti-Jordan, Catapult Commercialization Services Part 2

    Jamie Valenti-Jordan of Catapult Commercialization Services explains how CPG startups can find, vet, and manage contract manufacturers (co-managers). He details the process of sourcing co-managers, negotiating tiered pricing, and preparing for the first production run, emphasizing the importance of sensory evaluation, ingredient sourcing, and logistics best practices like pallet configuration to avoid costly errors.

  • The Startup CPG Podcast · 24m

    Bonus: Finding the Right Freight Partners for your CPG Brand

    Alex Cree, co-founder of Baozza, discusses the logistics of shipping frozen CPG products, highlighting challenges with LTL bookings, lost pallets, and rising costs. Host Jesse Frytag shares her own early mistakes with LTL terminology and emphasizes the value of using brokers and maintaining detailed rate logs. The conversation covers strategies for vetting freight partners, managing temperature-controlled supply chains, and leveraging distributor pickups to reduce operational burden.

  • Thoroughly Considered · 26m

    26: Putting a Bow on the Glif

    Tom Gerhardt and Dan Provost of Studio Neat discuss the final shipping phase of the Glif, a modular phone mounting system, noting that over 50% of US Kickstarter backers have received their units. They detail a logistical experiment where manufacturer Premiere Source shipped directly to customers to save costs and time, utilizing ShipStation for label generation, though this resulted in less precise tracking for backers. The hosts reflect on the product's successful design, which exceeded expectations in holding phones securely, and acknowledge Studio Neat's structural weakness in post-launch marketing and sales. They also touch on the challenge of phasing out older Glif models while managing inventory for new products in development.

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by Product Startup. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.