Deliverr is one of the fastest growing top fulfillment services in the industry.
If you’re wondering whether they’re a good fit for your ecommerce fulfillment needs, then keep reading.
In this Deliverr review, I’ll cover:
- What is Deliverr
- Key Features of Deliverr
- Deliverr’s Shipping Services
- Pricing
- Their Actual Shipping Time
- My Personal Recommendation
At the end of this blog post, you’ll be armed with enough information to decide whether this is the shipping and fulfillment service for you.
So, let’s dive right in.
What is Deliverr?
Deliverr is a 4PL (4TH Party Logistics Service) that offers an all-inclusive fulfillment service for ecom brands big and small. By all-inclusive, we mean that they pick, pack, stock and dispatch your order, essentially taking care of the entire supply chain.
It draws inspiration from the Amazon fulfillment (FBA) model, which has become incredibly popular in the past few years.
Just like Amazon FBA, Deliverr allows you to accelerate deliveries across multiple channels such as Walmart, eBay, and Shopify by using a unique badge feature that it calls Fast Tag. I will speak more about this in a bit.
Just like ShipBob, Deliverr has a network of warehouses that it rents across the United States which is used to stock inventory.
It is able to expedite on delivery times without adding to shipping costs by using a series of intelligent algorithms to calculate the order volume in a particular area. An appropriate amount of inventory is then stored in that warehouse.
For instance, if your product is more popular in Ohio than Chicago, then Deliverr will store more inventory in their warehouse closest to Ohio. That’s a basic explanation though.
Fun Fact – Deliverr’s network is so extensive that 95% of customers across the United States will be eligible for two-day delivery.
What is a 4PL & What are the Pros and Cons?
I mentioned a while ago that Deliverr is a 4PL. I am pretty sure that you may have been confused whether to choose a 3PL service or a 4PL for your order fulfillment. Here’s an overview of the key differences between the two.
3PL Definition
In most cases, a 3PL fulfillment service handles your logistics only. So, once you ship the order, the 3PL will receive, handle, store and deliver your products. Some 3PLs offer a more inclusive model where they throw in inventory management along with the service. But mostly, it’s limited to the logistics part of the supply chain.
4PL Definition
A 4PL, also called a Lead logistics provider (LLP) offers pretty much all the services that a 3PL does.
But their role across the supply chain is much broader. They use their resources and data to help a business accelerate sales, which makes them more responsible and accountable for the entire operation.
If you consider the entire logistics supply chain as a large umbrella with multiple components, the 4PL is the person that manages the entire umbrella, serving as the single point of contact between all independent components.
A lot of businesses prefer this hands-off approach and dealing with a single point of contact as opposed to a 3PL.
Pros of a 4PL
- A single point of contact for the entire supply chain, right from inventory to delivery.
- This gives them access to data from all touch points, which can be used to streamline the supply chain further.
- A 4PL like Deliverr is non-asset based. This means that they have no assets to protect. As a result, their entire focus is on streamlining the operation to reduce costs and to increase value for the client.
- 4PLs take the weight off your shoulders, managing complex supply chain components such as shipping and distribution across international markets. They also manage multiple warehouse destinations.
- Allows you to offer 1–2-day deliveries in key markets, something that can be a huge differentiator for a lot of businesses.
Cons of a 4PL
- A 4PL essentially has complete control over the supply chain. That’s not necessarily bad because they are non-asset based and neutral, working in the best interest of the client. But some businesses like to have a say in key managerial decisions.
- In rare scenarios, a 4PL can potentially have a biased engagement with a particular supplier, rather than looking for the most cost-effective solution for the client.
What is Fast Tag? How does it Work and What are the Benefits?
One of the standout features that separates Deliverr from other 3PL & 4PL fulfillment services is Fast Tag.
Fast Tag or Fast-Shipping Tag is a Deliverr exclusive service that allows you to display AWS like badges on your product listings across a wide range of platforms.
For instance, your product will display a ‘Free 2-Day Delivery’ badge on Facebook Ads, Instagram, Shopify Websites & Google Shopping.
There are delivery-specific badges for Walmart and eBay as well, including an option to display ‘Free Next Day Delivery’ to eligible customers.
Fast Tags are immensely beneficial for more reasons than one. They significantly increase click-through rates and according to numerous case studies presented by Deliverr, sales volumes as well. But they can also increase visibility and allow your product to stand out from the rest in a marketplace.
For instance, Walmart and eBay offer featured spots inside the buy box. A fast tag badge can help you land this premium position, which can definitely lead to increased CTRs.
Deliverr Integrations
For a service that encompasses the entire supply chain operation, Deliverr has an extremely easy UX and onboarding process.
It offers several one-click integrations with most commonly used services by ecommerce merchants. This includes
7 Direct Sales Channels
- Amazon
- Walmart
- eBay
- Wish
- Shopify
- Google Shopping
- Bigcommerce
12 Multi-channel listing software, 11 of which double up as inventory management tools
- Sellbrite
- Acenda
- Ecomdash
- Linnworks
- Listing Mirror
- Pipe 17
- Sellerchamp
- Seller Cloud
- Skubana
- ChannelAdvisor
- GeekSeller
- CedCommerce
- InkFrog
- SellerActive
- Sellware
- SolidCommerce
- Zentail
- GoDataFeed
All that you have to do is connect your sales channel to the Deliverr account using the 1-cilck integration. Just login to the Deliverr dashboard, select the appropriate channel and connect.
For instance, if you are using Shopify, you need to enter the Shopify store name, which will be something like ‘yourstore.shopify.com’. Now the Shopify backend will be connected to Deliverr.
On the bottom of the page, you will see a button that says ‘Install App’. Once you approve this, your store is connected.
Lear More: The Best Shopify Apps to Increase Your Sales.
Deliverr will start to automatically import your catalog. There are similar one click imports for all sales channels and platforms. Deliverr has an excellent knowledgebase that shows you common problems that you may encounter during integration and product import.
Inbound Labels: Send your Inventory to Deliverr
The next step is sending your inventory to Deliverr, which is called an ‘Inbound’ in the Deliverr dashboard. Here’s an overview of the entire process in simple steps.
Once you have imported your catalog, select the products that you would like to send to Deliverr’s warehouse and hit the send/replenish button. This will open up the Inbound Dashboard.
Now you can select SKUs that meet Deliverr’s guidelines for products (dimensions and restricted products list) and select up to 100 SKUs in a single inbound. You have the option to pack the SKUs in boxes or in cases. A case means that there are multiple units of the product in a single SKU.
To generate an inbound, the minimum quantity is four individual units, or five cases with at least two units in each case. Double check the quantity and numbers for each SKU to ensure that the inbound shipment processing goes smoothly.
Next up, is barcoding. By default, the system selects ‘DSKU’, which is Deliverr’s barcode system. You can use this option and it works fine. But I recommend that you use UPC (Universal Product Code). This allows you to maintain inventory details and packaging information even if you wish to migrate to a different 3PL fulfillment service, sometime later. The third type of barcode that you can use is Amazon FNSKU.
Add the address of the location where you will be shipping your inventory from. The system will auto-save this location as the default selection for your next inbound shipment.
Deliverr offers two shipping plans to send your inventory.
- Direct Plan – Direct Plan allows you to send the inventory directly to one or more Deliverr fulfillment centers. This plan requires you to pack 1 shipment for each warehouse that you will be shipping to. Also, the shipments must be packed according to Deliverr’s specifications. Direct Shipping is significantly faster, although it is the more expensive of the two.
- Shipment Forwarding – The other option is Shipment forwarding where you can send all the inventory in one shipment to a Deliver Crossdock in California or New Jersey. Deliverr will then distribute the inventory to the appropriate warehouses. As of now, shipment forwarding is free.
Deliverr will show you an estimated date when the inventory will be available for sale. You can use this to determine which one of the two delivery services to choose.
For instance, if you are expecting peak sales volume during a holiday weekend, you might want to choose the direct plan purely for the expedited deliveries.
At Sourcingbro, we choose the Direct Plan by default because we have a flat shipping rate for sea and air freight, irrespective of the number of destinations we ship to. So, you can avail of quicker deliveries and have your inventory ready for sale.
Now you have to confirm the shipping details. I already spoke about how Deliverr draws inspiration from the Amazon FBA model. You will be able to notice that over here. The warehouse locations are pre-selected for you. That’s one less nerve-wrecking decision to make.
By allowing you to split your inventory across their network of warehouses, Deliverr makes it possible to reduce shipping time and reduce shipping cost. Your inventory will always be stored in a warehouse that’s closest to your primary target markets. In other words, its closer to your customer.
Most 3PL decide the shipping cost based on Shipping zones. For instance, ShipBob divides America into 9 shipping zones. If your inventory is stored in a warehouse in Zone 1 and you have an order in Zone 9, your shipping cost will be much higher.
Deliverr prevents this by always storing it close to the customer, thereby helping you save on shipping charges.
Once the supplier or your dropshipping agent ships the bulk order using sea or air freight, you can add the tracking numbers for each box in the dashboard. This activates and the tracking will be updated as complete, when your inventory finally reaches Deliverr’s warehouse.
Our track record with Deliverr has been excellent. We have shipped 28 shipments so far to Deliverr for our clients. So far, we haven’t lost a single shipment.
On that note, I’d like to add this. We recently did a case study by analyzing 41,091 shipments about dropshipping time between China and the United States.
One of the statistics that we discovered is about bulk shipments using sea and air freight. The average transit time for sea freight from China is 34-days, while the average transit time for Air-freight is 14-days.
When you are sending inventory to Deliverr, ensure that you account for this.
Deliverr’s Shipping Service and Warehouse Locations
What’s great about Deliverr’s shipping services is that it simplifies some of the aspects that are pretty cumbersome in many other platforms.
For instance, Shipping Option Mapping. Deliverr makes it really easy to map your store’s shipping option with Deliverr’s service level. That’s because there are just four options to choose from.
These are 1-day, 2-day, 3-days and Standard (5-7 days). If you offer Standard and Expedited as shipping options, you need to use the exact Shipping Option Name and map (link it) it to the appropriate service level.
For example, Standard Shipping can be mapped to Deliverr’s Standard shipping. Expedited can be mapped to 1,2 or 3-day deliveries depending on what you offer on the store.
Once you map this accurately, there’s no scope for delayed or mistimed deliveries.
These options are for non-fast-tag deliveries though. If you activate Fast-Tag, the shipments will have different Service level agreements, depending on the sales channel.
1. Here’s an Overview:
Fast-Tag Services
- Walmart Fast Tag – Standard, 3-Day and 2-Day
- eBay Fast Tag – 3-Day & 4-Day
- Wish Fast Tag – 2-Day
- Google Shopping – 2-Day & 1-Day
- Websites (Shopify, Bigcommerce) – 2-Day & 1-Day.
None Fast-Tag Services
- Standard
- 3 Day
- 2 Day
- 1 Day
- AK/HI/Other
As you can see, the Fast-Tag Service allows you to choose an appropriate SLA based on the platform that you are selling on.
We have already covered some of the advantages of using Fast-Tags. One, that we missed mentioning is that the Fast Tag badge display increases clickthrough rates and conversions, because it informs the customer well in advance that the product will be delivered within the stipulated time frame.
On the other hand, a non-fast tag customer has to go all the way to checkout to know when the product will be delivered.
2. Deliverr does not Handle Buyer Returns
One of the quibbles that we have with Deliverr is that it does not handle buyer returns. If a buyer decides to return a shipment to the Deliverr warehouse for whatever reason, it’s marked as unfulfilled delivery.
Deliver does not add this back to the inventory for risk of fraud. They then inform you about this product, which you can choose to dispose or remove from the inventory at an additional cost.
If your business operates in a market with a high rate of return, then you’d want to be aware of this. Also, Deliverr does not ship internationally. So, it’s only an option for businesses targeting the United States marketplace.
3. Deliverr Warehouse Locations
If you search for Warehouse Locations on the Deliverr website, you will not be able to find a single location. That’s because Deliverr is a warehouse network management company that leases warehouses. They don’t own the warehouses themselves and for this reason, they keep it discreet. They are non-asset based, remember?
But we did a little digging in our account and we found these locations so far.
- Fort Worth, TX
- Grapevine, TX
- Alpharetta, GA
- McDonough, GA
- Lawrenceville, GA
- Ontario, CA
- Eastvale, CA
- Moreno Valley, CA
- Cary, IL
- Bolingbrook, IL
- Grain Valley, MO
- Las Vegas, NV
- Mount Holly, NJ
- Fort Worth
- Reading, PA
- Jeffersonville, IN
- North Chesterfield, VA
This is not an exhaustive list of warehouse locations mind you. But it gives you an idea of the key destinations that your inventory will be distributed to.
Deliverr Pricing
Deliverr has made a consistent attempt to mimic the Amazon FBA business model, which is once again evident with their pricing pattern.
In Deliverr’s own words, ‘It’s simple, transparent, and affordable’.
The entire cost of fulfillment, which includes shipping, picking, packing and delivering the shipment are consolidated and assigned into two charges or fees.
1. Fulfillment Fee
Deliverr charges a fulfillment fee per unit that depends on the package weight, dimensions and service level that you choose. The fulfillment cost includes the cost of the pick, pack, box and shipping it.
There are two service levels(fast tag, Non fast tag) that you can choose from, which we covered earlier. It affects the delivery speed and of course, the total fulfillment cost.
Does Deliverr charge what they advertise?
Our client is selling a product that weighs 1.76lb(0.78KG) on their website. The standard fulfillment cost is $6.75 for one unit & $9.6 for two units.
Let’s take a look at the actual cost in their system. It’s $6.75 and $9.6. So, yes they charge exactly what they advertise!
2. Storage Fee
Just like fulfillment, Deliverr’s storage fees also vary depending on the unit size, the amount of space (cubic feet) the unit occupies in the warehouse, and the time duration that you are storing it for. If you are looking to store long term, you get better quotes. The pricing varies according to the season as well.
Most 3PL will segregate the fulfillment cost into individual charges for various services starting with a one-time set up fee, inbound shipping and receiving, storage and warehousing, box and packaging, picking and packing and so on.
By consolidating it into two charges, Deliverr makes it easy to get a hang of fulfillment costs. You are dealing with fewer numbers and after delivering shipments to specific markets, you will have a fair idea of the costs without spending time running the math.
Deliverr Shipping Time & Results
Last but not the least, we come to the part that most businesses will be keen to know more about, Deliverr’s shipping times.
To find the average delivery times and transit times, we analyzed 6102 orders from the Deliverr dashboard.
As you can see in this graph, 70.34% of the orders were delivered in 3-5-days.
A whopping 81.61% of the orders were delivered within 5-days which is phenomenal.
The 2-Day Shipping
From these orders, 529 were shipped using the 2-day delivery service level. The average transit time for these orders was 2.43 days.
Undelivered Rate for Deliverr Shipment
Of these, 82 shipments were undelivered. So the average rate of undelivered shipments was 1.32%.
Generating and Using Reports on Deliverr
Deliverr has a reporting dashboard that allows you to easily generate a wide range of reports easily.
The options are divided in four categories:
- Inbounds
- Inventory
- Orders
- Products
Creating and downloading reports is simple. Just log on to the reports dashboard, select the appropriate report, select the date range and click on create report. You can open the report using any spreadsheet tool.
The obvious advantage of the reports dashboard is that it’s very fast and easy to use.
The disadvantage though, is that there’s no single dashboard that offers a birds eye view of all vital details. One where you can analyze the order and shipment status with details such as:
- Fulfillment Metrics
- Transit Time
- Inventory Level
- Undelivered Order
Each one of these metrics are available, mind you. But you’d have to download them manually and view them.
For example, if an order is lost during transit then you wouldn’t know unless you clicked the order detail page or downloaded the “Order-Shipments” report.
This could let you receive customer complaints if you didn’t monitoring the shipments properly.
Deliverr Review: Things I Liked
Here are the things in the Deliverr that I liked the most:
Ease of Use: Deliverr has a very user-friendly UI, all the buttons are large and easy to read. The system is intuitive and easy to navigate through. I think their onboarding process is logically well designed allowing a merchant to work easily with a 3PL fulfillment service.
Shipping option mapping: As compared to other 3pl who can overwhelm you with dozens of shipping methods, Deliverr keeps it extremely simple.
Affordable: By far, Deliverr offers the cheapest shipping and fulfillment rates in the United States, while the delivery time is still relatively fast.
Deliverr Review: Things I Didn’t Like
No international shipping: If you choose Deliverr for fulfillment, you can only target the United States because it does not offer international shipping yet.
Don’t handle returns: I already spoke about this. If your business sees a large volume of return orders, then Deliverr might not be the right fit for you.
If you prefer a fulfillment company that can handle returns, check out ShipMonk review here.
Lack of True dashboard: It’s SUPER helpful to have a dashboard that lists all of the metrics that you manage in one place.
For example, here’s what I see when I login to ShipBob’s analytics dashboard. You can check it from our detailed ShipBob review.
Deliverr Review: The Bottom Line
Deliverr offers a dynamic fulfillment solution that’s geared towards sellers on popular marketplaces. If you are selling on Amazon, eBay, Walmart or Wish, then Deliverr’s easy dashboard, smooth onboarding and fast tags offer plenty of advantages to accelerate sales.
The other unbeatable feature is the fast delivery within United States at some of the lowest fulfillment costs across the industry.
But, if you sell outside of these marketplaces, you may find that it lacks some of the customization and flexibility that other platforms offer. For instance, ShipBob’s dashboard gives you a birds eye view of all important metrics without having to dig deep.
Also, with ShipBob, you get international shipping to key European markets courtesy their warehouses in Europe. Here you can check our full comparison with Deliverr and other 3PLs.
Bottom Line – If you seek automation, fastest delivery times and great pricing within the United States, Deliverr might be a great choice.
But if you sell outside the US and seek more customization for your products, something like ShipBob or us(Sourcingbro) might be a better fit for you.
Further Reading:
