Smart businesses know marketplaces are the heart of e-commerce, but they can be cumbersome: Sellers must juggle multiple logins, the labor and logistics of packing, shipping and tracking sales and managing inventory. Then comes updating all the marketplace listings, which can take hours.

Enter the rollout of UPS eFulfillment offering small- and medium-sized businesses worldwide streamlined fulfillment and shipping services to consumers in the U.S. and Canada. The solution supports purchases and orders from 21 different marketplaces and web stores, including eBay, Wal-Mart, Etsy and Amazon, including Prime. The new platform augments UPS’s suite of custom e-commerce solutions designed to support small and medium-sized businesses.

“UPS understands that small- and medium-sized businesses want the same high quality services as large e-commerce companies without the same amount of complexity,” said Kevin Warren, UPS’s chief marketing officer. “We are laser-focused on giving merchants the tools for success by offering this easy-to-use technology platform, full-service fulfillment capabilities and simplified pricing and billing that many smaller business couldn’t afford to offer or build.” 

Signing up is as easy as enrolling via a quick onboarding process and listing products. UPS, which is currently offering a risk free 60-day trial, handles storing the merchandise, packaging products once a sale is made and shipping from warehouses strategically located in Shepherdsville, KY and Bloomington, CA.

Inventory stored in other locations, such as an existing warehouse, can be added to the platform to ensure dynamic updates as sales occur allowing for fulfillment efficiencies. Merchants select when the package needs to be delivered. UPS eFulfillment can be used by merchants around the world who want to list on U.S. marketplaces and send to customers in the U.S. and in Canada.

UPS began piloting the program in 2017 as a way to provide cutting-edge fulfillment and logistics options with access to multiple marketplaces. Pilot participant Tidal New York saw sales of its New York City-made flip flops more than triple during the pilot. 

“To be able to sell across multiple stores and marketplaces is insanely attractive,” said Tidal New York Co-founder Tim Gibb. “The ability to focus on growth instead of managing our infrastructure allows us to pursue business that we wouldn’t otherwise have had the bandwidth to go after.”

According to the UPS Pulse of the Online Shopper study, shopping on marketplaces is almost universal. More than 96% percent of U.S. online shoppers report making a purchase at a marketplace. With this in mind, smart sellers try to sell on as many marketplaces as possible to access the widest swath of potential customers.

This eFulfillment service offers merchants the flexibility and speed needed to meet customer needs at a good value. The pricing is bundled, giving sellers a clear picture of fulfillment costs. Tracking and billing are integrated, helping reduce the time and effort it takes a business owner to keep up with the status and cost of shipments. Finally, sellers can quickly and dynamically update listings on multiple sites.

“UPS eFulfillment shows how UPS is uniquely positioned and deeply committed to providing online merchants with powerful solutions that help meet customers’ needs,” Warren said. “Combined with other recent announcements, such as Ware2Go, UPS aims to be the provider of choice when it comes to e-commerce solutions.”

Ware2Go, launched in Aug. 2018, is a technology company and digital platform that matches available warehouse space and fulfillment services to merchants’ needs using both UPS and non-UPS warehouse space. The solution is especially attractive to small and medium-sized companies that need to forward stock inventory and fulfill orders for business-to-business e-commerce.