eCommerce Toolbox

Here are a few products and services that can help you achieve your goals for ecommerce success.

Shipwire

Shipwire is an order fulfillment company that specializes in small customers. While most fulfillment warehouses require thousands of shipments a month, Shipwire puts the power of a world-class shipping warehouse in the hands of the start-up low-budget eCommerce entrepreneurs.  They currently have warehouses in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Vancouver, Toronto, London and soon Hong Kong.  You can send your 10 items or 10 truck loads of items to any of their warehouses, and they can ship professionally for a per-item fulfillment fee.

oDesk

oDesk is a site where you can find and hire virtual assistants, web developers, web designers, marketing professionals and more for as little as $1 per hour!  Yes, you read that right, for as low as $1.00 per hour, you could have your very own (usually foreign) worker working on tasks that are either tedious and repetitive, or that you know nothing about and can’t afford a local contractor.  The interface of oDesk allows you to post a job completely risk-free, and then dozens of contractors will bid on the job.  Up to this point there is no financial obligation.  The only financial obligation comes when you’ve hired someone, and they’ve complete the job to your satisfaction.  Then oDesk gets a 10% cut.  So instead of $1.00 your actual cost is $1.10.  Not bad for what they provide!

Their interface allows you to monitor the work of your virtual staff, randomly taking screenshots of their work, so you can rest assured they are working on your projects if they are clocking in.  If you notice something that doesn’t look right, you simply dispute it and don’t have to pay for that time.  Among other safeguards protecting you from bad staff are a feedback system that, like eBay, shows a transparent picture of that contractor and what their previous employers through oDesk thought of them.

Elance

Elance is like oDesk, only the quality of writers and certain skills is higher.