You may have come across Red Stag Fulfillment and ShipBob in your search for the best fulfillment service companies in the market. Both third-party logistics (3PL) providers offer high-quality fulfillment support that may be just what you need to scale your operations and improve customer satisfaction.
However, considering each business has unique needs, one provider may be better suited for you than the other. If you think it’s time to switch fulfillment partners or start your 3PL journey, how do you choose the right option? That’s the question we answer in this guide.
An overview of Red Stag Fulfillment
Red Stag Fulfillment is a 3PL provider founded by former eCommerce business owners over 10 years ago. Like many business owners, the founders got into the 3PL niche out of necessity—their fulfillment partners could not meet their business needs, so they created a company that could.
And so Red Stag Fulfillment was born.
Service specialties
Red Stag Fulfillment offers a wide range of services, including order fulfillment to help you deliver products on time, inventory planning to keep your stock at par with customer demand, and warehousing services to protect your products before distribution.
We can also pick and pack products on your behalf and help with kitting and assembly before shipping to add value for your customers. Tell us what you need, and we’ll personalize our services to support you.
What really makes Red Stag Fulfillment stand out from other 3PL companies is our expertise in handling oversized, heavy, or high-value items that other providers may be unable to accommodate. If you sell through Amazon, we can even help you join the Amazon Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) Program to give you more control over the customer experience.
Notable features
- Zero shrinkage, 100% order accuracy, and 100% on-time delivery guarantees (we’ll cover incurred costs and even pay you for any inconvenience caused if we make errors)
- Cloud-based fulfillment software that provides real-time inventory data for better stock and order management
- Fulfillment services for complex and large items
- Extensive integrations with many online stores, including BigCommerce, Shopify, and WooCommerce
- Custom APIs for any platform
- Specialized warehouse operations, such as kitting, assembly, and cross-docking
- Two-day or same-day ground shipping across 96% of the U.S.
Mission and values
Our mission is simple—to foster a culture of excellence. We’re committed to continuously offering our clients high-quality services that get them five-star reviews from their customers and help them to scale their operations.
We value customer satisfaction, integrity, and innovation when it comes to handling complex logistics. These values are demonstrated in all our services through our great attention to detail, order accuracy rates, and continued success in handling oversized items.
An overview of ShipBob
ShipBob is a global 3PL provider that offers services like warehousing, eCommerce order fulfillment, freight services, and inventory management. While it primarily focuses on D2C mid-sized and small businesses, it also caters to B2B enterprises through services such as retail dropshipping and retail distribution.
Service specialties
Like many 3PL providers, ShipBob has several standard offerings, including warehousing, order fulfillment services, and picking and packing. But this isn’t all it does—it also offers retail distribution services to help you meet B2B needs and retail dropshipping, allowing you to expand your market cost-effectively.
The service also provides international fulfillment, enabling global enterprises to meet customers’ needs regardless of their locations. If you’ve found cheap international partners, you can leverage ShipBob’s end-to-end managed freight services for seamless imports.
It also specializes in fast shipping and distributed inventory to reduce delivery times. This is valuable for growing businesses, as it helps them meet customer needs quickly.
Notable features
- Real-time order tracking to provide visibility into your fulfillment process
- Integrations with solutions like Wix, Netsuite, and eBay to automate order processing and fulfillment
- Custom packaging, including personalized mailers and gift notes
- Over 50 global warehouse locations
- Two-day shipping across the U.S.
Mission and values
ShipBob’s mission is to simplify and streamline the fulfillment process for eCommerce businesses that want to scale efficiently. With its robust technology and global fulfillment centers, it does this effectively for many businesses worldwide.
Its operations are guided by various values, including transparency, customer focus, and technological innovation. These values are evident in almost all aspects of its eCommerce fulfillment services—it offers a transparent pricing structure and one of the best software solutions to streamline every stage of the fulfillment process.
How Red Stag Fulfillment compares to ShipBob
Both Red Stag Fulfillment and ShipBob have unique qualities that position them as some of the leading providers in the market—for businesses with differing sets of priorities and values.
The question remains: Which of the two is the best option for your business? We’ll compare them head to head in a few areas to help you decide: features, customer support, integration capabilities, and dependability.
Features and services
Red Stag Fulfillment offers various notable services and features, including the ability to handle bulky and high-volume items, kitting and assembly services, 0% shrinkage, and 100% guaranteed order accuracy. We are also Amazon SFP-eligible, meaning we can serve as your fulfillment company if you’re on the platform.
These qualities make us suitable for D2C and B2B businesses such as:
- eCommerce businesses looking for efficient, guaranteed zero-loss fulfillment services
- Businesses dealing in high-value items like jewelry
- Enterprises that sell heavy, oversized, or bulky products like furniture
- Amazon sellers or vendors looking for greater control over their customer experience
ShipBob‘s features and services, like global warehouse locations, freight solutions, and real-time order tracking, make the service provider a good fit for:
- Businesses with customers within and outside the U.S.
- Importers
- Dropshippers
- eCommerce retailers that want to track every step of the fulfillment process
Customer service
Red Stag Fulfillment has a dedicated team of customer support personnel committed to making sure we meet all your needs efficiently. Almost all members of our customer service team have warehouse experience, as this is where many started their logistics careers. Our team members can offer comprehensive guidance on everything from supply chain operations to how to effectively manage your inventory without missing a beat.
We offer support through a 24/7 ticket-based system, which enables you to seek clarification or report issues as soon as they occur. If you prefer one-on-one assistance, we also provide U.S.-based phone support, Monday through Friday during standard business hours.
ShipBob’s customer support has mixed customer reactions. Some praise the provider’s dedicated team for good customer service, while others report poor service.
All in all, the service has invested significantly in customer service channels to make it easy for customers to reach out. You can contact the ShipBob team via email, chat, or phone, depending on your preference and urgency. However, any customer support is only available Monday through Friday during business hours, so even if you reach out with an urgent need, you may not hear back right away.
Integrations
Both Red Stag and ShipBob offer free pre-built integrations with online stores such as BigCommerce, Shopify, and WooCommerce. These integrations help you automate your order fulfillment process, facilitating quicker services and fewer errors.
In terms of numbers, ShipBob offers more pre-built integrations (over 100) than Red Stag Fulfillment. It also provides application programming interface (API) capabilities that enable you to develop integrations it may not yet have.
Despite having fewer pre-built integrations, Red Stag is still a suitable ShipBob alternative, as it can build custom APIs for your store. This means you can connect our technology to existing shopping carts and software solutions, even if they’re not yet on our direct integrations list.
Reliability
Red Stag Fulfillment is one of the most dependable options available, especially when it comes to handling complex orders. Don’t believe us? Just look at our results—we have an average order accuracy rate of 99.997% and on-time shipping rate of 100%.
We offer four fulfillment service guarantees to show our commitment to exceeding customer expectations—two-day shipping, 100% on-time fulfillment, 0% shrinkage, and 100% accuracy. And if we don’t meet these rates, we cover our customers’ costs and pay them for the trouble.
ShipBob is also highly reliable. It has a 99.96% on-time shipping rate and a 99.95% accuracy rate, which makes it just as dependable as Red Stag.
It’s worth noting that the two 3PL providers serve different customer groups. To get these levels of reliability, choose the one that caters to your needs and industry. For example, you can pick Red Stag for bulky, high-volume goods and ShipBob for imports.
Comparing Red Stag Fulfillment vs. ShipBob at a glance
| Red Stag Fulfillment | ShipBob | |
| Key features | Free cloud-based software for order management and inventory control Real-time inventory reporting and analytics Specialty in handling complex orders Fulfillment service guarantees with compensation for each error Amazon SFP eligibility | Free inventory and order management software Real-time order tracking Freight services for import businesses Global fulfillment Custom packaging services, like adding gift notes |
| Customer service | 24/7 ticketing system and offers phone support | Email, phone, and chat support |
| Integrations | Integrates with many leading eCommerce platforms and tools Builds custom APIs for solutions that don’t have direct integrations | Integrates with numerous shopping carts, shipping solutions, returns management platforms, and custom packaging and design software Provides API capabilities, allowing you to build custom integrations |
Why Red Stag Fulfillment could be the right choice for your eCommerce Fulfillment
Red Stag and ShipBob are excellent choices for different kinds of enterprises. To find the right option, assess your business needs and compare them against each provider’s unique features and services.
Red Stag may be the solution for you if you want a partner that can handle complex and large-item orders with high accuracy. We offer service guarantees that keep us to our word when it comes to delivering efficient, stress-free fulfillment services.
If you need onboarding assistance or have issues you’d like us to address, our customer service and business support team is always ready to help. Reaching out could mean greater operational efficiency and fewer fulfillment headaches for you.
Wondering if Red Stag is the right 3PL partner for you? Reach out to start a conversation today.
