ShipBob Fulfillment

Repeated warehouse failures, lost sales and no accountability

I've been a ShipBob customer for over four years, operating across the US, UK and Australia. While the service was generally satisfactory in the earlier years, my experience over the past 12 months has been absolutely appalling.

I've experienced one major operational failure after another, including:

UK warehouse: A series of wholesale orders took over six weeks to fulfil due to repeated picking and inventory errors. Some stock went missing and only reappeared in my inventory six months later.

US warehouses: Changes to warehouse locations and receiving processes caused significant delays, misplaced stock and shipments taking up to two months to be received and stowed. One shipment missed an entire promotional campaign as a result.

Account transfer: A relatively simple technical issue with a warehouse receiving order delayed an account transfer by approximately two months, preventing me from launching new products during that period.

Birmingham UK warehouse: New and old versions of six of my bestselling products were incorrectly mixed together in storage. It took THREE attempts and several weeks to supposedly resolve the issue, during which I had to stop advertising and selling those products.

Further Birmingham errors: After finally relaunching the products, a customer received a completely different product from the one ordered. The inventory records strongly suggest that products are still being stored under incorrect listings, despite the warehouse's repeated attempts to fix them.

What makes these experiences particularly frustrating is how often one mistake snowballs into several more. Issues that should take days to resolve drag on for weeks or months, requiring constant follow-ups and escalations.

The commercial impact on my small business has been devastating. I've missed important promotional periods, delayed product launches, lost selling opportunities, disappointed wholesale customers and had to stop advertising products because I couldn't trust the inventory accuracy.

Despite all of this, I've continued paying substantial storage and fulfilment fees. I've received apologies and promises of improved oversight, but no proactive offer of compensation for the disruption or financial impact.

After losing confidence in the service, I requested an early release from my contract. ShipBob acknowledged that several of these incidents fell well below their expected service standards, yet refused to release me without requiring payment of approximately $30,000 in remaining contractual minimums.

So I'm effectively locked into paying for a service that has repeatedly failed my business, until November 2027.

I understand that mistakes happen in logistics. What I cannot accept is the frequency of these failures, the extraordinary time taken to resolve them, and the lack of meaningful accountability when things go wrong.

Some of the individual account managers I've worked with have been genuinely helpful, but unfortunately their efforts cannot compensate for the underlying operational problems.

I deeply regret choosing ShipBob as my fulfilment partner. The stress, disruption and financial consequences have been enormous.

I would strongly caution any small business considering ShipBob, particularly if you rely on accurate inventory management, timely receiving and dependable fulfilment. My experience has been anything but reliable.

Shipbob has horrible customer service, they take forever to respond and then run you in circles without resolution. They also use way too many low cost shippers that overcharge, fail to deliver products and then don't return them to the warehouse after so you pay for a shipment that doesn't occur and then lose the product too. They recently had a warehouse fire and virtually zero communication about the situation; whether products were damaged or destroyed or to proceed with getting customers orders filled. Find another company.

We have been a ShipBob customer for over two years, but this has been one of the worst fulfilment experiences we have had.

ShipBob lost one of our inventory shipments, then repeatedly delayed receiving and stocking the replacement shipment despite assuring us it would be prioritised. Our customers were left waiting for weeks, forcing us to issue refunds, lose subscription customers and pay for express shipping to try to repair the damage.

Support responses were mostly generic apologies, references to internal SLAs and requests for “continued patience,” with no clear ownership or reliable completion date.

ShipBob eventually offered a credit for the manufacturing cost of the lost inventory, but this does not cover the lost sales, refunds, additional shipping costs or reputational damage caused.

The lack of urgency, accountability and communication has been extremely disappointing.