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How international supplement & vitamin shipping works
What to look for in a vitamin and supplement 3PL
ShipBob’s vitamin and supplement fulfillment services
The ecommerce health and wellness market is booming. Vitamin and supplement sales are expected to reach $56 billion USD this year — and ecommerce is playing a big role. Online vitamin and supplement purchases have grown 10.3% since 2018. With new supplements coming to market and gaining popularity; it’s no wonder that the online market is growing quickly to keep up.
With an increase in market size comes increased competition. Consumers are finding themselves with nearly unlimited options for vitamins and supplements on-demand. If you want to capture their attention and loyalty, you need to go above and beyond consumer expectations.
One way to ensure that your online vitamin and supplement store offers the best experience possible is by partnering with an experienced third-party logistics (3PL) provider. An experienced fulfillment provider will know the ins and outs of the industry and be able to offer you the right fulfillment solutions to meet customer expectations and grow your vitamin and supplement business.
How international supplement & vitamin shipping works
It can be challenging for ecommerce brands to navigate international fulfillment. Here’s what brands need to know to ship supplements and vitamins around the globe.
Prepare your supplements for international shipping
Prior to shipping your products to geographies outside of your home country you’ll need to research and understand their specific requirements and prepare your products accordingly.
Different countries have different requirements and prohibitions for supplements and vitamins. Look up the nation’s necessary labeling, packaging, and ingredients. For example, some ingredients are available over-the-counter in the US, but are considered a prescription drug in the European Union. Additionally, many countries require labels to be in their native languages.
It’s also important to ensure product stability for shipping so customers receive fresh, quality supplements and vitamins. Brands should use packing materials like bubble wrap and geami to protect the product and choose moisture-resistant packaging.
Understand customs and taxes for international shipping
In order to reach new international markets, you’ll need to understand and comply with the required customs and taxes.
First, you’ll need to prepare any necessary required documents for customs such as commercial invoices, packing lists, and any relevant certificates or permits the destination country requires. Any inaccuracies or missing information may result in a hold-up at customs clearance.
Navigating the taxes and duties for international shipping can be difficult. Brands can leverage the expertise and capabilities of a fulfillment provider like ShipBob to simplify cross-border taxes. ShipBob offers Delivered Duties Unpaid (DDU) and Delivered Duties Paid (DDP) shipping options to make import duties more seamless for brands and their customers.
Choose the right carrier for international fulfillment
The US Postal Service (USPS), UPS, DHL, and FedEx are all reputable carriers that have international shipping capabilities. Each of these carriers have reliable shipping options, offer shipping insurance, and have experience with vitamins and supplements.
What to look for in a vitamin and supplement 3PL
Choosing a fulfillment partner to outsource your fulfillment isn’t easy, especially in the world of vitamins and supplements. Keeping track of expiration dates, monitoring inventory levels in real-time, and ensuring seamless order processing are likely on the forefront of your mind. Along with those things, the right provider for your vitamin and supplement business will do the following:
- Automate shipping and fulfillment for your online store.
- Provide data you can leverage to discover trends.
- Meet customer expectations around deliveries.
1. Automate order fulfillment for your online store
Rather than having to manually send orders to your 3PL, look for an order fulfillment provider whose technology integrates with your online store with just a few clicks. This means that orders are automatically sent from your ecommerce platform or marketplace (such as Shopify, WooCommerce, or eBay) to your fulfillment center.
This helps speed up the retail fulfillment process, making sure that your customers’ supplement and vitamin orders are processed, picked, packed, shipped, and delivered as quickly as possible.
Part of automating the fulfillment process includes a two-way push of data between your ecommerce store and your fulfillment provider’s software. This two-way push includes tracking information, order details, inventory levels, and ship option mapping.
The fulfillment provider’s technology should be able to automatically select the carrier, service, and even fulfillment center that can ship each order to your customer in the most efficient and cost-effective manner. Once an order has shipped, the fulfillment provider’s system can automatically send confirmation back to your ecommerce platform, which in turn will forward tracking information to your customers.
Overall, automating the ecommerce fulfillment process provides a better customer experience and gives your team more time to focus on growing your vitamin and supplement business.
“I have one person on my operations team, and half of his job is managing all of our wholesale fulfillment. Switching from a manual B2B order flow to an automated one has saved him 6.5 hours in just the first month. With ShipBob automatically processing B2B orders, he’s free to focus on other priorities.”
– Nadine Joseph, Founder & CEO of Peak and Valley
2. Provide data you can leverage to discover trends
As mentioned before, the supplement industry is rapidly changing, with new products and trends emerging constantly. It’s important that you not only stay on top of industry trends but trends in your own sales and customers as well.
The right fulfillment provider for your vitamin and supplement store will provide in-depth inventory reports and analytics that allow you to see which products seem to resonate with which customers, and tailor your marketing and manufacturing accordingly.
Approaching ecommerce supply chain decisions from a data-driven perspective can help you compete in a crowded market. Your fulfillment provider’s software should offer reports that showcase both past performance, as well as help you improve inventory forecasting.
Distribution metrics and analytics on sales, orders, shipments, and inventory allow your business to identify trends, pinpoint areas of improvement, and celebrate success.
“As you grow your business, nice-to-haves quickly becomes must-haves – especially when it comes to data and reporting. There are certain data points that you just have to know, like where we should store our inventory to be closer to our customers, what you’re charging customers for shipping, and what your average order values are. These sorts of metrics need to be driving your decisions if you’re going to be profitable, and so you need to know that information inside out. ShipBob’s dashboard provides us deep visibility into those crucial metrics for inventory, fulfillment, and shipping.”
– Neil Blewitt, SVP of Operations at Bloom Nutrition
3. Meet customer expectations around deliveries
Customers expect affordable, fast shipping, so meeting customer expectations around delivery speed and cost is vital to your success as an ecommerce merchant. Today’s customers expect Amazon Prime-level shipping wherever and whenever they shop online. Working with the right fulfillment can help you offer 2-day shipping to your customers at a lower shipping cost.
One way to offer faster, more affordable shipping options to your customers who purchase your vitamins and supplements is by distributing inventory across multiple fulfillment or distribution center locations.
“In particular, we love how ShipBob’s 2-Day Express complements our subscription program. Our subscribers are some of our closest, most valued customers, so we want to give them the option of receiving their first order in 2 days. With ShipBob, we can make that happen. Not only that, we can make it happen without compromising on cost. Because of ShipBob’s overall order volume, they can negotiate bulk discounts with carriers that we simply couldn’t. By partnering with ShipBob, we get better quality fulfillment and shipping for a better price.”
– Maria Osorio, Logistics and Operations Director at Oxford Healthspan
This puts your inventory closer to your customers, meaning you can offer affordable 2-day ground shipping for customers in surrounding areas instead of only offering costly expedited air shipping.
ShipBob’s vitamin and supplement fulfillment services
ShipBob offers best-in-class supplement fulfillment services for ecommerce businesses looking to scale. Their automated order management systems along with their network of fulfillment centers strategically placed around the country allow them to provide unrivaled vitamin and supplement fulfillment.
“When you partner with ShipBob, it’s like you’ve got a member of staff that never takes a day off sick, that’s never on holiday. They’re constantly able to send something out (even if I’m not in the office), and they always get stuff done. It’s the kind of luxury we can’t afford on our own, but ShipBob makes it efficient and affordable to achieve.”
Kelly Bond, Operations Manager at Elle Sera
Along with doing everything mentioned in the previous section, ShipBob also offers the following supplement fulfillment services.
2-day shipping
Customers expect fast shipping. Some 3PLs offering outsourced supplement fulfillment are only able offer 2-day shipping to regions near their one fulfillment center location. ShipBob’s network of 50+ global fulfillment centers allows ecommerce companies to distribute their inventory around the country, thus providing fast 2-day shipping to more of your customers.
“With ShipBob, we are able to offer 2-day shipping via ground to 80% of our customer base, which is much cheaper than expedited air.”
Lindsay Louise, Fulfillment & Retail Manager at Synchro
Branded packaging
ShipBob believes in the value of growing your company’s brand. That’s why we don’t stick our name and logos all over YOUR packaging. You have the option to use your own custom packaging when shipping with us. Of course, you can also use our free plain brown packaging if you’d like.
Software integrations
If you’re looking to outsource your supplement fulfillment, you’re likely already using at least one ecommerce software. ShipBob’s cloud-based fulfillment software seamlessly integrates with top ecommerce software like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, NetSuite, and more! Click here for a full list of our partners.
Inventory management
ShipBob allows you to quickly monitor your inventory with our state of the art inventory management platform. Whether you need to look at trends in customer behavior, or take a high level view of your inventory, our inventory management dashboard can do it all.
Get started with ShipBob
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Fulfill with ShipBob today!
If you’re shipping vitamins and supplements for your ecommerce business, choosing an experienced fulfillment provider can help you meet customer expectations, grow your business, and gain market share in a crowded industry. Using the criteria discussed in this blog post can help you find a fulfillment provider that you trust to handle every part of the fulfillment process for your online supplement store inside FDA-approved warehouses.
To learn more about choosing a fulfillment provider, download “How to Choose a Fulfillment Provider for Your Ecommerce Business.” This guide goes into more detail on the questions your business should ask a potential third-party fulfillment provider to make sure you find a partner that is a great fit for your business.
Shipping vitamins and supplements FAQs
Here are a few of the most common questions when it comes to shipping vitamins and supplements.
Can supplements be shipped internationally?
Yes, but there are restrictions. If shipping from the US, any supplement that is not labeled in English or does not have FDA-approved labeling cannot be shipped internationally. Also, any supplement that has been issued a Consumer Safety Advisory Warning cannot be shipped.
Do you need a license to sell supplements online?
Supplement manufacturers are legally bound to meet all rules and guidelines set by the FDA under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act 1994 (DSHEA). If you plan to create your own supplement formulas and manufacture them independently, you will need to obtain certification and insurance.
However, if you work with a supplement manufacturer that is already certified and has FDA approval, you may forgo the need for licensing completely.
Is it legal to sell supplements online?
Yes! As long as you meet FDA’s rules to avoid violations. It’s also recommended that you consult a business lawyer before selling your supplements online. Be sure to market your supplements with accurate information and do not make any false claims.
All supplements sold online and in store must be marked with the following disclaimer: “This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”
Which countries have the highest standards for dietary supplements?
Many countries have strict regulations for vitamins and supplements. The United States, Australia, Canada, and the European Union (EU) are countries with some of the highest standards for shipping vitamins and supplements.
Can you fly international with vitamins?
Passengers are able to fly internationally with vitamins in a carry on or a checked bag. TSA allows supplements in vitamin form, such as capsules, gummies, and tablets.
