Fulfillment services for startups, from your first order to your thousandth

No. eFulfillment Service has no minimum order volume and no minimum monthly spend, and never has since 2001. You pay only for the storage, fulfillment, and shipping you actually use each week. For context, the industry average monthly minimum across more than 600 surveyed warehouses is $517. There are also no volume tiers here, so a pre-revenue brand shipping its first ten orders gets the same terms, the same account manager, and the same 99.9% order accuracy as a seller shipping tens of thousands a month.

Not for this one. Plenty of 3PLs won’t quote a brand shipping under a few hundred orders a month, and some now openly target eight-figure sellers, which is why so many founders get told to come back later. eFulfillment Service has taken brands on before they were famous since 2001. FreightWaves ranked us first among startup and small-business providers in August 2026 and recommended us specifically for brands shipping under 100 orders a month, on the grounds that no minimum and no contract means a slow month costs you nothing.

Fulfillment cost is a stack of line items, not a single rate: receiving, storage, the first pick on an order, each additional item, packaging, postage, and returns processing. Across the industry, first-item pick and pack typically runs $2.00–$3.00, each additional item $0.30–$0.75, storage $0.45–$0.55 per cubic foot per month, and returns $1–$7 per order. Most providers add a setup fee of $250–$1,000 and a monthly minimum averaging $517 on top of that. eFulfillment Service charges no setup fee and no minimum, invoices weekly with every service itemized, and quotes against your actual product mix rather than a generic rate card.

Two things make the gap between quote and invoice smaller here. First, our 100% Satisfaction Guarantee commits in writing that we honor the prices we quote you. Second, we invoice weekly rather than monthly, with every service you used broken out as its own line — so a surprise shows up within days instead of compounding for a month before you spot it. You also have 30 days to review any invoice and raise a claim. And because there’s no contract, a provider that quietly repriced you would simply lose the account.

Every eFulfillment Service client gets one named account manager who learns your products, your SKUs, and your order history, and has the authority to resolve problems directly rather than escalating them. There’s no support queue to enter and no re-explaining your account to whoever picks it up. That applies at every volume, because we don’t run service tiers. Your account manager, the team picking your orders, and the person who answers the phone all work in the same building in Traverse City, Michigan.

The safeguards start at receiving: we count every inbound shipment against your packing slip, inspect 10–20% of the merchandise, and weigh and measure each SKU. Anything that arrives damaged is photographed alongside its packaging and reported to you the same day. From there, the Fulfillment Control Panel shows live counts 24/7 with automatic alerts when stock arrives or runs low, so a discrepancy surfaces immediately rather than at month end. Our order accuracy rate is 99.9%, and our written guarantee commits us to making mistakes right.

You get a quote within one business day, and account setup and channel integration happen the same week — there’s no setup or integration fee to negotiate first, which removes the usual delay. Once your inventory physically arrives in Traverse City, receiving typically takes two to three days: we count your merchandise against the packing slip, inspect 10–20% of it, and weigh and measure each SKU. Orders start shipping as soon as receiving is done and your channels are connected. In practice the longest step is inbound freight, not onboarding.

All orders ship within one business day of receipt, and expedited orders received by 1:00pm Eastern Time are guaranteed to ship the same day. We ship via FedEx, DHL, and the U.S. Postal Service, and tracking is included at no extra cost on every U.S. shipment — pushed back to most shopping carts automatically and, if you want it, emailed to your customer under your own branding. Because everything ships from one central Michigan warehouse, most U.S. addresses are reached in two to four days.

No. There’s no surcharge and no escalating rate for inventory that sits. However long your goods stay in our warehouse, you’re charged the same storage rate. Roughly 49% of warehouses do apply a long-term storage surcharge, so it’s worth asking any provider where their clock starts. We bill storage by the cubic foot, and our system recalculates your actual inventory on hand every week — if you only have half a pallet in the building, you’re charged for half a pallet.

Three things. Submit an advance ship notice, which is a short form your client care specialist walks you through. Include a master packing slip covering the whole shipment, plus a packing slip inside each carton listing the SKUs and quantities it holds. And make sure every individual unit carries a scannable barcode — if your merchandise arrives without one, we can label it for you. Anything that turns up damaged gets photographed alongside its packaging and reported to you straight away.

For most startups one well-placed warehouse is enough, and a distributed network is a cost you aren’t ready for. Splitting inventory across three facilities means holding safety stock in all three, which ties up cash a young brand usually needs elsewhere. eFulfillment Service ships everything from a single 200,000 sq ft facility in Traverse City, Michigan, and that central location reaches most U.S. addresses in two to four days. The honest tradeoff is that we can’t offer two-day ground to the West Coast the way a 50-warehouse provider can. When two-day nationwide coverage starts costing you conversions, that’s the point to reconsider.

No. There’s no long-term agreement to sign and no early-termination penalty — the relationship is month to month. Our view is that if we can’t keep your business on service alone, a signature shouldn’t keep it for us. That’s backed by our 100% Satisfaction Guarantee, which commits in writing that we honor the prices we quote, ship your orders accurately and on time, and make it right when we get something wrong.

We handle the large majority of consumer products, but there are exceptions worth knowing before you plan around us. We have no refrigerated section, so we can’t take frozen or refrigerated goods or unpackaged food. We also don’t work with firearms or ammunition, pornography, or items of very high value, generally anything wholesaling above $250. Some hazardous materials are restricted while others are accepted — see our hazmat order fulfillment page for the current classes, and the full product restrictions list.