Amazon partners with BigCommerce to ease fulfillment for merchants

Dive Brief:

To ease retailers' e-commerce operations, open SaaS e-commerce platform BigCommerce has integrated with Amazon's Multi-Channel Fulfillment to streamline sellers' online order fulfillment using Amazon's order fulfillment services.
The integration aims to provide U.S. merchants with access to Amazon's fulfillment network and fulfill their online orders more easily whether or not they sell on Amazon, the company announced on Wednesday.
Among the other perks available to merchants are faster ship speeds, automatic inventory placement, trackable orders to inform consumers about their order, fulfillment and storage without peak surcharges, upfront delivery promises and customizable shipping costs for customers, per the announcement.

Dive Insight:

As the COVID-19 pandemic drove consumers to spend more dollars online, the surge in e-commerce has exacerbated shipping difficulties for retailers and consumers alike.

According to an end-of-year report from Accenture, none of the 116 retailers assessed delivered orders within one day in 2020. Plus, a fall report from Narvar last year found that 36% of respondents experienced substantial shipping delays, but only 19% of online shoppers were informed by retailers about delays.

By incorporating its tools within Amazon's platform, BigCommerce hopes to give businesses a competitive edge and a smooth online shopping experience for their customers, Sharon Gee, general manager of omnichannel at BigCommerce, said in a statement.

"Convenience and fast shipping expectations have become the holy grail of the online shopper with demand forecasting becoming harder to control," Gee said in a press release. "Amazon MCF will help our merchants to better plan, purchase and fulfill in a much more efficient way."

As for Amazon, the e-commerce giant has been working on tools that streamline the fulfillment process for merchants on its platform, Gopal Pillai, vice president of Amazon fulfillment and distribution solutions, said in a statement. By its own measure, those efforts seem to be paying off for independent businesses. Per the company's Prime Day 2021 announcement, shoppers spent $1.9 billion on more than 70 million small businesses on the platform during the sales event, a more than 100% year-over-year spike compared to Prime Day in October 2020.