The eCommerce giant Shopify announced it reached an agreement to acquire Deliverr, a leading fulfilment technology provider, for $2.1B. This deal will further Shopify’s logistics and fulfilment capabilities in a massive way.
The San Fransisco-based Deliverr, founded by Michael Krakaris and Harish Abbott in 2017, provides shipping services for e-commerce businesses thus assisting online marketplaces to meet customers’ shipping standards. Its hassle-free logistics network enabling sellers regardless of size is now delivering more than a million orders a month for thousands of merchants across the US.
Transaction highlights & details
The Shopify Fulfilment Network (SFN) and Deliverr will be combining to jointly tackle supply chain complexity for merchants of all sizes, on and off Shopify, democratising the access to end-to-end logistics for independent brands; a first for the network. Deliverr’s tech will play a key role in strengthening SFN’s ability to manage merchant inventory from port to porch as it travels to warehouses, gets distributed across sales channels and ultimately arrives at the consumer’s doorstep.
SFN and Deliverr will power Shop Promise, a new service offering consumers two-day and next-day delivery options from popular merchants with quick easy returns. Shopify’s Founder & CEO Tobi Lütke commented on this stating, “Together with Deliverr, Shopify Fulfillment Network will give millions of growing businesses access to a simple, powerful logistics platform that will allow them to make their customers happy over and over again.”
Deliverr will be integrated with SFN’s direct-to-consumer fulfilment operations and 6 River Systems’ (a previous Shopify acquisition) leading warehouse automation technology. The full set of turnkey solutions will connect via Deliverr’s network tech, as well as Shopify’s embedded software and robotics inside both Shopify and partner-operated warehouses. The Shopify Fulfillment Network, 6 River Systems, and Deliverr will collectively form a wider logistics unit within Shopify under Aaron Brown, the group’s newly appointed CEO who has led SFN since 2020.
Keeping up with today’s complex supply chains
Fast, reliable shipping is now a crucial deciding factor for customers when shopping online, with their expectations only growing. In recent times, global shipping delays and increasingly complex supply chains have made meeting these expectations challenging like never before. Merchants aren’t able to fulfil orders as quickly and this affects their competitiveness.
It is for this reason that Shopify is doubling down on logistics to assist merchants to adapt and thrive in the face of these changes. With the incorporation of Deliverr’s world-class talent, software, data, and scale into its system, SFN aims to be the most robust end-to-end logistics platform providing merchants with greater control of their inventory across all sales channels.
The partnership is promising simplified multichannel inventory management for merchants, with a single location to ship to different sales channels. It also promises Demand-driven inventory placement predicting where customer orders are likely to come from thereby positioning inventory so that orders can be fulfilled from the closest possible location. Merchants will most importantly benefit from reliable two-day and next-day delivery from coast to coast as well as flexible, independent logistics services that can be mixed and matched based on merchants’ unique needs as they scale their businesses.
“Our technology and expertise in inventory management, inventory placement, and demand chain combine perfectly with Shopify’s roadmap, enabling us to now build an end-to-end logistics platform together,” commented Harish Abbott, the co-founder and CEO of Deliverr. “We’re excited to join Shopify in their mission to make commerce better for everyone while democratizing shipping and fulfilment for independent entrepreneurs.”
