With the end of 2023 quickly approaching, we at Airhouse are looking back at a year of enormous growth that saw us expand in so many ways: across borders, into new partnerships, and toward even more powerful fulfillment technology.
But we have no intention of slowing down, and are even more excited about all the new projects we’re planning for 2024, including new product features, additional warehouse locations, and cost savings for our customers.
Below, get caught up on all the announcements we made this year, and get a sneak peek at what we have in store over the next 12 months.
This year saw Airhouse branch into new locations, integrate with other powerful ecommerce tools, and invest in the technical capabilities of our software.
After announcing our partnership with SEKO Logistics in October 2021, Airhouse went international with new fulfillment centers in Milton Keynes, UK and Concord, Ontario.
By empowering our customers to store and ship inventory in Europe and Canada, we’ve helped them to slash the cost of international shipping by as much as 85% and navigate the complexities of customs duties and international taxes with ease.
Through SEKO’s massive network, we have access to 52 warehouses across 40 different countries—and we’re looking forward to bringing more of those locations online in the coming year.
You can learn more about International Shipping through Airhouse here.
Back in January, we updated Airhouse’s invoicing policy to automated bi-weekly billing. This enabled us to better serve our customers by aligning more closely with the actual billing schedule of shipping carriers like FedEx, UPS, and USPS, who charge for shipping weekly industry-wide.
In addition to providing more predictable billing cycles, this update provided greater transparency into our customers’ fulfillment expenses. The introduction of Visible Order Costs added a full itemized breakdown of fees associated with each order, including the cost of the order, picks, shipping label and surcharges from the carrier. And we added a new page to the Airhouse platform where merchants can see all credits applied to their account, along with the invoices they were applied to.
Visit our blog to learn more about Airhouse Invoices and Cost Data.
This year, we teamed up with powerful partners Loop and Zonos to create better returns and international shipping processes for our merchants.
Our integration with Loop, announced in March, allows Airhouse users to create returns that automatically sync with their Airhouse store. Now, merchants no longer have to manually migrate data—they can see returns’ statuses in both platforms, automate returns processing, and rely on real-time synchronization between the two tools.
In October, we teamed up with Zonos—the global technology leader for cross-border commerce—to launch International Landed Cost. This feature took our International Shipping Rates functionality to the next level, allowing Airhouse merchants to provide in-cart landed cost calculations for shoppers. That means consumers know the exact cost of shipping and delivery fees no matter where they are in the world—guaranteed. Customers have a better delivery experience, and merchants never find themselves footing the bill for unexpected duties or taxes on DDP shipments.
In addition to our integrations with Loop and Zonos, we introduced new self-service features in the Airhouse platform, empowering our customers with more control over their fulfillment operations.
In February we launched Carrier-Calculated Checkout Rates—an early predecessor of International Landed Cost. This feature lets our merchants customize the shipping options they provide at checkout (carrier and method). What’s more, this new feature calculates actual shipping rates in real time and displays the cheapest options for your customers at checkout.
You can learn more in our help article.
We know fulfillment is always in a state of flux—and every ecommerce brand needs to make adjustments on the fly from time to time. That’s why we launched Self-Service Order Processing in July.
This feature lets merchants take greater control of individual orders during fulfillment, whether it’s to set the order as a high priority, bypass checks in their store settings, or enable partial fulfillment of an order. With this self-service option, Airhouse customers can communicate their preferences to the warehouse directly without having to loop their Account Manager in via email.
For more information, see our help articles on Order Management and Order Processing.
Our ultimate goal has always been to provide an unmatched customer experience to our merchants—and this year, we continued on that mission to earn more than 150 awards from G2.
In the past year, G2 has consistently recognized Airhouse as a High Performer, a Momentum Leader, and as the fulfillment provider with the Best Support and Best Est. ROI.
We owe our customers a sincere thank you for trusting us as their fulfillment partner—and we look forward to growing with them in 2024 and beyond.
The sun may be setting on 2023, but we’re looking ahead to 2024, which we expect will be even bigger—and better. Here’s a preview of all of the exciting projects we have in store!
We’re hard at work securing new fulfillment centers for 2024 so we can offer more custom solutions and more competitive pricing to our customers. Next year, you can expect additional Airhouse locations across the US. We’re targeting all four corners of the country and central regions to ensure all of our customers can access world-class fulfillment centers that are strategically placed near concentrated customer hotspots. We’ll also be expanding our international presence—more to come soon!
Shipping is undoubtedly one of the biggest expenses for ecommerce brands—so our team negotiated competitive 2024 rates with UPS and USPS so we can pass those cost savings on to our customers. We’re also in negotiations with DHL eCommerce and plan to offer additional shipping options early next year.
Airhouse customers will benefit from significantly cheaper express shipping rates in 2024 across both 2-Day and Next-Day Air methods. This will allow merchants to be more competitive in the ecommerce landscape, where consumers have come to expect 1-3 day shipping.
Last year, we automated invoices for shipping costs; but next year, we plan to expand that convenience to all fulfillment expenses. Our goal is to provide our customers with timely invoices that are aligned with the cadence of their operations, so expenses go out in the same period as the related revenue comes in.
We have a ton of updates planned for the Airhouse platform in 2024—all of which are aimed at keeping our customers more informed, more efficient, and more stress-free.
In the first quarter of the new year, we’ll be launching our newest product feature: the Airhouse Shipping Optimizer. This powerful tool will run a weekly analysis of customers’ historical order data to identify the most efficient fulfillment configuration on a brand-by-brand basis.
The Optimizer analyzes order data and compares the cost of shipping and expected delivery time across our entire network of fulfillment centers and shipping carriers to determine what combination of warehouse locations and shipping methods is most efficient for a given brand. Through the Optimizer, Airhouse customers will be able to identify opportunities to lower shipping costs or minimize time in transit—whether that’s through expanding into another warehouse, changing shipping carriers, or moving operations to a more strategic location.
And because the Optimizer runs weekly, it’ll keep merchants ahead of the curve. For example: if carrier rates change, it will alert users that they could be saving money by moving to another shipping method. Or, if the brand’s order volume has scaled to the point that it’d benefit from using a multi-warehouse strategy, the Optimizer will let them know—and will recommend the optimal placement of that new warehouse.
What’s more, the tool will be interactive, allowing Airhouse customers to see their projected fulfillment costs and average delivery times based on any configuration of warehouses and shipping methods. We can’t wait to share more about this tool once it’s live!
Next year, we plan to add a new fulfillment dashboard to the Airhouse platform that will provide a snapshot of how merchants’ operations are performing. The dashboard will display information like how many orders were shipped during a given period, outstanding orders that need attention, and the percentage of orders that met SLAs. This new feature will make it easy for merchants to get a pulse check on their day-to-day operations and will be paired with routine notifications about order volume and warehouse performance.
We’ve heard our customers’ requests for more streamlined and functional workflows and will roll out updates to various Airhouse features over the course of the next few months. Here’s what to expect:
As we deliver on the feature improvements we’ve covered so far, we also plan to expand Airhouse’s EDI functionality to automate and streamline much of the work that goes into fulfilling a retail or wholesale order. This will allow for a faster, more accurate, and more secure transfer of information between the order recipient, freight company, Airhouse, and merchant.
We’re so excited about everything we’ve accomplished in 2023, and can’t wait to grow alongside our customers in the coming year.
Want to learn more about what Airhouse can do for your business in 2024? Schedule a call with one of our fulfillment experts today.
