ShipBob, a leading global supply chain and fulfillment platform for SMB and Mid-Market ecommerce merchants, released its fifth annual State of Ecommerce Fulfillment report today. The report is based on anonymized proprietary data for thousands of ShipBob customers, as well as survey submissions from 416 ecommerce executives, who cumulatively shipped hundreds of millions of units in 2025. We also interviewed various industry thought leaders, with their answers featured in the “Ask an Expert” sections throughout this report.
The report showcases over 200 data points on subjects ranging from how the ecommerce fulfillment industry performed in 2025 to what brands are prioritizing in 2026. It uses data visualizations and benchmarks to help brands understand how they stack up against the competition and how supply chain trends have changed since last year.
In the 2026 State of Ecommerce Fulfillment Report, ShipBob found:
- 79.56% of brands said US tariff changes in 2025 increased their business costs.
- Over two-thirds of brands (68.99%) aim to deliver their domestic US orders in 2-3 days.
- 84.13% of brands are leveraging a third-party fulfillment company for at least some of their orders.
- 58.65% of brands already use more than one fulfillment center, and 43.99% of brands will increase the number of fulfillment centers they use this year.
- 68.99% of brands have some sort of compliance needs in a fulfillment partner (from lot tracking to GMP- or GFSI-certified facilities and more).
- 43.51% of brands plan to either ship to new countries in 2026 or fulfill orders in new countries (up from 36% last year) and 30.04% of brands plan to start physically fulfilling orders in new countries in 2026 (up from 25% last year).
- 66.83% of brands already ship outside of the US.
- 85.82% of brands already sell on 2 or more sales channels (up from 78% last year), 55.29% already sell on 3 or more sales channels, and 14.9% already sell on 5 or more sales channels.
- 77.4% of brands already do some form of B2B/brick-and-mortar store orders (up from 53% last year).
- 43.27% of brands already sell on big box retailers’ websites (up from 37% last year).
- More than three-quarters of brands will add at least one new sales channel in 2026 (up from 63% last year).
- Websites still dominate as the top sales channels for brands, while TikTok Shop dropped as both a top sales channel and priority channel for 2026.
- 80.29% of brands add some form of customization or braded touch point in their orders (e.g., marketing inserts, gift notes, braded packaging.
“2025 exposed weak ecommerce economics, forcing brands to rethink their supply chain. This ultimately reinforced that the right fulfillment strategy has become an insurance policy,” said ShipBob CEO and Co-Founder, Dhruv Saxena. “That’s precisely why we exist: to help brands future-proof their business with the ShipBob Advantages (global network, scale, omnichannel, technology, financial and support). Our goal is to provide brands a competitive advantage and have that advantage compound greatly as they scale and utilize even more of what ShipBob has to offer – and as we continue to innovate across our entire global network and technology.”
