Australian omnichannel retail fulfilment, returns management and recommerce startup Shiperoo has already built a reputation for its combination of a broad, scalable business model that makes no differentiation between small pureplay online retailers and large multinationals.
The company was founded to provide contemporary, tech-powered and speedy fulfilment for retailers of all sizes and fulfilment channels. Shiperoo’s facilities are purposely designed to be scalable and dynamic, ensuring maximum throughput with the ability to flex fulfilment demands and speed, giving retailers of all sizes an advantage during peak periods or when introducing new lines.
During the company’s launch in late 2023, co-founders Nishan Wijemanne and Rizan Mawzoon recognised how many retailers were struggling to manage returns – not only transporting and accepting them, but sorting the product and, where appropriate, offering recommerce solutions to resell or on-sell the goods. That service is now a core of Shiperoo’s Australian business and something none of its rivals offer.
Visiting client warehouses, the pair saw first-hand how returned stock, still boxed, was stacked on pallets in a corner of the warehouse while someone figured out what to do with them.
“One of the operations managers we worked with said the company was so busy with fulfilment it did not have time to manage the returns,” said Wijemanne. “It did not make sense to me because the customers had already been refunded for the items, which had been sitting there for weeks. All that stock was equivalent to cash sitting on a pallet, ignored.”
While the Shiperoo team was onboarding retailers in its automated fulfilment facilities, the company also built and refined its returns management software for grading goods. “Our proposition was based on bringing some value back to the retailers and – from a sustainability perspective – allowing them to either re-commerce these items by reselling them or offering a retailer a secondary avenue for revenue,” Wijemanne explains.
The role of automation
Shiperoo now boasts automated multi-channel fulfilment facilities powered by market-leading robotic technology and AI, offering rapid retail-fulfilment for same-day shipping, seamless consumer returns, and efficient returns management for retailers. We have designed Shiperoo to fulfil wholesale, retail, dropship and e-commerce orders for retailers of all sizes and retail channels. This full spectrum of our fulfilment services is enhanced by the precision and accuracy provided by our automation and software. Retailers can ultimately expect the speed of Amazon-level fulfilment.
After opening its first fulfilment centre in Melbourne’s Altona North, a second Melbourne site and a third, in Sydney’s Granville, have been commissioned. All are fully roboticised and, combined with AI technology, offer four times the speed of packing and shipping orders compared to traditional processes used by 3PL services. Most of the company’s business is in apparel, cosmetics, beauty, consumer electronics, non-perishable FMCG goods, and similar categories – “that’s our sweet spot, and it’s where we’re seeing the strongest demand right now,” says Wijemanne.
“We automated our fulfilment operations and returns management processes from day one, because we truly felt that it would give us the creative freedom and the flexible space to onboard retailers requiring any combination of services and scale. We continue to add more tech to our existing tech stack, such as AI vision technology for grading returned products. Obviously, there’s a manual component to some of the processes as well, and this is where our team and their skills come into play. Ultimately, we wanted to create an environment where the tech and our people work harmoniously.”
“Coming from an automation background, and having implemented it for so many retailers, the value in it and the efficiencies are very clear,” he says. However, the pair is well aware of the misconception in the market that automation is more expensive than manual labour-based solutions.
“The reality is the reverse, because automation delivers so much more efficiency from day one. We are cutting out a lot of density in terms of the space we use. Real estate is very expensive, and so is labour. We are introducing the automation efficiency on day one, with a much lower operational outlay.”
Automation also comes into its own during peak sales seasons like Black Friday. Last year, one of Shiperoo’s clients turned on social media campaigns, which resulted in one particular product scaling within hours.
“We were able to keep up with that demand. Our automation capability allows us to scale for seasonal drops that some brands are doing, where the volume might be 10,000 units over a short period. We can manage that without needing to bring in manual labour, which, besides carrying a cost, creates an opportunity for human error.”
Scale as a point of difference
Some of Shiperoo’s clients handle 100 orders a day or a week, while others ship millions of parcels a year. Wijemanne stresses that Shiperoo can scale to any size retailer; the company is not trying to position itself as only working with enterprise clients and has no minimum volume that clients must achieve.
“Our whole proposition is coming to market to enable brands to grow. If we had minimum volume requirements, that’s somewhat contradictory to what we’re trying to achieve,” explains Wijemanne. “For us, it’s about offering growing brands a seamless solution. People who build brands are either retailers or brand specialists, not logisticians. We bring that piece of the puzzle together.”
Unlike some rivals, Shiperoo does not require clients to invest in automation technology or commit to long-term financial agreements. “We’ve made that investment ourselves to give them those efficiencies.”
Shiperoo is also preparing to launch its offering in the UK, EU, and the US, supporting Australian and New Zealand brands looking to expand into these international markets.
Australia Post investment drives opportunities
In March, Australia Post took a 25 per cent cornerstone shareholding in Shiperoo. Wijemanne says having the nation’s largest last-mile logistics provider as an equity partner strengthens Shiperoo’s ability to expand the business at pace.
Australia Post has a vast network of post offices and parcel lockers nationwide, and as Shiperoo’s preferred delivery provider, there is a great opportunity to work with Australia Post to provide and further develop an exceptional service to customers.
“The investment from Australia Post allows us to expand to meet the needs of the customer. he continues. “We can offer an elevated level of fulfilment service with plans to expand nationally.”
In return, Australia Post can see synergies, especially Shiperoo’s ability to facilitate recommerce, a growing and important e-commerce trend.
“There are plenty of 3PLs out there – we are not the only ones. But what we have proven since our inception is that speed, efficiency, variety and scalability that retailers want can only coexist with the right combination of skills, people and tech. Transparency and creativity are at the forefront of our growth pillars. So, as part of our expansion and continuous improvement efforts, we continue to build on our existing offering with new services such as data and visibility through our reporting platform, which gives retailers near real-time visibility on performance and throughput.
“We also added many layers to our returns processes, such as grading the items to determine quality and using our tech for validating refunds and creating re-fulfilment and re-commerce opportunities for retailers,” he continued.
“Our full range of growing services, delivered by Australia Post with its largest network in Australia, including expanding our out-of-home delivery options, offers our clients an exciting end-to-end experience.”
