iFulFill gone

fullfillment house out of biz

[hcstudios]

Fullfillment house ifulfill.com has gone belly up -- they sent out an email this AM informing customers of their demise effective immediately. We checked with iFulFill and the email is genuine, and not a spoof or prank.

If you used iFulFill to stock inventory and ship orders you'll want to check with them about the status of unfilfilled orders and return of your stock. The email said they'd be returning all unsold inventory.

You may want to disable your shopping cart for the moment and put a note up about calling in orders, and also you'll want to export all customer and inventory data ASAP so you'll have those records.

We're hard at work tracking down another fullfillment option that works with UltraCart (the shopping cart our client uses) but needless to say this sudden event has thrown a bit of a crimp into our client's ecommerce system -- they can still take orders and process credit cards but can't ship anything and all of their existing inventory is stuck at iFullfill right now so until everything is returned they can't ship things from a new fullfillment house.

Argh...what a horrible way to start a week.

[sun818]

I know! I was disappointed with their recent barcoding fiasco. And now this. I too have product that is only at their warehouse. One, I have to find space for all that stuff. And two, try to get the goods back so the orders can be shipped ASAP. Wish they'd give us a heads up on this right?!

[hcstudios]

Just heard from UltraCart that Dart Logistics will pick up folks' stuff and take it to Dart (in Illinois) and honor the iFulFill rate. This is a possible lifesaver for lots of folks, plus really great PR and goodwill for the folks at Dart! Contact Herb at Dart Logistics for more info.

Also really nice to see the UltraCart folks helping out -- I'm impressed with how they've dived in and tried to find solutions. I'm going to be telling everyone about how wonderful they have been so hopefully their jumping on this will pay off big time for them.

[JohnAnderson]

Hi there. I am speaking unofficially, but yes, I am an employee of UltraCart.

There are several fulfillment companies available to accept former iFulFill.com merchants. Here is some contact information.

Dart Logistics
Naperville, IL
Herb Duggan
630-643-5300

Interact Services
Woodinville, WA
425-424-7500

Novapointe LLC
877.968.4628
Ontario, CA

Regardless of who you use as your shoppping cart provider, we hope you can engage one of the alternative fulfillment providers to minimize your business interruptions.

Good luck, and let me know if there is anything I can help with. Our entire staff is currently engaged in working this issue.

Regards,

John

[edited by: lorax at 12:43 pm (utc) on July 26, 2005]
[edit reason] Removed URLs and email addy [/edit]

[wattsnew]

I've been with iFulfill since 2002. It was a very good concept for small merchants - my guess is that it grew too fast. I'll be waiting for Paul Perdue's book on the experience...!

Meantime I'm looking at Dart, who is sending trucks to pick up inventory from iFulfill on Wednesday or Thursday and who says (via 3rd party UltraCart who is being very helpful) that they will maintain the iFulfill pricing structure. Ultracart is plugged into them.

The phones and mailboxes are a little plugged at the moment.

A peaceful start to the week...