ShipBob, a US firm that helps SME brands compete with Amazon by giving them cheaper and faster deliveries, has announced a major European expansion with the UK as a launchpad. The company is set to open an initial 20 European fulfilment centres sites with the UK as the base. The expansion will mean 300 UK jobs and 200 European jobs by 2023.
ShipBob, which raised a $200m Series E round in June 2021 and includes the likes of Bain Capital Ventures and SoftBank among its investors, helps small and medium-sized brands offer an Amazon Prime-like experience by providing rapid and cost-effective deliveries. The firm grew over 100% year-over-year in 2020, shipped billions in gross merchandise value, and is currently valued at more than $1bn. Partnering with ShipBob will offer British brands instant access to consumers across the North American market and the ability to ship to US shoppers within days.
The company has appointed Enda Breslin as EMEA general manager. Breslin’s first focus will be in building the company’s UK operations to at least five ecommerce fulfilment centres in 2022. Breslin has 30 years’ experience in European ecommerce, most recently as chief commercial officer of European ecommerce firm Radial. Enda Breslin, ShipBob EMEA general manager, said: “The UK is one of the most sophisticated ecommerce landscapes in the world with 45% of UK retail happening online during the pandemic. This trend looks set to continue but recent weeks have shown how supply chain flaws can bring growth to a standstill, and we want to remove this risk for these up-and-coming companies.”
Dhruv Saxena, ShipBob co-founder and CEO, said: “We launched ShipBob to democratise fulfilment and give the world’s emerging brands the scalable sales and delivery capabilities of enormous multinational companies. Expanding into Europe will help us hand these powers to a vast number of new challenger businesses and I can’t think of anyone better placed than Enda to lead this charge. We’ve been working closely together in our London office over the last few weeks to welcome our first ten UK employees and I’m certain his guidance will help ShipBob rapidly scale across Europe from this initial UK foothold.”
