According to Venture Beat and the Shopify website, Shopify announced Wednesday that it has begun accepting early applications for its new Shopify Fulfillment Network.
The announcement, along with enhancements for a variety of platforms, was made at Shopify Unite 2019 - the company's annual partner and developer conference. This year, the conference has more than 1,300 attendees from 50 countries.
The Shopify Fulfillment Network will serve qualifying U.S. merchants - which Shopify Chief Product Officer Craig Miller said will be determined on a case-by-case basis based on product type and fulfillment needs. The idea, Miller said, is to offer small- and medium-sized businesses who are currently using a 3PL to better fulfill their needs, or merchants who have outgrown their current fulfillment operation. Two-day shipping will be available, and the network will be AI-powered.
Shopify is an e-commerce platform that allows businesses to start, grow and manage a small business on a cloud-based system. The network, according to Venture Beat, supports merchants that ship between 10 and 10,000 packages a day, which Shopify hopes will eventually expand to 3 to 30,000 packages a day.
According to Bloomberg.com, Shopify will spend up to $1 billion to set up the network of fulfillment centers.
