Location, location, location. It matters enormously for fulfillment.
While eCommerce itself moves quicker than ever, you can only get orders from A to B so fast without developing your fulfillment strategy and moving stock closer to the last-mile.
Amazon is, of course, the archetypal example here. When they rolled out next-day and same-day delivery as the norm, they didn’t achieve it through mere willpower alone – they strategically placed fulfillment centers to minimise distance to customers.
Brands can replicate it by optimising and expanding their fulfillment center location strategies, bringing stock as close to customers as possible.
Here we’ll look at how to do just that – transforming logistics from a necessary expense into something that actively supports growth.
In this article
When Location Becomes Your Competitive Edge
Nearly all budding eCommerce businesses start with a single warehouse. It’s the logical choice – keeping operations centralised, costs manageable, and logistics relatively simple while you’re establishing product-market fit and building your customer base.
As Keon Ghaharian, co-founder of Dope Ropes, told us: “It very much started as one of those basement business stories you hear about, with stock being held at my parent’s house!”
This works perfectly well in the early stages. You can personally oversee operations, maintain quality, and manually monitor your own inventory. But as orders scale and potentially expand worldwide, single-location strategies start to show their limitations:
Shipping costs rocket as you send more packages to distant locations while trying to maintain speed.
Delivery times lengthen for customers far from your single fulfillment center, potentially deterring sales or triggering negative reviews.
International growth stalls due to prohibitive cross-border shipping costs and times.
Customer experience suffers compared to competitors with faster local delivery.
Such issues tend to materialise gradually over time, but they can sometimes appear suddenly, such as when a TikTok video goes viral, or a major marketing campaign succeeds beyond expectations, driving demand from regions you weren’t fully prepared to serve.
For example, Whites Beaconsfield encountered this when one of their TikTok videos unexpectedly exploded, garnering over 15 million views and 300,000 likes.
Order numbers skyrocketed overnight, with a substantial portion coming from US customers.
As a J&J client, they were able to quickly leverage our Ohio fulfillment center, shipping bulk product to the US to meet demand, proving central to their expansion success.
The Tipping Point: When to Develop Your Location Strategy
Sure, the tipping point varies from business to business, but there are a few clear signals that your current fulfillment strategy needs optimising or expanding:
Your shipping costs exceed 15-20% of your average order value.
Delivery times to certain regions are more sluggish than competitors.
International customers abandon carts when seeing shipping costs or delivery timelines.
You’re experiencing consistent growth in specific geographic markets.
That’s when strategic fulfillment location planning becomes not just helpful, but vital to continued growth. The optimal location strategy can unlock the path to immense growth.
Four Steps to Creating a Strong Fulfillment Location Strategy
Building a successful multi-site fulfillment strategy isn’t about planting warehouses randomly across the globe. It demands a methodical framework built on data, business realities, and growth ambitions.
To get your fulfillment location strategy right, consider these four interconnected components:
1. Map Your Customer Footprint
First, you need to analyse firstly where your customers are right now, plus any recent changes in those patterns, and secondly where they might be in the future.
If you’re aiming for deeper growth in markets you already serve, your data can tell you more than just what’s working. It reveals where fulfillment is smooth, where customer expectations are being met (or missed), and where the return on operational effort is highest.
For companies sizing up growth abroad, it pays to dive into your data to unearth any clues on where demand and brand alignment are highest, and do your homework on the markets you’re looking to crack.
To properly map your customer base:
- Analyse order data from your eCommerce platform, looking at postal/zip codes to identify geographic clusters.
- Track trends over weeks and months – are certain regions showing consistent growth?
- Track regional performance of social channels using relevant metrics. Try to reveal where your brand is generating interest before it converts to sales.
- Use search traffic data to observe where website visitors originate from, even if they’re not yet customers.
The question then turns to whether potential customers in other countries are put off by lengthy delivery times or high shipping costs.
For example, are international customers abandoning carts when they see cross-border shipping charges? Do you receive lots of website traffic from a region but suspiciously low orders?
These signals can point to demand blocked by friction in your fulfillment setup.
Insights From J&J Case Studies
Dotty Dungarees had built strong momentum in the UK and Europe, but expanding into the US required a different setup – one that could scale with demand while keeping costs under control.
After researching their options, the team chose J&J’s Ohio-based fulfillment center as their launchpad into the US. With Shopify integration and onboarding support, they were able to start fulfilling American orders quickly and cost-effectively.
“We genuinely wouldn’t have been able to expand into America without J&J,” explained co-founder Alice Goldsmith.
2. Analyse Your Shipping Costs – Properly
Too many businesses place warehouses based on hunches or convenience rather than economics. This leads to wasted money and missed opportunities.
A proper breakdown of your shipping costs shows exactly where strategic fulfillment centers would make the greatest impact.
Dig into the numbers:
- How much of each sale goes toward shipping in different regions?
- What happens to delivery times and costs as you move through shipping zones?
- What’s the real difference between domestic and international shipping for your products?
These aren’t questions you want to answer with guesswork. That’s where your fulfillment and eCommerce data comes in.
ControlPort™ – J&J’s award-winning eCommerce platform – offers an up-to-the-minute view of orders, inventory, and demand differences across regions.
Use it to cut unnecessary costs, rebalance supply where it’s needed most, and expand into the right markets at the right time.
Insights From J&J Case Studies
Whites Beaconsfield cut shipping costs by 66% after setting up US fulfillment via our Ohio fulfillment centre. This dramatic saving improved their margins and could be passed to customers as cheaper shipping, driving further growth.
Their COO, James Pryor, explained, “After our TikTok video went viral, J&J helped us save costs on carriers, speed of delivery, and bump our US expansion targets by six months.”
3. Factor in Your Ambitions For Growth
Your warehouse strategy shouldn’t just fix today’s problems – it should open doors for tomorrow. The locations you pick need room to grow and adapt as your business changes.
Aligning your fulfillment strategy with your business objectives is key. Ask yourself:
- Which markets are next on your roadmap for expansion?
- Are targeted marketing initiatives on the horizon for particular regions?
- Is a single warehouse enough to weather seasonal surges in demand?
Planning ahead ensures your fulfillment network is ready to capitalise on opportunities rather than becoming a bottleneck when growth accelerates.
Insights From J&J Case Studies
When Karta Bottle unexpectedly went viral on TikTok, they quickly needed US fulfillment capabilities. After partnering with J&J’s US fulfillment center, their US market
share jumped from 5% to 55% – showing how the right warehouse location can supercharge growth.
4. Balance Speed, Cost, and Capital
The best fulfillment strategies don’t blindly maximise one factor – they tune into the sweet spot between competing needs.
Ultra-fast delivery can burn cash. Over-optimising for cost can erode customer experience. And scaling too widely, too soon can sink capital into the wrong places.
To strike the right balance between speed, cost, and capital, you’ll need to dive into some careful analysis:
- Map out where your key customers are clustered and how quickly they expect deliveries. This will help prioritise which areas most benefit from speedy fulfillment, and who is more willing to wait.
- Crunch the numbers on shipping rates, labour costs, and facility overhead for potential locations. The goal is to find cost-effective sites that still allow for fast delivery to your core markets.
- Project your inventory needs based on sales forecasts, factoring in safety stock and seasonal spikes. This will help avoid tying up too much cash in excess inventory while still meeting demand.
- Build flexibility into your network by choosing adaptable locations and designing processes that can scale up or down as needs change. Think modular, not monolithic.
The most effective networks are aligned with the business and its customers. That often starts with a couple of strategically chosen locations that punch above their weight: close to demand, flexible enough to adapt, and efficient enough to grow without waste.
Insights From J&J Case Studies
Cards Against Humanity made smart choices for global expansion. They built their own fulfillment network in the US but partnered with J&J for UK and European orders – keeping capital requirements manageable while still delivering excellent service worldwide.
Transform Your Fulfillment with J&J’s Global Network
Figuring out the best locations for your fulfillment centers is more of a journey than a one-off decision. As your business grows and changes, so will your fulfillment requirements and opportunities.
At J&J Global Fulfillment, we’ve built a global network specifically designed to support brands at every stage of growth.
From our strategically positioned fulfillment centers to our powerful ControlPort™ technology, we provide the infrastructure and expertise needed to execute your location strategy flawlessly:
- Strategic Global Locations: Our fulfillment network spans the UK (Northampton), EU (Venlo), US East Coast (Columbus, Ohio), US West Coast (Las Vegas, Nevada), Canada (Toronto), and Australia (Brisbane) – providing the perfect platform for global growth.
- Industry-Leading Performance: With 98% of orders dispatched same-day and 99.9% order accuracy, we ensure your customers receive the outstanding experience they deserve, regardless of location.
- ControlPort™ Technology: Our proprietary software provides complete visibility and control across all locations, with intelligent order routing, real-time inventory management, and powerful analytics to drive continuous improvement.
- Seamless Integration: Our integrations connect your eCommerce platform – whether it’s Shopify, Amazon, WooCommerce, or others – directly to our network for frictionless order processing across all locations.
- Dedicated Expertise: Our team has helped hundreds of brands make the journey from single-site to global fulfillment, providing guidance at every step of the process.
Ready to transform your fulfillment strategy? Speak to one of our experts today about how J&J’s global fulfillment network can help you deliver faster, more cost-effectively, and with greater flexibility than ever before.
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