RAHEEL LADAK
12 mins read
11 mins read
Reem
June 20, 2025
Are you a seller with marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, eBay, or Etsy? If the answer is yes, you probably know it is one of the fastest ways to grow your e-Commerce business.
While these platforms allow access to millions of customers, that opportunity comes with a host of challenges from a logistics perspective.
Managing shipping on marketplaces is by no means easy. You are very likely to find yourself juggling different order workflows, trying to keep up with customer expectations, and running through fulfillment rules simultaneously. Without the right systems in place, it can quickly become a nightmare for you. Before you realize it, you’ll be dealing with delays, overselling, or managing customer experiences.
As a marketplace seller, this guide is all that you'll need to manage shipping on marketplaces efficiently. We will be sharing the framework for your business that you can emulate for processes that are streamlined and tech-enabled.
Whether you are a new marketplace seller who’s trying to navigate channels or you’re someone who’s looking to scale, these best practices will help you save time, stay organized, and ensure customer satisfaction.
Shipping looks different in every marketplace. That’s because the set of rules for shipping, returns, and service levels varies depending on the marketplace.
For example, Amazon has strict shipping speed expectations for sellers participating in Seller Fulfilled Prime or Amazon FBA. Walmart Marketplace requires sellers to meet specific delivery windows to avoid penalties. eBay sellers might need to provide tracking for every order to maintain seller ratings. Etsy sellers usually balance personalized packaging and international shipping complexities.
Shipping complexities increase as sellers add more marketplaces or sales channels. Each platform has its own set of performance metrics and penalties for late shipments or customer dissatisfaction.
If you think that’s the extent of marketplace rules, think again. International sellers facing challenges related to customs, duties, and varying carrier services across borders are more common than you might have expected. As a seller on Etsy, for instance, you might want to combine handmade goods with international shipping, but that requires careful packaging and customs declarations. Managing this without automation or a centralized system can be overwhelming for you as a marketplace seller. No one enjoys costly mistakes and unhappy customers.
As you begin to establish yourself as a marketplace seller and your business eventually expands, tracking manually might also become more challenging.
Here’s why that might be the case:
What you need instead is a streamlined approach to shipping. This will help you minimize errors and maximize efficiency.
1. Centralize Your Shipping Operations
Reduce the risk of misprocessing orders, or worse, missing an order. How do you do that, you might ask? All you need is a centralized shipping solution that brings all your marketplace orders into one dashboard. This will simplify your workflow.
A centralized system can also help you:
Centralizing orders is more than just convenience. It directly helps you improve accuracy and speed. Sellers using multiple marketplaces often lose time switching tabs and platforms, increasing the risk of missed or duplicated orders. With a unified dashboard, sellers can apply bulk actions, such as printing labels or sending tracking updates, in just a few clicks.
Moreover, a centralized system enables better analytics. You can track which marketplaces generate the most revenue, identify slow shipping zones, and draw a side-by-side comparison of carrier performance. To help you better understand, here’s an example — a seller might notice UPS has faster delivery times for Amazon orders in a certain region compared to USPS, helping them choose the right carrier option for them.
Using platforms like eShipper, sellers can aggregate all marketplace orders in one place, making it easy to process shipments efficiently without jumping between different marketplaces.
A centralized approach such as this will also help you manage customer service more effectively because you can quickly check order statuses across channels.
2. Automate Fulfillment Workflows
Automation will save you time and reduce human error, especially when you're dealing with dozens or hundreds of orders daily.
By automating tasks, which consist of the following:
…you can ensure faster fulfillment and fewer mistakes.
Automation tools today can integrate with marketplace APIs to not only create shipping labels but also select carriers based on cost, speed, or service quality.
Imagine an order from a remote location automatically routing to the fastest carrier with the best price, without any manual intervention. Convenient, right? For a seller, this is the best-case scenario since this helps reduce errors such as printing labels for the wrong carrier or package size.
Automated customer communication also plays a vital role in managing customer expectations. Customers receive timely emails with tracking numbers, expected delivery dates, and even alerts for delays. This transparency reduces inquiries and negative feedback, protecting your seller ratings across marketplaces.
Imagine that every time an order is placed in a marketplace like Walmart, the system automatically generates a shipping label with the right carrier based on your preferences and prints it without manual input. You also get automated emails to customers with tracking info.
Automation will also allow you to smoothly scale your operations while minimizing manual work. You don’t need to spend days on a process when you can manage it in a few hours.
3. Sync Inventory Across Channels
Have you ever tried selling an out-of-stock item, leading to order cancellations and poor reviews? You are not the first one to run into that pitfall.
As a marketplace seller, inventory mismanagement could be your biggest challenge. This is why you need real-time inventory syncing.
This will allow you to:
Real-time inventory syncing requires robust software that can handle frequent updates, especially during peak sales periods. A sudden spike on Amazon during Prime Day should instantly update inventory on Walmart and eBay to prevent overselling.
Inventory syncing also helps with forecasting and replenishment. Sellers can analyze sales velocity across channels to predict when to reorder stock, reducing storage costs and avoiding
stockouts. For example, a seller who notices rising demand on Etsy for a particular product can proactively increase inventory before running out.
For example, if you have 10 units of a product listed on Amazon and 5 on eBay, a sale on Amazon reduces your total stock. Without syncing, eBay listings might still show 5 units available, which will lead you to oversell. This is exactly why you need real-time syncing.
Whether you use a third-party inventory management system or integrate it directly into your fulfillment platform, real-time syncing is important.
4. Ensure Seamless Integration with Marketplaces
The final piece of the puzzle is connecting all your tools and platforms.
We encourage you to look for solutions that integrate directly with:
Seamless integration means your shipping and inventory management software can talk directly with marketplace APIs, reducing the need for manual data entry and impending errors.
For instance, when a customer places an order on Walmart Marketplace, it instantly appears in your shipping dashboard, and the inventory is updated accordingly.
Through integration, you will also be able to tailor settings in a marketplace. You might want to have stricter delivery timeframes for Amazon orders in comparison to eBay or include personalized packaging notes for Etsy shipments.
A seamless one-platform-fits-all solution lets you manage these variations without managing multiple systems.
eShipper integrates directly with these marketplaces, allowing automatic order imports and tracking updates without manual entry.
Use Multi-Carrier Shipping to Optimize Costs and Delivery Speed
As a seller, it's important to consider different carriers for different marketplaces. That’s because different marketplaces and customer locations might benefit from different carriers. For a lightweight US domestic shipment from eBay, USPS may be a better option to consider, while UPS or FedEx might handle faster delivery for your Amazon shipment.
Using a platform that gives access to multiple carriers allows you to compare rates and select the best option for each shipment. For you as a marketplace seller this means reduced costs, and for your customers, it provides them with improved delivery speed.
Prepare for Peak Seasons with Advanced Planning
Whether it’s the holidays, Prime Day, or Walmart’s Rollbacks, it all ties down to one thing — peak season. This means your orders are probably the highest during these times of the year.
If you want to ensure customer satisfaction during peak season, planning ahead of time is both good practice and essential practice. This means adjusting inventory, hiring extra help, and increasing shipping volume capacity. This in turn can help you avoid any bottlenecks and not be caught completely off guard during peak season.
For instance, you are a home appliance seller who noticed a 3x spike in orders during Prime Day the previous year. This year, you restock early, expand warehouse space, and schedule extended carrier pickups—resulting in smooth deliveries and zero customer complaints.
Some preparation on your end now can save you a lot of stress later.
Implement Quality Control Checks
Shipping the wrong item, damaged products, or missing components can lead to returns and unhappy customers. How can you minimize this? You need to make sure you integrate quality control steps before packaging, including barcode scanning or order verification software, for negligible errors.
Provide Transparent Customer Communication
Customers appreciate updates and transparency. You can keep them well informed and share constant updates using automated tracking emails and proactive notifications if delays happen, especially on platforms like Etsy or eBay, where customer ratings heavily depend on communication.
If you're looking to put this framework into action, eShipper offers a complete logistics solution tailored for marketplace sellers. With eShipper, you get:
Whether you're managing fulfillment in-house or using a 3PL partner, eShipper helps you simplify and scale your operations with ease.
Managing shipping on marketplaces doesn’t have to be a juggling act. With the right tools and strategies, you can centralize, automate, and grow without sacrificing service or speed.
Whether you’re selling large furniture, high-tech gadgets, or anything in between, the key is to simplify the process wherever you can. A thoughtful, streamlined shipping strategy frees up time, reduces errors, and helps you deliver better experiences while you grow your business. If you're ready to streamline your shipping and focus on scaling your business, partnering with a logistics expert like eShipper can make all the difference. Contact us to get started today.
Many marketplaces like eBay and Etsy offer built-in shipping tools. These will be useful for you if you are a small seller, but keep in mind that this may lack features like bulk label printing, automation, or inventory syncing. Free tools usually work best for low volume; if you have a higher volume of orders, you’d benefit more from investing in third-party solutions like eShipper.
Yes, many third-party platforms, including eShipper, offer centralized dashboards that integrate with multiple marketplaces. These tools can help you automate shipping, manage inventory, and track orders — all in one place.
Use an inventory management tool that supports real-time syncing. This will automatically update the stock levels on other marketplaces when a product sells on one of the platforms. It will reduce the risk of overselling or a product being out of stock.
Yes, some platforms, like Amazon and eBay, offer discounted rates but with select carriers. However, a third-party shipping solution like eShipper gives you an edge as a marketplace seller. It offers you broader access to competitive rates from multiple carriers, which means greater flexibility and cost savings.
Late shipments can hurt your rating as a seller. Many marketplaces monitor fulfillment times closely, so it's important to have systems in place that flag delays early on and allow you enough time for a quick resolution or timely communication with your customers.
Yes, it is safe to buy on Facebook Marketplace shipping only if you are using Facebook’s official checkout and shipping options, which offer purchase protection. Avoid sending payments or personal information outside the platform.
Yes, with the right integration, which a platform like eShipper offers, you can automate label creation and carrier assignment for both marketplaces, saving time and minimizing errors.
