After I posted about Amazon's Fulfillment service last week, which allows any Amazon Pro Merchant to utilize Amazon's warehouse space and order fulfillment processes to outsource their supply chain management, I got a comment from a gentleman who identified himself only as "Nate" (presumably Nate Gilmore, Senior Director of Marketing and Business Development; it's the sort of comment that Senior Directors of Marketing and Business Development make) mentioning that an outfit called Shipwire does the same thing and with equally deep SaaS integration.

Shipwire has gotten the jump on Amazon, having been around since early 2007, but they are fighting a big name despite their additional experience. Shipwire has four warehouses available in North America (and are experimenting with another in Great Britain); I don't know how many facilities Amazon is making available but have a hunch it's a few more. Amazon also works on a strictly pay as you go basis, charging by square foot and by order, where Shipwire has a number of flat-rate packages with maximum amounts in each category.

Of course, the part that I find most interesting is the integration, and Shipwire is ahead of the game there; they have an impressive list of software which their system works with out of the box, and they publish their API for other developers to work with as well. Amazon has only just recently made its API available and just about any interface with it will have to be customized from scratch until third-party developers catch up.