UK Fulfilment Centre & Ecommerce Fulfilment Services
Storeship is an ecommerce fulfilment centre based in Nottingham, handling the day-to-day storage, order processing, and shipping for online sellers, so you can spend your time on sales and marketing instead of packing tape. Send us your stock, connect your sales channels, and we take care of the rest: storing your products, picking and packing every order, and getting them to your customers.
We've been running ecommerce fulfilment since 2009, on a pay-as-you-go model with no minimum order or stock requirements, no account fees, and no service charges. Get a free, no-obligation quote to see what outsourcing your fulfilment would actually cost.
What is a fulfilment centre?
A fulfilment centre is a warehouse facility that stores a business's stock and processes its customer orders on its behalf: receiving goods in, storing them, then picking, packing, and shipping them out as orders come in. Unlike general storage, a fulfilment centre is built around order turnover rather than long-term holding, so stock moves through fairly quickly rather than sitting on shelves.
For ecommerce sellers, using a fulfilment centre means the physical side of running an online store, including storage, order processing, and delivery, is handled by a specialist, while the seller retains control of sales, marketing, and customer relationships through connected software.
Fulfilment centre vs warehouse: what's the difference?
The terms fulfilment centre and warehouse are often used interchangeably, but they serve different functions. A warehouse is built for storing goods in bulk, often for extended periods, with stock movement being relatively infrequent. A fulfilment centre is built for regular order turnover, receiving stock and shipping it back out to individual customers on a continuous basis.
| Feature / Metric | Warehouse | Fulfilment centre |
|---|---|---|
| Primary function | Long-term bulk storage | Order processing and despatch |
| Stock turnover | Low, goods held for extended periods | High, stock moves as orders arrive |
| Typical customer | Businesses needing bulk storage | Ecommerce sellers shipping direct to consumers |
| Core activity | Storing and managing inventory | Picking, packing, and shipping individual orders |
In practice, many facilities blend both functions. Storeship's Nottingham site operates as a fulfilment centre first, built around processing individual ecommerce orders, while still offering flexible short and long-term storage where sellers need it.
If you're also weighing up how a fulfilment centre compares to broader logistics models, such as 3PL or 4PL providers, our guide on what 3PL means and how to choose a partner covers that comparison in more depth.
How our UK fulfilment centre works
Receiving and storing your stock
Once your stock arrives from your suppliers, our team books it into our stock management system, usually within 24 hours of receipt. From there, it's stored in our secure Nottingham fulfilment warehouse. Storage is charged per item, based on size, with fees starting from £0.003 per item, per week.
Automated order processing
Once you're connected, orders from your sales channels flow into our system automatically, supporting fully automated online order fulfilment with no manual entry on your end. We integrate directly through our fulfilment software with more than 100 marketplaces and ecommerce platforms, including Amazon, eBay, and Shopify. Orders are sent straight to our warehouse workstations, ready for picking.
Pick, pack and ship
Our warehouse team locates your products using barcoding technology, scanning each item during picking to confirm accuracy. Orders are then packed, check-weighed, labelled, and photographed before dispatch. Pick and pack starts from £0.50 per order, with shipping from 75p per order at our discounted carrier rates. Photographic evidence of every packed order reduces disputes over missing or incorrect items.
Fulfilment services we offer
Beyond core storage and despatch, our product fulfilment services extend to:
- Storage: Flexible warehouse storage and ecommerce storage options, including pallet storage, with discounts for bulk and long-term volumes.
- Labelling and barcoding: Preparing stock ahead of storage or before it moves onward, including into Amazon's own network.
- Amazon FBA prep and storage: Barcoding, relabelling, and repackaging stock ahead of Amazon fulfilment via our Amazon FBA prep service, plus dedicated Amazon order fulfilment and Amazon storage for sellers running FBA alongside their own channels.
- Returns handling: Receiving, inspecting, and restocking or disposing of returned goods.
- Kitting and assembly: Bundling multiple products into a single sellable unit.
- B2B fulfilment: Bulk and wholesale orders to retailers and distributors, alongside individual direct-to-consumer parcels.
Why choose Storeship's UK fulfilment centre
If you're comparing ecommerce fulfilment UK providers, location and pricing model both matter. Our Nottingham fulfilment centre is centrally located, supporting faster delivery and lower shipping costs across the UK compared with facilities in less accessible regions. As an online fulfilment centre built around real-time software rather than manual processes, you get full visibility of stock and orders without picking up the phone. Combined with our pay-as-you-go pricing, that means:
- No expensive warehouse costs or long-term leases
- No minimum order or stock quantities
- Ship stock direct to us from your manufacturers and suppliers
- No hardware or software costs for order processing
- Discounted shipping and storage rates
- Bulk buying discounts on packaging
- A dedicated account manager, rather than a generic support queue
- UK and EU distribution, via our Nottingham and Spain warehouses
We've been trading since 2009 and are registered under HMRC's Fulfilment House Due Diligence Scheme (FHDDS: XZFH00000100040). We currently process stock for over 700 UK and international ecommerce sellers, having handled more than 944,000 orders across 248 countries served. Full company details are available on our About Storeship page.
Ecommerce platform & marketplace integrations
We work primarily with ecommerce sellers, but also support bricks-and-mortar retailers and businesses using mail order or manual selling methods. Our software connects to your store automatically, checking for new orders and pulling them straight into our warehouse system, with no manual entry required.
We support dedicated fulfilment for Shopify, WooCommerce, eBay, Etsy, TikTok Shop, BigCommerce, Magento, and ShipStation, alongside Amazon, all from a single shared stock pool.
We also support larger retailers and wholesale suppliers, shipping to businesses, warehouses, and distribution centres worldwide, and helping manage bookings so stock arrives on time and in resaleable condition.
Our fulfilment software is free to all customers and gives you 24/7 real-time visibility of orders, inventory, and reporting, regardless of which platforms or marketplaces you sell on.
Returns management
We handle product and order returns, including those not originally shipped from our warehouse, through our returns service. Your customers can book their own returns through a branded returns portal, and we typically receive and process a return within 24 hours.
Returns support includes:
- A free, branded returns portal for your customers
- Return and address labels supplied as standard
- Discounted postal rates
- Free storage for returned stock
- Consolidated bulk shipping of returns back to you, where relevant
- Restocking, quarantining, or disposal, based on your instructions
If you're shipping into the EU, returns from EU customers can also be collated and shipped back as a single consignment, helping avoid repeated import tax and duty charges on individual returned items.
Why outsource your order fulfilment?
Outsourcing fulfilment isn't the right call for every business. If you already operate a fully equipped warehouse with efficient handling systems in place, outsourcing may not save you money. Similarly, if you sell large, bulky products, or items needing specialist conditions such as temperature control or hazardous storage, a general 3PL warehouse may not be set up to handle them.
For most growing ecommerce sellers, though, the case is straightforward: storage, staffing, and equipment costs add up quickly, and the time spent packing orders is time not spent on sourcing, marketing, or customer growth. See our full fulfilment pricing breakdown, or get a free quote to see what outsourcing would cost for your order volume.
Get a free UK fulfilment quote
If you're ready to see what outsourcing your ecommerce fulfilment would cost, request a free, no-obligation quote. Our quotes are tailored to your order volume, product size, and shipping needs, with no obligation to sign up.
Frequently asked questions
Is a fulfilment centre the same as a warehouse?
Not quite. A warehouse is generally built for long-term bulk storage, while a fulfilment centre is built around processing and shipping individual customer orders on an ongoing basis. Many facilities, including ours, blend both functions.
Will I lose control over my stock and customer experience if I outsource?
No. You hand over the physical handling, not your visibility. Our free fulfilment software gives you 24/7 real-time access to inventory, order status, and reporting, and you get a dedicated account manager rather than a generic support queue.
Are there any hidden fees I should know about?
No. We operate purely pay-as-you-go, with zero account fees, zero management fees, and zero software fees. You only pay for the storage and orders you actually use, and every quote is itemised upfront.
What happens if an order goes wrong, such as a wrong item, damage, or a lost parcel?
Every order goes through a three-stage check: scanning at pick, scanning at pack, and a check weigh, plus photographic evidence of the final packed parcel. This gives you a clear record if a customer disputes what they received, and significantly reduces the risk of errors reaching your customers in the first place.
Do I need a minimum order volume to use Storeship?
No. We operate on a pay-as-you-go basis with no minimum order or stock requirements, and no account or service fees, so you're not committing to volumes you can't yet guarantee.
Can Storeship handle orders from multiple sales channels?
Yes. Our software integrates with over 100 marketplaces and platforms, including Amazon, eBay, Shopify, and WooCommerce, fulfilling from a single shared stock pool so you don't need separate providers per channel.
Do you offer kitting or B2B fulfilment?
Kitting (bundling multiple products into a single sellable unit) and B2B fulfilment for wholesale and retailer orders are both part of our wider service offering, alongside individual direct-to-consumer parcels.
Can you help if I want to expand fulfilment into the EU?
Yes. We operate from our own warehouses in both Nottingham, UK and Alicante, Spain, so EU orders can ship locally rather than from the UK, helping you avoid additional import VAT, customs delays, and the new EU customs duty introduced from July 2026.
What happens if my order volumes are seasonal?
Our pay-as-you-go model is built for this. You're not paying for space or staff you only need during peak periods, and our dispatch accuracy holds regardless of volume.
