Shipo is an FDA-registered food facility in Wilmington, Delaware that fulfills supplements and vitamins for DTC brands — capturing lot numbers and expiration dates at receiving, picking first-expired-first-out, and shipping from a single 55,000 sq ft building on the I-95 corridor. Orders placed by 3 PM ET ship the same business day, Monday to Friday.
If you sell a consumable, your fulfillment partner is part of your compliance posture, not just your shipping cost. This page explains what that actually means, what to ask any warehouse before you sign, and how Shipo handles the category.
Supplements are not a normal fulfillment category
Most 3PLs treat every SKU the same: receive it, shelf it, pick it, ship it. That model quietly breaks on supplements, for four reasons.
Your inventory expires. A pallet of capsules is not a pallet of phone cases. Stock has a sellable life, and a warehouse that picks whatever carton is nearest the aisle will ship your newest units first and leave the oldest to die on the rack. You find out at write-off time.
Every unit belongs to a lot. If a raw-material supplier ever notifies you of a problem, the question you have to answer is not “did we sell any?” — it is “exactly which orders, to exactly which customers, from exactly which lot?” A warehouse that never captured the lot at receiving cannot answer that at any price.
The category is regulated. A facility that receives, stores or handles food, beverage or dietary-supplement products has to be registered with the FDA under the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 and FSMA. Plenty of 3PLs are not. They will still take your pallets.
Marketplaces enforce their own rules on top. Amazon has its own requirements for expiration-dated inventory — a minimum amount of remaining shelf life at the point stock arrives at the fulfillment center, and rules about how the date is printed and where. Those requirements get revised, so check the current version in Seller Central before every shipment rather than trusting a number you read in a blog post. Get it wrong and the shipment is refused or the units are destroyed at your cost.
FDA registration: what it is, and what it is not
Shipo’s Delaware facility is registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a food facility under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, as amended by the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 and the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. FDA Registration No. 15630823908, effective through December 31, 2026.
Now the part most vendors leave out:
FDA registration is not FDA approval or endorsement. The FDA does not issue or recognize certificates of registration.
Registration means the facility is on the federal register and is legally permitted to receive, store and handle this category. That is the whole of it. Anyone implying that an FDA number is a quality award is telling you something untrue, and it is worth noticing what else they might be comfortable implying.
The practical test for any 3PL you are evaluating: ask for their registration number. It is a public register. A straight answer takes ten seconds. Hesitation is the answer.
How Shipo handles supplement fulfillment
Lot capture at receiving. Every unit is booked in against its lot number and expiration date at the dock, before it reaches a shelf. This is the step that cannot be added retroactively — if it does not happen at receiving, the data does not exist later.
FEFO picking — first expired, first out. Not first-in-first-out. The two are not the same and the difference matters on consumables: a carton received last month may well expire before one received last year, depending on when each was manufactured. FEFO ships your oldest sellable stock first and flags short-dated inventory while you can still do something about it — a promotion, a bundle, a subscriber push — instead of after it becomes a write-off.
Order-to-lot traceability. Every outbound order is tied back to the lot it shipped from. If a lot is ever in question, the affected orders can be identified in minutes rather than reconstructed from spreadsheets.
Amazon FBA prep for supplements. Expiration-date labelling, FNSKU application, poly-bagging with the required suffocation warning, case labelling and carton counts — prepped in the same building your DTC stock sits in, then forwarded into FBA.
Subscriptions and recurring orders. Recurring supplement orders synced from Shopify and Recharge, so monthly cycles run without manual intervention.
Kitting and bundles. Starter packs, 30/60/90-day multi-bottle sets, sample sachets, and branded inserts — assembled in-house rather than subcontracted out.
One inventory pool, two channels. The stock that ships a Shopify order and the stock that gets prepped into FBA is the same stock in the same building. You are not forecasting two pools, and you are not paying to move inventory between them.
Storage conditions and returned consumables — the two things nobody asks about
Storage. Softgels, gummies, probiotics and effervescents do not all behave the same way in a warehouse. Gummies fuse in heat. Probiotics can be temperature-sensitive depending on the strain and the formulation. Effervescent tablets are humidity-sensitive. Before you sign anywhere, tell the warehouse what formats you actually sell and ask what conditions they hold and whether those conditions are monitored. A generic “climate controlled” on a website is not an answer — ask what is measured and how often.
Returns. This is the one that surprises people. A returned supplement is usually not resellable, even sealed, even unopened, because once a consumable has left your custody chain you cannot attest to how it was stored. The right handling is a defined policy agreed in advance: what gets inspected, what gets restocked, what gets quarantined, and what gets disposed of — and who pays for each path. Brands that skip this end up either destroying resellable stock or, far worse, putting unverifiable units back into circulation. Decide it before the first return arrives, not after.
Why the East Coast location matters on a consumable
Two things compound on supplement brands specifically.
Shorter transit means less time in a truck. On a product with a shelf life and a customer who reorders on a schedule, delivery speed is retention, not just a line on a shipping quote.
And Delaware charges 0% sales tax — one of only five US states with none. Your inventory, packaging and supplies sit on our floor untaxed.
On reach: Shipo’s Wilmington, Delaware warehouse reaches about 20% of the US population overnight and about 48% within two days by ground.
Those coverage figures are Shipo’s own estimates, derived from ground transit bands out of Wilmington, DE and U.S. Census population data (341.8M, July 2025). They are not carrier-published figures.
Seven questions to ask any 3PL before you send them supplements
Ask these of us too. If a warehouse cannot answer all seven quickly, that is your answer.
- What is your FDA food facility registration number? Public register, ten-second answer.
- Do you capture lot numbers at receiving, or only at pick? Only “at receiving” is useful.
- Do you pick FEFO or FIFO? If they use the terms interchangeably, they do neither.
- Can you show me every order that shipped from a given lot? Ask them to demonstrate it.
- How do you flag short-dated stock, and how far ahead? You want warning while it is still sellable, not a write-off notice.
- Who applies expiration labelling for FBA, and what happens if Amazon rejects the shipment?
- What are your storage conditions, and are they monitored? Some formats are heat-sensitive.
Frequently asked questions
Can a 3PL track lot numbers and expiration dates for supplements?
Yes. Shipo captures lot numbers and expiration dates at receiving and picks first-expired-first-out (FEFO), so the oldest sellable stock ships first and short-dated inventory is flagged before it expires. Every order is traceable back to its lot.
What is the difference between FIFO and FEFO, and why does it matter for supplements?
FIFO ships whatever arrived first. FEFO ships whatever expires first. On consumables they frequently disagree, because a carton received recently may carry an earlier expiration date than one received months ago. FEFO is the correct method for anything with a shelf life; FIFO will quietly age out your inventory.
Is Shipo FDA registered?
Yes — Shipo’s Wilmington, Delaware facility is registered with the U.S. FDA as a food facility, Registration No. 15630823908, effective through December 31, 2026. FDA registration is not FDA approval or endorsement, and the FDA does not issue certificates of registration.
Does Shipo do Amazon FBA prep for supplements?
Yes. Expiration-date labelling, FNSKU application, poly-bagging with suffocation warnings, and carton labelling, prepped in the same facility that holds your DTC inventory and forwarded into FBA. Amazon’s own requirements for expiration-dated inventory change from time to time — confirm the current rule in Seller Central before each shipment.
Does Shipo support supplement subscriptions and reorders?
Yes. Recurring orders sync from Shopify and Recharge and fulfil on schedule, so monthly subscription cycles run without manual work.
How fast can Shipo ship supplement orders?
Orders placed by 3 PM ET ship the same business day, Monday to Friday. Shipo’s Wilmington, Delaware warehouse reaches about 20% of the US population overnight and about 48% within two days by ground. (Those coverage figures are Shipo’s own estimates, derived from ground transit bands out of Wilmington, DE and U.S. Census population data (341.8M, July 2025). They are not carrier-published figures.)
Can Shipo handle both my DTC orders and my Amazon inventory?
Yes, from one pool of stock in one building. The same units can ship direct to a customer or be prepped and forwarded into FBA, so you are not splitting a forecast across two warehouses.
Does a 3PL need to be FDA registered to store supplements?
A facility that receives, stores or handles food, beverage or dietary-supplement products is required to be registered with the FDA as a food facility under the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 and FSMA. Many 3PLs are not registered and will still accept supplement inventory. Ask any warehouse for its registration number before you ship — it is a public register and the answer takes seconds.
What happens to my supplements if they get close to their expiration date?
Short-dated stock is flagged while it is still sellable, not after. That gives you time to run a promotion, build it into a bundle, or push it to subscribers — the options that exist before expiry and disappear after it. FEFO picking means the oldest sellable units are already going out first.
Can Shipo store supplements that need specific temperature or humidity conditions?
Tell us the formats you actually sell before you sign anything. Gummies, probiotics, softgels and effervescents behave differently in a warehouse, and the right answer depends on your specific formulation. We will tell you plainly what conditions we hold and what is measured rather than describing the facility as “climate controlled” and leaving you to assume.
Are returned supplements resellable?
Usually not — even sealed and unopened — because once a consumable has left your custody chain you cannot attest to how it was stored. The right approach is a written policy agreed in advance covering what is inspected, what is restocked, what is quarantined and what is disposed of, and who bears the cost of each path.
Shipping supplements or vitamins? Call 302-400-1698 or email Support@shipousa.com, Mon–Fri 9–5 ET. You will speak to Ophir, who owns the company — not a sales team.
Shipo LLC · 310 Cornell Dr, Suite B4, Wilmington, DE 19801