Order fulfillment can quickly determine whether your company will be a success. In the beginning, it is often very easy to support these operations manually provided you have enough employees to handle the day-to-day shipping operations and you can provide adequate storage space.
However, as your business begins to grow, you will see that the need for expansion and increased technology will dictate outsourcing this portion of your business to an outside company.
Before you do, look at these 7 order fulfillment strategies that will help to fast track your E-Commerce growth.
- Choosing the Right Order Fulfillment Solution
As with any technology accessed by your company, it should first be a perfect fit with what you are trying to accomplish. This requires communication and understanding between you and your provider to make sure your requirements are understood. Ultimately, this revolves around your customers and whether their current system can handle your orders timely and properly. Make sure that your chosen solution is flexible, can expand as your company grows, and is fully supported by your fulfillment company. Having a reliable storage warehouse is also necessary, a Red Stag 3PL warehouse can be your solution for the fulfillment of your orders starting from picking to shipping.
- Staff Cross Training
There will come times in your business when getting product out the door becomes the highest priority. These are the times when you will most benefit from having employees that are properly cross trained. Even though these employees may not be as efficient as your regulars, they will become valuable assets during those periods when demand is high and you need available bodies to keep the operation running effectively.
- Choosing a Fulfillment Center Location
One factor in fast tracking your online business growth is choosing a fulfillment center location that will allow for faster shipping times and greater access to the bulk of your customers. Shipping is obviously slowed down quite a bit when there are long transportation times. If your business is not large enough to establish multiple fulfillment centers around the country, picking a single location becomes critical. If you can reduce transportation times, this will aid in speeding up delivery to your customers.
- Analyze Your Data
Whether you are collecting and processing orders manually, or using highly sophisticated software, it’s important to analyze and understand your customers’ buying patterns. By understanding these patterns, it will allow you to better understand the preferences of your buyers and ultimately put them in front of products that they really want. In addition, this data can help you to anticipate upcoming peaks in your business so that you can better prepare for them in terms of staff and inventory and thus allowing you to be in a better position to profit from such peaks.
- Focus on Accurate Orders
One of the benefits to using advanced order fulfilment software or ordering systems is the ability to ensure accurate orders. It is far more difficult to deliver your customer’s orders at 100% accuracy when you are fulfilling them manually. Besides having unhappy customers, you will also have to deal with the unwanted burden of increased returns. So, whether you are filling orders manually or automatically, ensure that they are shipping without error.
- Seek Professional Help
There are many services out there that specialize in assisting companies to grow their online businesses using fulfillment companies. In some cases, it may be far too early to consider partnering with such a company but the only way to truly know is to meet with them and see if they can help to improve your operation. If they are flexible, and can provide the support that you need for your customers, maybe it is time to take things to the next level.
- Anticipate but Reduce the Cost of Returns
Returns are a part of any e-commerce business and you should anticipate their costs. This means that loss revenue, handling, reverse shipping, and other costs should be worked into the price that you are charging your customers. By utilizing the data in your fulfillment software, you should be able to forecast what these costs will be per year and adequately prepare for them.
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