Have you ever wondered how outsourcing fulfillment services could benefit your business? Fulfillment in a supply chain means maximizing the potential of businesses. But how can implementing outsourced fulfillment services really improve the bottom line for your business? We’ll explain below.
What are Fulfillment Services?
Fulfillment refers to a warehouse service that includes shipping processes that serve businesses to store, pack, and ship their orders. Fulfillment services are especially advantageous for companies that don’t have the capacity to store their items, the time to pack and move their products, or both.
How Does a Fulfillment Service Work?
A fulfillment service typically operates in 3 stages:
- Store: Fulfillment providers store your products and input order information into a system. They also update an inventory from which customers can check the status of stock.
- Pack: After customers place their orders in the system, providers can check and pick from their stock. After that, the fulfillment service steps in to pack your items and send them to the customers.
- Shipping: The final stage of a fulfillment service is shipping. The fulfillment service’s technology keeps shipment statuses and tracking numbers up to date in real time, so neither the providers nor their customers have to worry.
How Can a Fulfillment Service Help Your Business?
Businesses looking to expand their offerings or increase volume may outsource their logistics to fulfillment service providers. Companies that try to do it all on their own may run into problems with storage and capacity. Do you have enough room for expanded stock with increasing sales volume? Is there enough staff in your firm to arrange and carry out packing and delivery processes? If you answered ‘no’ to any of the two questions, here’s how a fulfillment service like Alpacka may help:
- Save time: Doing everything on your own is feasible if you are only handling small orders. But when peak season came and orders surge, can you still manage to pack each item manually? This is why partnering with a reputable fulfillment service is a wise choice. Their team can do the heavy lifting, saving you a lot of time.
- Ship orders fast: A study shows that delivery expectations are one of the common challenges in order fulfillment. One reason is that consumers today are expecting fast shipping from retailers. They expect to receive their online purchase within two days or before the promised estimated time of delivery. If you have been in the ecommerce business for quite some time, you know how the speed, as well as accuracy, of deliveries, impact customer retention. Failure to meet these expectations can cause your business to lose customers and gain negative reviews. With fulfillment services utilizing their manpower and technology, you can rest assured your products are getting to the right customers on time.
- Reduce manpower: The more products you bring to your business the more people you need to store, manage, and pack them. If you don’t do this, you will be lagging behind on deliveries. Fulfillment services outsource employees to help carry out their tasks. These teams pay close attention to detail with every single product they ship on your behalf. Outstanding fulfillment services go the extra mile with quality checks at every stage.
- Take advantage of their experience and expertise: Successful fulfillment service providers are the experts in order fulfillment. They got people who know the business like the back of their hand and who have been in the industry for a long time. They also have the right software and equipment to run their operations efficiently. You can rely on their industry experience. By allowing a fulfillment center to manage your storage, packing, and shipping, your order fulfillment processes will be seamless.
- Support more orders: The space and manpower provided by a fulfillment service can enhance your business’ capacity. This allows you to bring in more products so customers will have larger selection. You can acquire and fulfill more customer orders because you have a large, well-connected, and efficient system in place to support the process of storing, packing, and sending out your products.
- Provide an effective warehouse management system: Fulfillment services offer well-integrated technologies that seamlessly combine their process into a single management system. This allows you to check, track, and control each stage of the process through your computer or smartphone. You can follow your product from storing and packing to shipping with ease.
- Improve customer service quality: Keeping existing customers is easier than attracting new ones. So, how does a fulfillment service help keep your existing customers happy? By streamlining your fulfillment process, making sure items are delivered to the right recipients and shipping orders on time. Additionally, they also help ensure easy product returns or exchanges process. By doing what they do best, your business can consistently provide satisfying customer service. You can also minimize complaints or disputes.
Talk to Alpacka About Fulfillment Services
Fulfillment services relieve firms of the time-consuming process of moving an item from storage to shipment. By working with us, you can say goodbye to overcrowded warehouses and confusing spreadsheets! At Alpacka, we understand that every business owner needs valuable time to grow their business, so we’re here to take a heavy logistical load off your hands. We’ve completed a variety of projects that grant us the expertise to help take your business to the next level. If you’re ready to discuss fulfillment services with us, reach out to us today!
