What is order fulfillment?
If you are an Amazon seller- handling order fulfillment in-house, then you will agree that the steps to getting orders to your customers are never a walk in the park. Besides, if any of those steps faces a breakdown, then it can delay your orders from actually getting out the store and safely into your customers’ hands. Such a scenario would considerably hurt your brand.
Outsourcing order fulfillment (automated) can be the game-changer for you, delivering considerable value for your brand and preventing hurdles from occurring. With automated and outsourced order fulfillment, each crucial step in the order fulfillment process is left to be taken care of by an expert 3PL (third-party logistics), thus saving you time and energy to focus on other vital aspects of the business.
Generally, this is the overview of the essential steps involved in order fulfillment:
- Receiving
inventory shipments - Inventory
storage - Order
processing - Shipping
- Returns
processing
For most merchants, order fulfillment is an expensive and sophisticated process. Some companies/vendors handle order fulfillment in-house, while others who have mastered the tricks usually outsource the process to a 3PL company.
Briefly, let’s take a look at other challenges of order fulfillment.
Challenges of order fulfillment
It’s never easy implementing effective order fulfillment processes. Vendors face complex challenges when it comes to demand, inventory management, and logistics planning.
Let me break it down for you;
Inventory management: Running low or out of stock is a possible occurrence for most sellers. It can be a quick way to deter customers from shopping with you. Masters of the game, who succeed in maintaining optimal inventory levels, hardly worry about losing customers to their competitors due to running out of stock.
Demand planning: It’s vital to know the demand for your products. In this way, you also won’t risk overstocking (which can be just as risky as understocking). Planning for demand involves using marketing and promotions to create a functional demand model.
Logistics planning: The shipping process is as important as the sales process itself, if not more important. As a seller, you need to ensure that the shipping methods, speed, and the care given to getting products to your customers are pin-point. Otherwise, you risk late fulfillment, damaged packages, which does nothing but hurt your brand reputation and sales.
Supply chain execution: Even with the best planning, running out of inventory can still happen, especially during unexpected spikes in demand like during the holidays. When demand depletes your stocks, you should be in a position to replenish those items as quickly as possible.
What is critical is the right inventory at the right location at the right time. This will give a big leg-up to shipping times. You need to choose a service provider that can quickly fulfill your orders if you want to compete.
Understanding the logistical challenges of last-mile delivery services is key in optimizing your e-commerce supply chain. With increasing customer demand for faster deliveries, leveraging technology to streamline last-mile operations says a lot about innovation in fulfillment. Companies effectively managing this critical delivery stage not only enhance customer satisfaction but also see a significant reduction in operational costs.
Order fulfillment best practices
Creating an automated order fulfillment process would be the key to winning over customers and maintaining the unique brand you are establishing. Additionally, there are other good practices to keep in mind to help you optimize your outsourced automated order fulfillment processes.
Choose what works best for you
It would be best if you chose the order fulfillment model that would work best for you. The model should be flexible to handle your order volumes, customer locations, and sales channels. If you sell customized or made-to-order products, then your fulfillment process must be able to accommodate those complexities without adding unnecessary delays.
Use data to drive your decisions
Your technology should support order fulfillment with real-time data, giving you inventory visibility and enabling more accurate demand predictions. Making data-driven decisions about buying, selling, and production only makes it easier for you to keep up with demand and en maintain optimized inventory levels.
Communicate clearly and effectively
If you have better supply chain visibility, you will be able to set clear expectations with customers about deliveries. You should be transparent about the returns processes, as well.
Don’t be intimidated by automation
Lastly, it would help if you leveraged warehouse automation to improve order fulfillment accuracy and efficacy to meet your customers’ expectations better. Remember, flexible automated solutions and software like collaborative mobile robots and AiHello can help optimize picking routes in real-time, thereby reducing unnecessary hustles of walking and improving picking efficiency. Collaborative mobile robots & automated software leverage AI and machine learning; this will help in guiding warehouse associates through some tasks to help them work faster while minimizing errors.
There’s no one single order fulfillment process that will work for every business. Whether you choose to outsource to a 3PL company or use a hybrid fulfillment model, in the end, the most important thing is finding the right process that meets your company’s needs and fulfills your customers’ expectations seamlessly.
Importance of outsourced automated order fulfillment
Today’s online shoppers are used to fast delivery (two-day or even next-day shipping options). Hence, the demand is always high for fast and on-time shipments. When your order fulfillment process is inconsistent or untimely, you will struggle with getting shipments delivered on time, which will hurt your business’ reputation, which I assume is every brand’s bottom line.
Order fulfillment options have a direct say on customers’ buying habits. Customers only care about themselves; they want delivery options that work best for them. Offering a mix of quick and moderate shipping options allows consumers to make a decision based on their budget and time constraints. Poor delivery alone is enough for more than 45% of your customers to consider shopping elsewhere!
Conclusion
I bet your bottom-line is to gain a competitive advantage; one of the best ways for sellers is to deliver on customer expectations on fast delivery and prompt return services. An automated outsourced fulfillment helps you to:
- Lower
shipping costs - Reduce
operational costs - Expand your
customer base - Enhance
customer service - Focus on
selling
Using a 3PL for returns processing saves a ton of your time. Not only will they manage the returns from a physical processing standpoint, but they can also handle the customer support piece of the return. In the end, it’s a win-win situation for everyone as your customer gets expedited service, and you also get to have a better reverse logistics operation.
Don’t just pick any automation software for your eCommerce store, choose a leader like AiHello, and sky-rocket your sales today.
