You set up in your garage, spare room or office and now that your business is growing, your personal space is shrinking! Not only is there the health and safety hazard of constantly tripping over stock, your business cannot grow efficiently unless you have the space for more products and the time to fulfil more orders.
So you’ve accepted that it’s time to outsource the order fulfilment function of your business. You’ve worked day and night for weeks, months and years on end to achieve a fantastic reputation. Your reputation underpins the success that you’re finally enjoying and now you have to seek out the right fulfilment partner who will nurture and care for your baby the same way that you do. It’s not going to be an easy decision.
Hopefully this post will give you some much needed guidance and confidence in your bid to find the ultimate fulfilment partner.
What should you expect from a third-party fulfilment provider?
- Tea, coffee and biscuits
You should fully expect to be invited on site by any potential third-party fulfilment provider. These people should want to meet you, they should want to hear your story, understand the history of your business, the way it works and to learn about your dreams and plans moving forward. In addition to this, they should want to show off their busy warehouse, fabulous racking, software and so on. This is going to be a super important relationship so take the time to build a rapport – there has to be a spark for magic to happen.
- An immaculate, well organised, safe warehouse
In an ideal world, the warehouse should be purpose-built for accessibility to all vehicles and conveniently located near all major road, rail and flight networks. You should not be concerned about the geographical location of your preferred fulfilment provider in relation to your own offices. Thanks to modern day technology, that distance is irrelevant – fulfilment houses will have a whole variety of clients from different industries, different countries and different continents even.
The warehouse itself should be equipped with racking which has been purposely designed to achieve maximum capacity, efficiency and productivity. It should be clean and excellently organised. Expect to see perfectly organised pick bins in lower locations and well utilised storage locations higher up.
It is also essential that any warehouse holding your stock is well equipped with adequate security measures including an intruder alarm capable of resisting intruders with professional skills. Every entry point should be protected. Enquire as to whether a fire protection system is in place as well as CCTV surveillance.
- Outstanding software
You should expect your third-party fulfilment house to utilise an advanced warehouse management system. The whole idea of order fulfilment is to enable retailers to fully outsource an entire function of their business in order to reclaim that precious commodity known as ‘time’. Therefore, it is essential for order fulfilment companies to have the ability to seamlessly link with your preferred e-commerce platform, marketplace and couriers.
A strict barcoding system should be in place, accompanied by the use of scan guns to ensure accurate recording of stock locations as well as accurate picking. Advanced warehouse management systems and the implementation of strict processes and procedures will guarantee precision. Precision is what allows fulfilment houses to achieve their service level agreements. Precision is what enables you to maintain your reputation and grow your brand. Precision is everything.
The software in place should enable a fulfilment company to record and track every activity relating to each client. The invoicing process should be automated, with each invoice being generated directly from the system, ensuring 100% accuracy. In addition, you should therefore be able to request a full line by line break down of any given invoice.
Last, but not least, there should be a client login facility available for you to access. You should be offered 100% visibility at all times. It is your business after all. Expect to be able to download an exhaustive list of reports, view real time order status’s as well as up-to-date inventory levels. A true fulfilment partner will enable you to run your business more efficiently, which will in turn achieve growth.
- A multitude of options and extras
Ensure that you retain freedom of choice when it comes to making decisions about your business. It is imperative that your chosen fulfilment partner is able to accommodate you when it comes to the detail. It’s ultimately the little things that set you apart from your competitors. Whether you want to sell on eBay, Not on the High Street or both, have your own branded packaging in all shapes and sizes, have personalised dispatch notes printed in colour, ship via DPD, UPS or both, offer your customers gift wrapping, subscriptions and custom made product bundles or want to include personal touches such as promotional discount flyers and so on… the options available to you should be endless. Make sure that the fulfilment provider has the ability to manage and process returns. Make sure that they are flexible, make sure that they can replicate if not improve on what you are currently doing in-house.
If you are lucky enough to find a company that can offer all the above, then it’s safe to assume that you have found your ultimate fulfilment partner.
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