Using a fulfilment center for eCommerce has a lot of advantages
In this guide, we’ll show you everything you need to know about fulfilment services
2020 has brought consumers from around the world who have a new appreciation of e-commerce companies and their fulfilment centers.
2020 has also proven to be a challenging time due to the enormous needs that some consumers had for supplies, and many companies experienced trying to complete the large product orders through their fulfilment services. E-commerce definitely came into its own this year.
Even though most consumers couldn’t get the items they ordered within the timeframe they asked for them, they did get most of the supplies and equipment they needed in a timely manner when fulfilment centers were used. Companies in retail services or products have always known that a fulfilment center has a direct impact on a merchant’s financial health. If you are a company that decides to use e-commerce order fulfilment services, there’s a lot you need to know about how it works.
Fulfilment order services provide many benefits and advantages to e-commerce entities. Read on and find in the guide below all the information you ever wanted to know about how fulfilment services can improve your operational efficiencies and service quality for your customers.
Fulfilment Center
An optimised and knowledgeable e-commerce fulfilment center can make the difference between customers coming back to you for future purchases or never revisiting your e-commerce website. That’s because, no matter how great your business website is or how much your sales funnel has grown and developed, if you can’t provide a smooth fulfilment center process, customers usually won’t give you a second chance.
In fact, between 2017 and 2020, 53% of customers state that the speed and ease of their delivery experience is one of the most important factors when they go to purchase something online again. There is no web-based business that can make it–regardless of how stellar their product or service is–if they don’t have a functioning and timely fulfilment center.
Order fulfilment is not considered the most exciting marketing concept to breakdown into detailed analysis for e-commerce businesses, but it is essential to their success. Every seller intends to get the product or service a customer purchased to them in a timely manner. When that doesn’t happen, consumers balk, lose patience, and take their business elsewhere, sometimes in a matter of hours.
E-Commerce Fulfilment Services Expertise
Consumers are savvy and know how to filter through junk email and web-based stores that are all flash and no substance. But many consumers make the assumption that, if the business website is sophisticated and professional, the order fulfilment services will be smooth and user-friendly. That’s not always the case. The process of fulfilment services has several stages.
There are six standard stages of e-commerce fulfilment services, including, but is not limited to:
- Inventory Classification and Coding
- Inventory Analysis to ascertain if inventory matches storage technology
- Automation available to help cost factors
- Slot inventory into the storage technology system
- Map processes and workflows to enable personnel needed while keeping costs low
- Keep the business process visible for maximised integration between company and consumer
All six of the above steps require the company to keep all elements functional and accurate in real-time for them to work effectively and efficiently.
Planning Your Fulfilment Process Delivery System Strategy
If you understand these steps, you know you need a fulfilment process delivery system that meets the need of your company’s bottom line, provides the customers with what they need, and gives you targeted line items you can amend or edit as necessary. It can be incredibly beneficial for companies to use a specific fulfilment process delivery company so you can use the expert delivery resources of another entity. At the same time, you can concentrate on growing your business.
Some expert fulfilment centers are outsourced by companies who need a delivery service company that goes from the point of inquiry or sale all the way until the delivery of the product to the customer. An example of stellar industry standards displayed by an e-commerce fulfilment delivery company happened during 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic, when PPE supplies were needed simultaneously by everyone, from hospitals to families. Citicare, manufacturing its own hand sanitiser and antiviral products also partnered with existing manufacturers to ship extremely large quantities of high-quality PPE supplies to businesses, Charities and medical establishments both in the UK and Globally.
Time, resources, supplies, and delivery can be centralised based on crucial and key business functions, which helps consolidate the distribution processes, as well as include timely and accurate order fulfilment.
E-Commerce Fulfilment Companies Value-Added Services
Knowledgeable and experienced e-commerce fulfilment companies bring much needed value-added services to companies who need to concentrate and develop their products, services, personnel training, customer service endeavours, and more. There’s nothing easy about being in a globally competitive market. If you’re a company trying to fulfil your own products through an in-house fulfilment service, you’ll find out pretty quickly just how overwhelming it can be.
Many moving parts must sync together entirely for a company selling a product to get it to the customer as seamlessly as possible, without lag time or complete stoppage, even when there’s something like a global pandemic restricting normal operating procedures. Many businesses are not able to recover what they lost along the way by refusing to use an experienced entity in the execution of order fulfilment services.
Your Next E-Commerce Fulfilment Service Step
Every decision a company makes should be based on finances, requirements, and effective solutions. Yet, when it comes to delivering or fulfilling e-commerce products, many companies try to manage it themselves. Or worse, they postpone important decisions and muddle through as best as they can in the interim. Once your company gets a reputation for poor delivery service or unorganised inventory systems with no central base of operations, it may already be too late to rehabilitate your image with your customers and prospects.
Why take an unnecessary risk when Citicare is ready and waiting to help you with any service needed, from order questions, inventory, storage, the fulfilment of product retrieval, or the delivery to the customer?
Get in touch with Citicare to provide your customers with the undivided attention in order fulfilment they deserve. In turn, this will leave your business reaping the financial rewards that comes with doing an exemplary job and exceeding your customers’ needs.
We’ll help you benefit from our implementation of the best technology in the industry, world-class customer service, exemplary order fulfilment services, and streamlined processes, just by making one proactive and sound decision. Get in touch with Citicare today to learn how we can help you.
