Studies predict that worldwide e-commerce retail sales will surpass $2,7 trillion in 2021 and should surpass $3,4 trillion in 2025. In other words, this industry is regularly expanding, and omnichannel, and internet sales expansion will continue to receive more attention. Additionally, this entails a rise in the volume of orders, activities, and goods to be shipped. A top-notch eCommerce order fulfillment solution that will assist all of the company from the order to delivery is required for e-commerce to manage all of this effectively.
What is order fulfillment?
Order fulfillment, in general, refers to everything that occurs from the point at which a client places an order for particular goods to the point of final delivery, or even later if the order includes a return. But prior to placing the purchase, there must be some preparation, which is also a part of the e-commerce fulfillment service. This process might be fairly straightforward with only a few steps or extremely complex with the involvement of several entities, locations, and rules. The following stages make up a typical order fulfillment process:
- sending products to the warehouse, adjusting stock levels,
- ordering goods online, selling the product,
- completing the order at the warehouse,
- packaging the product safely for delivery,
- shipping the product to the customer, and updating stock levels,
- finishing the delivery process with the last-mile delivery service provider, and
- occasionally receiving the merchandise back due to returns and complaints.
Benefits of Order Fulfillment Companies
Companies that handle order fulfillment might be very helpful to your business. You can advance your company with the aid of the ideal fulfillment partner. Here are the top 7 advantages of working with an order fulfillment business.
1. You Don’t Need a Warehouse of Your Own
You don’t have to store your items yourself, which is one of the main advantages of outsourcing your fulfillment to an order fulfillment firm. Owning and operating your own warehouse can be very costly. When you run your own warehouse, you are responsible for paying for both the space itself and everything else that is placed there.
2. Integrates Quickly with a Variety of Ecommerce Platforms
For a stress-free solution, an order fulfillment business can assist you in integrating all of your e-commerce platforms. You can turn this over to an experienced order fulfillment firm that can assist you in combining all your systems rather than trying to figure out how to integrate each individual system yourself and manage it, which might require more IT expertise (more money).
By hiring experts to assist you, you can focus your time and money on expanding your business while also ensuring that your system is properly set up.
3. Growth Potential
The last thing you want to have to do when your business is experiencing significant growth is to tighten the reins and slow down operations because you can’t keep up with demand. The alternative would be to push your staff to the breaking point in an effort to keep up. Both are undesirable options.
You will have lots of room to expand if you can find an order fulfillment firm that will allow you to do so.
4. Save Time
If your business is still in the early stages and you’re still shipping products from your basement, you might not be ready for a warehouse, and you don’t have to worry about those expenditures just yet, but how much time does self-fulfillment take up? How much more could you accomplish during that time to expand your company?
THE KEY TAKEAWAY
Although it may seem like a terrific method to cut costs, self-fulfillment is not always the case. In fact, building your own warehouse and engaging in self-fulfillment might be very expensive.
You may grow and extend your business while saving time and money through instant delivery services by working with an order fulfillment provider.
