Creating a business of your own can prove profitable if you have the proper facilities in place. Services can be offered in-store but it pays to have an efficient order fulfillment service if you have products to sell. Most people believe such services only work with large enterprises but nothing can be further from the truth. Even if a large scale company has a complex supervision and ordering procedure, the owner will preferably use an outsourcing order fulfillment company to take care of them. Imagine what a start-up can accomplish once it harnesses this service.
How Small Businesses Benefit
Small sized companies may have a lot of ground to make up for if they want to outpace their competitors, but if you think about it, they have a lot less to lose as well. Since they are just starting out, they don’t have considerable funds to risk. Plus, they may also lack resources or capital to meet warehousing demands, which will keep growing as the business does.
Creating and managing a fully working fulfillment service is the last thing on the owners mind at this point. However, if he/she decides to use a third party fulfillment service that has a state of the art, environment friendly, considerably sized warehouse at their disposal, the owner can focus on core business essentials without worry. Such services also have fully trained staff on call almost on a round the clock basis to monitor and manage supplies and shipments as they come in.
How is an Order “Fulfilled”?
As soon as a customer gives an order, the fulfillment service is notified. The personnel then get to work extracting the ordered product(s) from storage and hand it over to the shipping department. As soon as the package is prepared to be shipped, it is stamped with a tracking number and given to the delivery agent or service the client specified in his/her order.
As is apparent, there is no involvement of the client whatsoever during the entire delivery process. The order fulfillment service handles everything so that their affiliate (i.e. the business selling the products) and their clients have nothing to worry about.
Choosing an Order Fulfillment Service
If you have a small business that requires an experienced order fulfillment service, a wise choice would be to research reputable ones. This includes looking at their management team, their experience working with different companies, fee schedule and structure along with any additional service charges they may have. Online and offline testimonials will also provide an authentic overview of the companies performance level.
Benefits of Outsourcing
Once you have pinpointed the company you are comfortable working with, you will be privy to the following benefits:
Reduced Costs – The reason why business owners prefer to outsource this service is because they know they can reduce their costs significantly as compared to in-house ordering. You will need to pay for each item along with a fee for each order, but if your customers order in bulk, you can receive a discount from the service.
Shipping Experience – Since they excel in transporting goods overseas as well, such order fulfillment services are old hands at product shipping. Experienced ones may be costlier, but they are also in touch with major carrier services and know how to reduce shipping charges as well.
Byline: This article was sponsored by Sears Commerce Services. eCommerce sellers can grow their business through Sell on Sears and Fulfilled by Sears.