Online eCommerce provides retailers with a stream of revenue and provides the ultimate in convenience for consumers, the online market is brilliant way for eCommerce retailers to sell their products, without a bricks and mortar store.
But eCommerce businesses, require accurate and timely fulfilment, as even a single order going wrong can lead to a lost customer. If you’re growing your eCommerce sales and your overall online business, you may be wondering when the right time would be to outsource your fulfilment.
What is eCommerce Fulfilment?
eCommerce fulfilment refers to the picking, packing and dispatch of a product from an eCommerce retailer to a consumer.
Whatever products an online business may may be selling, the most important thing is that the delivery arrives accurately and on-time.
If the fulfilment process is inaccurate and slow, it can undermine the entire appeal of an eCommerce business, which can drive away repeat customers and ultimately sales.
What are the Difficulties of Fulfilling eCommerce Orders In-House?
Fulfilling your orders in-house can be a lot harder than it may seem from the outside, and there are a lot of factors when it comes it comes to perfecting the fulfilment process.
Fulfilling Orders Accurately and On-time
In today’s world there is little to no room for mistakes when it comes to eCommerce order fulfilment. When a customer’s delivery does not arrive in the expected timeframe, many customers will either give your business a negative review, or simply cancel their order and request a refund, which all will lead to a lower volume of sales.
Inventory Levels
If your eCommerce business calculates manufacturer lead times incorrectly, your business can deplete and even exhaust its inventory. This can lead to unsatisfied and even unhappy customers, through being unable to purchase your business’s products, which doesn’t at all help in maximising a company’s sales and ultimately, profits.
Quality control
The majority of successful online retailers now package and present their products in premium and sometime personalised packaging, which today adds to the pull of the attraction of eCommerce over the retail high street.
In order for eCommerce businesses to keep up with competition maintaining a good level of quality control to maintain a high standard of packaging and presentation is essential to attract and retain customers.
Fulfilment is all about volumes
When it comes to efficient and effective fulfilment of your business’ eCommerce orders, it’s all about scale. Once an eCommerce business reaches a certain volume of orders, then it may encounter overwhelming complications, and find it hard to continue to be effective in the fulfilment of your eCommerce orders in-house.
Outsourcing the fulfilment is the number one solution when fulfilling orders in-house becomes overwhelming.
When Should you Outsource your Fulfilment?
With every eCommerce retailer the correct time to outsource your order fulfilment process obviously varies. It is dependent on a number of factors from the product the business is shipping, to the volumes its shipping and even where the business is delivering its orders.
For the majority eCommerce businesses, a good rule of thumb to aid your eCommerce business in making the right decision of when to outsource is around a volume of 500 orders a month. Above the threshold of 500 orders a month, outsourcing your eCommerce business’s fulfilment comes into its own and starts to become the more and more cost efficient with every order, saving your business time and most importantly money.
As far as when would be best to outsource your fulfilment calendar wise, again depending on your business, but the end of summer around September would be perfect to outsource your fulfilment. As it would allow your business to be utilising all the benefits of outsourced fulfilment and concentrate on growing your sales and your business, before the largest sales periods in the winter period such as, Black-Friday, Christmas and Boxing day sales.
How to Choose the Correct Fulfilment Partner?
There are always a number of factors to consider when selecting the right fulfilment partner, the most important being cost.
Cost
When it comes to either fulfilling in-house or outsourcing your fulfilment, it is almost always cheaper to outsource, particularly if you have larger order volumes.
If you are considering whether if outsourcing your eCommerce business’s order fulfilment would actually be more cost effective than in house, you can find out by getting a free quote from UK Fulfilment here: https://www.ukfulfilment.co.uk/get-a-quote
When it comes to calculating whether it would actually be more cost effective your eCommerce business needs to look at what its costs are of warehousing, materials, software, courier prices, even staffing and man hours.
Order and Inventory visibility
If your eCommerce business is new to fulfilment, it can seem daunting for you to leave your fulfilment process in the hands of a fulfilment provider. With a fulfilment partner, like UK Fulfilment, your eCommerce business will have complete transparency and visibility of each and every order from picking to packing to dispatch, as well as live inventory and stock levels. With UK Fulfilment’s best in class fulfilment software, StoreFeeder, you will be able to view all the statistics your eCommerce business needs via a central dashboard.
Packaging
If your eCommerce business uses stock packaging or even custom packaging, outsourcing your fulfilment could even save on your packaging costs, as a fulfilment partner may benefit from economies of scales when purchasing packaging, and benefit from lower costs which they can pass onto your eCommerce business.
Competitive Courier Prices
Having the most competitive courier prices and the ability to offer a variety of shipment services is another important service and cost factor to factor in when choosing a fulfilment partner. Whether your eCommerce business is delivering its orders domestically or internationally, an eCommerce business needs to ensure it has the best courier service. Outsourcing your delivery to a fulfilment partner, like UK Fulfilment, will allow your eCommerce business to benefit from better shipping rates from the best carriers, as they benefit from having larger overall shipment volumes from Royal Mail, UK Mail, DPD, FedEx and DHL.
Account Management
Your eCommerce business is important, and when it comes to picking a fulfilment partner, it should have an easy to contact, personable team with a dedicated account manager, like UK Fulfilment. Whilst many fulfilment providers charge an account management fee, with UK Fulfilment, there is no account management or hidden fees, and it is a complete pay-as-you-go service.
If you are looking for, considering or even open to hearing about outsourcing your order fulfilment, then reach out to UK Fulfilment, and receive a free quote for your eCommerce business here: https://www.ukfulfilment.co.uk/get-a-quote
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