How Does Fulfillment Outsourcing Saves Time, Money
Fulfillment is not one specific task but a complex process. It is certainly nderstandable why most businesses large and small outsource fulfillment. Because let’s face it, it takes up valuable time and resources. As your business grows the need for products and materials grow.We know every business has to work on various tasks to get to the point of profitable marketing and sales. If you spend to much time dealing with fulfillment, you might be diverting to many resources from your end goal and that is growning your business.
Outsourcing means your business doesn’t have to deal with the possible highs and lows of demand, that go hand in hand with the need for electronic and physical literature. A good fulfillment center has the man power and resources to deal with a sudden surge in orders.
Competition in the fast paced business world has pushed these centers to a level of precision and automation that can (and should) work like clockwork. That means 24/7 access and real-time reporting. Inventory can be easily tracked and future needs forcasted. Of course the obvious saving is not having the expense of maintaining a warehouse which can save on your overhead.
Basic Order Fulfillment
- Storage Facilities. Inventory is often stored in warehouses or other storage facilities. Your inventory might require special storage facilities, such as a refrigerated warehouse or hazardous-material storage.
- Shipping Facilities. The ability to package items for shipment, including providing packing materials, boxes, tubes, tape, labels, and scales. You might require a service that has its own delivery vehicles.
- Inventory Tracking. This is usually a computerized system. Often inventory is tracked with bar codes, or Universal Product Codes (UPC numbers), that are scanable. Advanced systems include RFID (Radio-frequency identification) tracking by using tags on the inventory that communicate continuously with sensors throughout the storage and shipping facility.
- Order Entry. Recording requested goods, either manually or via real-time system, to trigger the packing and shipping of goods to the customer. This includes the ability to change orders, which is necessary to ensure the accuracy of an order or to respond to customer requests.
- Order Accuracy. An industry-standard measure of the rate of accurate fulfillment, it’s the percentage of times an order is filled correctly. No large fulfillment service has a 100% rate of order accuracy, so if you hear that you should be suspicious.
- Packaging Services. Proper packaging reduces breakage, which can cause customer dissatisfaction and higher operating costs to process returns.
- Service Level Agreements. Industry-standard measures of performance often guaranteed by order fulfillment services. Includes “dock-to-stock,” which is the time it takes from product reception to the time it is placed in “pickable” inventory. An industry standard is 48 hours, but the shorter the better. The “fulfillment time” is the period from when a customer order is received until it leaves the warehouse or distribution center. To some extent, the fulfillment time is chosen by the customer.
- Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). A standard for exchanging order information between computer systems including invoices, shipping forms, and other documents.
- Shipping Discounts. Your order fulfillment services company should have strong partnerships and be able to obtain volume discounts from major shipping carriers (FedEx, UPS, and USPS).
- Returns Processing. The returns process is a way to turn a negative (“I didn’t get what I ordered.”) into a positive (“I didn’t get the right thing at first, but they corrected the problem quickly and professionally, and I’m now satisfied.”). All fulfillment services should have the ability to process returns and you should not be charged for errors made by the service.
- https://www.mbin.com/fulfillment360