The business of eCommerce keeps increasing over time. Whether you have started selling products or you are about to start, it seems exciting beforehand, but once you get into it, there are all sorts of things that can get in your way.
Once your ecommerce site has launched and you have customers placing orders, now what? How will you get the products into the customer’s hand? For that, ecommerce fulfillment services are needed that can either be done by:
- Yourself together with a team
- By a logistic company that fulfills all your needs of warehouse and shipment
- Or by a drop shipper who will complete your order
Before we proceed, it is imperative to what fulfillment services are?
The fulfillment services will take all your orders and fulfill the shipment demands. The fulfillment centers have warehouses that will prepare the shipments and deliver them to customers. The fulfillment services are needed by those business owners who do not want to handle all the freight and warehouse affairs or cannot ship the orders by themselves.
These fulfillment services are provided by different fulfillment companies that work in slightly different ways, but their aim is the same. The fulfillment centers sizes and spaces are double the warehouses’ space so that they can hold on to the product and specify your needs.
However, some companies have various fulfillment centers. These multiple centers of the fulfillment company will allow shipping at different geographical locations simultaneously. This will make e-commerce fast and affordable.
Moreover, the advantages of outsourcing shipping services are not only that it saves your time, but it goes deep down and also has many other benefits too like:
- Many logistic companies give you flexibility in terms of cost. Like if you are a beginner or growing up slow in business, then for sure, they give you margin on that. The price is negotiable and adjustable, as renting your warehouse will cost you more.
- The fulfillment company always serves you with a good team; their teamwork is professional and makes your working efficient. Instead, if you hire the employees to maintain your warehouse and shipping stuff, then indeed managing staff would be another headache.
- No matter how good you are at packing and shipping kinds of stuff, your time should be better spent on the other essential things that will help grow your business in eCommerce. So the fulfillment companies will take all your shipment workloads on their shoulders and let you optimize your time more towards other essential things.
- Although it seems costly to work with an outsourced fulfillment company, it will save your money on your own. But actually, it will, in return, cause significant loss in the long run. As the customer always wants a quick and efficient service. At home, you won’t be able to manage all that in the least time.
But the actual question that most of the business owners arise is when to add a third party fulfillment company with your business? The answer can be summarized in the following points:
- When you are too busy to look at the shipment stuff and customer’s requirements are not getting fulfilled as per their need.
- If you are growing geographically and you don’t have the proper infrastructure for that
- When fluctuations start in your sales in a year, it is mostly recommended to add up 3rd Party Logistics Company with your business. This will help you to focus on the reasons for fluctuations.