Are you researching eCommerce fulfillment services for your website but aren’t sure which one to pick?
It’s estimated that 2.41 billion shoppers will buy products and services online this year. Orders have increased by 60% due to COVID and seventy-percent of people purchase from international sites.
The use of fulfillment centers has increased to keep up with this demand. Yet many companies don’t know what a fulfillment service should offer and how to choose the best.
This article highlights 5 eCommerce tips to help you select the best fulfillment center.
Read on to learn about supply chain management and integration with your existing site. You’ll discover how running an eCommerce store is simple when you find the right fulfillment partner.
1. Full Supply Chain Management
Supply chain management describes the process of order fulfillment from payment to delivery.
Your eCommerce fulfillment partner should manage each stage including:
- Receiving orders from your shopping cart
- Warehouse picking and packaging
- Shipping to the customer’s address
- Communication with status updates and tracking information
- Inventory management
In addition to these, ensure that they can handle multiple orders that scale to the thousands.
Some minor eCommerce fulfillment services limit their daily processing quotas. That’s useless when your website receives more traffic.
Also, make sure they can ship nationwide and fulfill international orders.
2. Bespoke Packaging
Building your brand is part and parcel of running an eCommerce store. That filters down to the packaging that arrives at your customer’s doorstep.
The best fulfillment providers allow you to add your own logo and branding to the packaging.
Some offer several possibilities and layouts. They also let you fully customize your delivery slips to reflect your color scheme and website branding.
Don’t forget to brand your emails.
All communications should proudly display your logo and style. Make sure that your provider offers this service.
3. Integration With Ecommerce Services
Is your website built on Shopify, WooCommerce, or Magento? Perhaps you sell on eBay or Amazon? Whatever the platform, your eCommerce fulfillment partner must integrate seamlessly with the software.
Whether ERP apps or shopping carts, the backend must ‘talk’ to your provider’s systems. That allows them to receive and process new orders and manage stock levels.
Services that don’t offer this basic requirement aren’t worth investigating.
4. Tracking Ecommerce Store Orders
This comes in two flavors: tracking orders as a store owner or as a customer.
As a store owner, you must be able to view the current status of an order. The provider’s order fulfillment software should display this data at any time. Any issues should highlight automatically for you to action.
Customers should receive timely updates on the status of their orders. They should also be able to check this directly from your site.
5. Accurate Inventory Management
High-end eCommerce fulfillment services provide 100% accurate inventory management.
It should allow you to specify restocking levels of your SKUs and receive notifications when they’re low. The center’s software must tie with their warehouse picking procedure for up-to-date stock counts.
Tie this with a reliable shipping tracking system and you have a complete ordering solution.
More Ecommerce Fulfillment Services Tips
A Google search returns several eCommerce fulfillment services but that doesn’t mean that they’re any good.
Look for a provider that offers full supply chain management and can integrate with your website. Make sure they provide accurate inventory management tools. And that your customers can track their orders online.
Read more eCommerce tips at The Insider Tales.
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