Did you know that many e-commerce businesses abruptly fail due to poor planning? Once you discover what goes into the e-commerce logistics after the customer makes an online purchase, it's no wonder that the average success rate of e-commerce stores is around 10%. However, there is a whole service industry dedicated to helping e-commerce businesses like yours. Fulfillment companies are full-sized services that can provide you with the management of your inventory, as well as packaging, shipping and delivery of your products to the end customers. This service includes the handling of your product returns.
Considering how often the customers complain about things like late shipments and high shipping rates, as well as how these things deter customers from ordering from the business again, it is very important that you find the right fulfillment company to provide your customers with a satisfactory experience.
Let’s take a look at a couple of things that web consulting experts have compiled to help you in this quest:
1. Consider what kind of products a fulfillment company needs to warehouse If you want to store foods with limited shelf life, medication or valuable items such as jewelry made from gold, you should consider choosing a fulfillment company with a secure warehouse that is closed off to the public. This also goes for the products that tend to take up a lot of space.
With this in mind, hiring a third-party fulfillment company might be a good option if you want someone to take care of seemingly small, but important things such as storing perishable goods closest to the picking point and fragile goods at the end, away from the heavy goods.
For non-perishable and smaller items, a public warehouse will do the job just fine – and it’ll allow you to quickly access your products, whenever needed.
2. How much time have you got and how big is your budget? Public warehouses don't usually require you to make any capital investments or pay taxes. If you’d rather invest your money into other aspects of your e-commerce business – such as increasing the visibility of your business or attracting traffic to your website - opting for a public warehouse may just be the right thing for you.
Plus, it allows you to jump right into the business, without any further ado!
A slightly more expensive option would be to build your customized warehouse, but this option can be quite time-consuming. An easier, time-conserving alternative to a custom-made warehouse is buying a pre-built, portable one. However, portable warehouses require a significantly large investment.
Private warehouses require spending a certain amount of money on things like rent, maintenance, equipment, employees, safety and many others. On the other hand, if you’ve got the money, they offer much more space and can be a great way to automate your warehouse operations and give you full control over them.
3. Where are your customers located? Fast shipping is a concern for many customers, so you’ll want to consider the fulfillment company that is close to your customers. Some fulfillment companies have a network of warehouses in different locations and they can be a great option if you’re considering geographic expansion of your business.
Another benefit of a third-party warehouse being close to your customers is that it’ll save you resources that are usually spent on shipping.
One more important thing to consider is the local climate of the place where your warehouse is located. Why is this important? Well, because you want to make sure that your products are protected from all the weather conditions.
4. What do your customers expect? It’s fair to say that all of your customers want their purchased goods to be delivered as soon as possible.
For that reason, when choosing the right fulfillment company for your e-commerce business, you should consider things like:
• Does it allow a customer to choose the day and time of the delivery? • Can a customer choose to have the product delivered at a nearby pickup location? • Does the fulfillment support multiple returns? • Can a customer do something or pay extra to make the shipping faster? How flexible is the shipping? • How expensive is their shipping service? • Can the customers become eligible for free shipping if they buy products worth over a certain amount? • Can an order be tracked? • Does a fulfillment company you’re choosing have a cancellation policy? • What are the company’s reviews? 5. Does your brand have personalized product packaging? Another common customer complaint is related to the improper packaging of the delivered product.
Apart from the unboxing experience being extremely important, as you can see from the popularity of YouTube videos where influencers are unboxing their PR packages, things like making sustainable packaging are now more relevant than ever.
The way you package your products speaks a lot about your brand. Having personalized packaging can make a huge difference in your branding, as it can enhance the customer experience. Moreover, it can make the packaging process more cost and time effective.
For this reason, inquiring whether a certain fulfillment company allows you to provide personalized packaging or not is something worth considering before choosing its services.
6. Does your e-commerce business support item returns? A hired fulfillment company can handle your item returns much faster than an in-house one, as it more often has reliable 24/7 customer support.
While you’re focused on not making your return policy too strict, a warehouse of your choice will save you time by ensuring that the process of returning the items is seamless and efficient.
Ultimately, if you choose the right fulfillment company to take care of your orders it can save you both money and time.
We’ve already established that having a third-party managed warehouse allows you to focus on other aspects of your business, like marketing your products better - or you could even outsource the eCommerce SEO services and jumpstart the process of ranking your brand higher in search engine results.
