Order fulfillment can be a huge hassle for online businesses, but hiring a fulfillment company can free up valuable time, energy, and resources.
Fast and efficient order fulfillment plays a considerable role in creating and maintaining positive customer relations. When packing and shipping are overtaking your life, it’s time to consider outsourcing these needs.
Stay tuned as we explore eight benefits a fulfillment company can have on your growing business.
What Are Order Fulfillment Services?
Fulfillment companies exist to help organizations to contract out their ordering fulfillment needs. Clients of fulfillment companies include online retailers, eCommerce businesses, and stores that do not have distribution centers or warehouses. These companies can store inventory and send out orders as they come in.
Fulfillment companies can provide their clients with the following services:
- Inventory management
- Product listings
- Order management
- Product receiving
1. Fulfillment Companies Improve Customer Service
Customer service is one of the most fundamental components of any business, and maintaining current customers is a lot easier than creating a new customer base. Excellent customer service can set your business apart from the competition.
Fulfillment companies can improve any business’ customer service through their fast, accurate, and efficient shipping services. Many companies provide 24-hour support through phone calls or emails, too. This makes it easier to help with customer needs such as returns, exchanges, and refunds. Additionally, providing exact order dates and same-day deliveries are other ways to improve the fulfillment experience.
2. Your Shipping Costs Will Plummet
Shipping and order fulfillment costs can add up fast. Hiring employees, paying for shipping materials, maintaining quality control, and warehouse rentals all contribute to these lofty expenses. Outsourcing these duties can save you both valuable time and money.
Fulfillment providers leverage the combined shipping volume of all their customers to negotiate optimal shipping costs with their carriers. In turn, they can offer low rates to their customers. Many companies also offer a flat fee for only your services. When you save money on fulfillment, you can apply those funds to other parts of your company to help it grow.
3. You’ll Need Fewer Employees
Hiring, training, and managing employees requires substantial time, money, and stress. Managing employees can take time away from improving or expanding other aspects of your business.
Fulfillment companies offer a solution to take the entire ordering process off of your shoulders. When you don’t have to worry about order fulfillment, you’ll be able to hire fewer employees or use them in other beneficial areas. Consequently, you’ll have more time to focus on your products and ensure you have enough to meet demand.
4. Fulfillment Companies Take Inventory Management off Your Hands
Technology is constantly improving. Efficient technology will integrate your sales channels and other management tools to optimize carrier selection and inventory optimization tasks. The ways to track inventory are improving every year, and a good fulfillment company will have up-to-date technology to track your inventory.
5. You’ll Have More Time to Focus On Your Company’s Purpose
The logistics and planning of order shipments can be demanding and complex. Within no time, you can find yourself in the weeds of order fulfillments, exchanges, and refunds. In turn, other aspects of your business that need your attention will begin to suffer. You may even start to lose sight of why you started your business in the first place.
Contracting a fulfillment service will take the weight of shipping off of your shoulders so you can focus your time and energy on other important aspects of your business. Once you can focus again, you can concentrate on your products, marketing, and different ways you can grow your business.
6. A Fulfillment Company Can Reduce Fixed Costs
When you carry your own product, you pay the same amount of rent and utilities for the space no matter how your sales are doing. If revenue is doing well, it’s easy to pay the bill; but if sales remain stagnant or decline, that bill becomes much more challenging to take care of.
When you use a fulfillment company, these fixed costs become variable. If your sales decrease, your fulfillment expenses also decrease. On the other hand, when times are good, you can increase the amount you pay based on demand. This makes it much easier to stay in line with your company budget.
7. Outsourcing Fulfillment Will Help Your Business Grow
Growth is the goal of any company. Expansion can lead to more sales, which allows you to put more money into growing your company. Unfortunately, expansion can be quite expensive. The old saying, “You need to spend money to make money,” can be challenging when you’re strapped for cash.
Using a fulfillment company can help you achieve your goals in terms of expansion. On your own, this can be costly; teaming up with a fulfillment service can make it easier to take risks without the fear of losing revenue.
8. Benefit From Personalized Packaging
Packaging presentation is crucial for an eCommerce company. A physical package is the first physical contact your customers make with your company if you think about it.
Instead of having plain packaging, make a worthy impression with personalized packing. An order fulfillment company can help improve your packaging, making it fresh and exciting. This might include custom inserts, coupons, and boxes. This helps build customer loyalty, making them feel like they are a part of the company family.
Free Up Your Time and Resources With MintFulfill
If you’re ready to take your company to new heights with a fulfillment company, MintFulfill is here for all of your shipping needs. Our system automatically fulfills orders so you can focus on scaling your business. You can choose a custom fulfillment plan that best fits your needs for as little as one dollar.
We’re eager to become a vital part of your shipping team! Contact us today to get started.