If you are just starting an online business or you’ve been selling online for a while, you’ve probably thought about how to send your orders to your customers and what packaging you are going to send it in. Or you might be considering streamlining your fulfilment process.
Having your products online and making sales is the most exciting part of building your business, but what happens after a customer has ordered? Your product needs to end up in your customer’s hands and first impressions count.
There are many benefits to picking and packing your own orders for your customers. But what happens when your business is growing quickly and you are spending more time packing your products for shipping, rather than focusing on what you do best? You may want to look at exploring a fulfilment company to handle your “back-end” operations.
Some e-commerce businesses already struggle with product fulfilment. This will only become more difficult with increasing customer demand. If you own an online store, you know how difficult it is to stay on top of online orders. Late shipping or shipping errors can impact your store’s image and reduce cash flow. An order fulfilment center is one way an e-commerce store can maximize sales and keep up with shipping demands.
What is an Order Fulfillment Center?
Many e-commerce retailers choose to handle the shipping and order logistics on their own. But with increased growth, they may eventually find it impossible to manage without assistance. That’s where an order fulfillment center can help.
E-commerce businesses store their inventory at order fulfillment centers. When a customer makes a purchase, the fulfillment center gets notified. They’ll package the purchase and send it off for shipping. Order fulfillment centers can also process returns. In short, an order fulfillment center manages the packaging and shipping for e-commerce businesses. They are essentially warehouses with advanced and specialized fulfillment services.
How Does an Order Fulfillment Center Work?
On your end, you only need to make sure the fulfillment center has enough inventory to handle orders. When you ship your inventory to the order fulfillment center, they will log the items in their warehouse database. E-commerce businesses can keep an eye on their inventory, usually in real time.
Most online stores have easy integration with fulfillment center logistics. When a customer purchases an item from your store, the fulfillment center will process the order without any input from you.
If a customer refunds a purchase, they’ll receive the item and inspect its condition. If it’s still sellable, they’ll put it back in the inventory for future customers to buy. Best of all, you can still personalize orders at an order fulfillment center. Some centers will use your own labeled packaging, while others will add custom packaging slips to brand your company.
Why 8Commerce?
These are just several of the many reasons why you should work with us at 8Commerce:
- We fully assisted sellers in their business operations, from receiving, packaging and sending orders to handling issues in transactions should they arise.
- We utilize smart warehouse and advanced IT facilities that would speed up the handling and management of goods
- We significantly bring operational costs down compared to when you are renting your own warehouse or building new outlets
Click here to get in touch and we are happy to give you more reasons.