order fulfillment

Happy New Year! Dropshipping is growing rapidly, with online retail sales increasing year on year and more and more stores selling their products digitally. As 2023 creeps in, there are set to be plenty of developments in order fulfillment that’ll put business owners to the test in their mission to secure long-term customer loyalty. Continue reading for the top trends to watch out for in 2023 and beyond on the future of order fulfillment.

In-Store Availability

While there is an understandable focus on the push towards online transactions, with orders sent directly to a customer’s doorstep, the future may still need and want brick-and-mortar stores. The last decade’s decline in physical retailers has forced many dropshippers to rethink their use of physical spaces, with some opting to offer customers in-store pickup for their online purchases.

This allows customers to maintain physical interactions that often lead to greater satisfaction for retail transactions, and also reduces an entire web of shipping logistics and issues. Order fulfillment may look different in the future, but that doesn’t mean physical stores will disappear. Customer feedback will ultimately decide its fate.

Drop Shipping

While many businesses have made and will continue to make improvements to their supply chain and warehouse management systems, some have chosen another route. In the future, an increase in drop shipments to fulfill orders, in which a seller acts as a third party between a buyer and a product manufacturer will likely be seen.

Like many of the other trends in order fulfillment, there is nothing new when it comes to dropping shipping. Sellers always act alongside wholesalers and other vendors to distribute their products. However, in the future sellers will likely offload their physical storage and manufacturing wherever possible.

Increased Use Of Artificial Intelligence

Another trend to watch out for in the future of order fulfillment is the use of artificial intelligence programs and algorithms to improve efficiency. The more dropshipping businesses can integrate smart data management programs, the more successful their business would be.

This means digitizing inventory to spot how swiftly certain products move, optimizing warehouse organization and shipping logistics, applications that can seamlessly transfer and utilize point-of-sale information, and a lot more.

Automating warehouse procurement will only be as useful as the underlying software allows. Successful use of AI will free up human employees from boring tasks, and allow them to concentrate on jobs that benefit from personal connection.

International Logistics

Internationalization is also one of the biggest trends in order fulfillment. Even for smaller businesses, it’s now worthwhile to tap into larger markets and sell their products across borders and in various international locations. This is possible through extensive web store solutions. And above all, globally operating fulfillment centers, with their wide logistics networks, allow uncomplicated cross-border trade.

Customer Journey

As people increasingly store online, it’s critical to set up a technical infrastructure that will capture and track all user experiences on a web store. Everything must be done anonymously and in compliance with data protection laws, from the first click on the website, through product selection, and optimization of the ordering process, to e-mail marketing.

Also, this involves the automatic sending of tracking data when parcels are shipped or the collection of reviews across all platforms. It’s only when the effectiveness of a web store is measured can various adjusting screws be turned to enable the best possible shopping customer experience.

Use of New Networks

When an order is fulfilled for a customer in 2030, the shipping networks and infrastructure allowing that transaction may look completely different than those of today. Dropshippers are now assessing the viability of utilizing smart vehicles, such as fleets of automated electric trucks, to reduce carbon emissions and decouple traditional shipping companies.

Aerial delivery drones continue to remain in preliminary beta testing for the world, but will no doubt be used to fulfill online orders for many in the coming years. These new shipping networks will allow dropshipping businesses to rethink their traditional use of roads, fuel, manpower, and third-party shipping platforms.

Parting Words

Trends and progress of order fulfillment will go up and further. The bottom line is that these trends will enable online businesses to address the new requirements of customers, the challenges, and the remaining expectations for efficiency improvement. Innovation has always created new opportunities and has allowed dropshipping businesses to grow. And that is the case with order fulfillment. The people who most benefit from the evolution of order fulfillment will be those who embrace this change, leverage the trends it offers, and uses it to their advantage. Cheers to a wonderful year ahead and a great future!

Turn To Us For Your Order Fulfillment Needs!

Do you need a reputable order fulfillment services company for your ecommerce business? Contact us today at Fulfillman. We provide a wide range of services including Global Fulfillment, China Sourcing, Drop Shipping, Third Party Logistics, and lots more. Our trusted experts will be happy to speak with you and provide suitable answers to your questions and concerns. A fantastic experience awaits you.

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Order fulfillment should be an easy process consisting of a routine method that leaves customers and everyone involved in the supply chain satisfied with the result. If you want your e-commerce or dropshipping business to be highly successful, it’s no secret that getting your products to the customer is a key contributor to that achievement. Continue reading to discover the keys to success in order fulfillment.

Know How The Order Fulfillment Process Works

It makes sense to know all about the order fulfillment process before you commence it. The knowledge you’ve acquired will allow you to offer an excellent order fulfillment process and satisfy your customers. Knowing how the process works allows you to leave your customers happy and build your business in the long run.

Be Well-0rganized

Being organized in your warehouses is also a key to success in order fulfillment. No one can find anything easily if a warehouse is in a disorganized mess. More so, efficiency will suffer. This inefficiency will result in order fulfillment being delayed, orders may be lost, and in the end, your bottom line will suffer. Therefore, it’s worth the extra time up-front to organize warehouse shelves and to educate staff on where everything can be found.

Standardize Your Order fulfillment Operations

Among all the other tips mentioned above, consistency is one of the most vital elements of a successful order fulfillment process. Everyone in your business should know their role and should be able to handle their daily duties effectively. If any business treats every order that comes in with random, inconsistent methods, staff will become exhausted, customers will become frustrated, and the business won’t survive. Maintaining a consistent process solves any issue and allows your order fulfillment process to flourish.

Communicate Effectively

Anita Roddick said, “Communication is the key to any global business.” An effective line of communication with fulfillment centers is key to tracking your operations. Also, communicating clearly with customers will bring about transparency and enhance their confidence in your order fulfillment process.

Focus On Your Customers’ Experience

Your customers’ experience is key to creating lasting loyalty to your brand. A good customer experience also boils down to honest communication. If a product was lost, let the customer know, and tell them how you’ll make it right. While they may be upset at that moment, they’ll respect you more in the long run for your candor.

Partner With The Right Supplier

Your customers would hold you responsible if your supplier underperforms. To avoid that, you should partner up with an established, reputable, and reliable shipper. Ensure that they have an impressive track of records to avoid any order fulfillment process issues.

Double-Check The Products Before You Shipping

Customers won’t be happy if they get a parcel of theirs containing the wrong product, especially if they have waited for a long time to get it. To ensure an exponential success rate in your order fulfillment, you should employ an order-picking strategy. It’s a perfect and seamless way of matching inventory with customer orders so that the wrong product is never shipped to a customer.

Enlighten Customers on the Cost of Delivery for Order fulfillment

Different entrepreneurs take on different criteria like the weight of the product to arrive at a delivery cost. Whichever way it goes, make efforts to enlighten your customers on the delivery costs and criteria employed to determine them. When customers know how the delivery price is determined, they’ll develop stronger confidence in your order fulfillment process.

Follow-Up

One way to measure if you are successful in order fulfillment is if customers are happy with your products or services. Follow up orders with fast text messages or emails to be certain that the customer is 100% satisfied. If any problem arises, try to resolve it immediately. This will allow you to build a good relationship with customers and help you prevent chargebacks.

Parting Words

While there are many keys to success in order fulfillment, the 7pointsenumerated above are some of the easiest and most intuitive ones that you should apply to your business. As long as you implement a consistent, data-driven, organized, transparent process designed with the customer in mind, your order fulfillment process will improve in a fairly reasonable amount of time. Then the doors of a successful business will open up to you.

Call Us Today!

Do you need a reputable order fulfillment services company for your ecommerce business? Contact us today at Fulfillman. We provide a wide range of services including Global Fulfillment, China Sourcing, Drop Shipping, Third Party Logistics, and lots more. Our trusted experts will be happy to speak with you and provide suitable answers to your questions and concerns. A fantastic experience awaits you.

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According to Shopify, 86% of Fortune 500 companies and 96% of the Fortune 100 use order fulfillment services. If these brands trust their business in the hands of an order fulfillment company, why can’t you? Whether or not you need order fulfillment services usually depends on you and your business.

Additionally, your business can benefit from working with an order fulfillment company if your margins are decent. With the help of the right fulfillment partner, you can take your business to greater heights. Continue reading to discover the merits of using order fulfillment services.

You Don’t Need A Warehouse

One of the merits of using order fulfillment services is that you don’t have to warehouse your goods yourself. Managing your warehouse can be expensive. When you run your warehouse, not only would you pay for the space but everything else that goes into that space.

Easily Integrates With Ecommerce Platforms

Using order fulfillment services also integrates all of your ecommerce platforms for a stress-free solution. Instead of figuring out how to integrate each system yourself, you can hand this over to an experienced order fulfillment company that can help you integrate all your systems.

Having them help you out not only ensures that your system is set up right but frees up your time and money to focus on growing your business.

Order Fulfillment Services helps Negotiate Better Shipping Prices

Working with an order fulfillment company will help you take advantage of better shipping prices. If you’re doing self-fulfillment and shipping 50 orders per day, you won’t have as much negotiating power as if you part of a much larger group shipping thousands of orders per day.

The companies that do the actual delivery want to incentivize having a fuller truck so the more orders you ship the better the deal they’ll offer. Therefore, using an order fulfillment service that’s shipping hundreds or thousands of packages each day will make you benefit from that discount.

You Don’t Have to Hire Warehouse Employees

Keeping an order fulfillment in-house can be expensive and time-consuming. An order fulfillment company takes care of this work for you. They’re structured in such a way that they’ll make your business grow.

They’ve amazing employees that work hard to treat your brand with respect and care. They’re firm believers in doing what you’re best at and they’re good at hiring, training, and managing great warehouse staff.

Ability to Grow

When your business is in growth mode, the last thing you want is to pull up on the reigns and slow things down because you can’t keep up with fulfillment. The alternative would be to work yourself or employees into the ground to try and keep up. None is a good option. Using an order fulfillment services will give you plenty of runways to let your business take off.

Order Fulfillment Services help Save Time

If you’re still mailing packages out of your basement, then you’re not ready for a warehouse and you don’t have to worry about those costs yet. But how much time is self-fulfillment costing you?

How much time could you use to grow your business? Are you saving any money by doing self-fulfillment? If you’re sending out 20 or more orders a day, it’s high time you upgrade to using the order fulfillment services.

Ability to Go International

Going international can be a hassle as it’s not just getting your product to your customer that’s the tough part; it’s all the paperwork that goes with it too. According to Shopify, one of the bottlenecks of going internationally is dealing with global fulfillment.

Few business owners take care of documentation, customs, and other issues that may occur when dealing with overseas sales. Teaming with an order fulfillment company that has the experience and knows the lay of the land, you can minimize the headache and hassle of going international.

Outside Support

Nobody can be an expert in every area of their business. Sometimes a little assistance can make all the difference. Order fulfillment companies support your business so that you can focus on other things. They’ll give you a supporting hand in the supply chain of your business. They’ll also help you find areas for improvement. Ultimately, they’ll help your business grow.

Takeaway – Order Fulfillment Services May Be Right for Your Online Business

Self-fulfillment can seem a great way to save money but not always. It’s costly and requires a lot of cash to put together a warehouse of your own. Using order fulfillment services can save you time, and money and give you the ability to grow and expand your business. At this junction, it will be best you upgrade to using order fulfillment service if you haven’t.

Need Order Fulfilment Services? Contact Us Today!

Do you need a reputable order fulfillment services company for your ecommerce business? Contact us today at Fulfillman. We provide a wide range of services including Global Fulfillment, China Sourcing, Drop Shipping, Third Party Logistics, and lots more. What’s more, our trusted experts will be happy to speak with you and provide suitable answers to your questions and concerns. A fantastic experience awaits you.

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Order fulfillment is the complete process from when an order is placed, or a sale takes place to a customer receiving the package. Two of the top qualities customers consider when they shop online are cost and the estimated time of delivery, the latter influences 68% of customers’ decisions to purchase.

A successful order fulfillment process relies on a third-party logistics company (3PL) or a fulfillment center to complete all of the processes required. What goes on in the fulfillment center may seem to be a mystery, but it doesn’t have to be. The process of order fulfillment is about creating a brilliant experience for your customers. Continue reading to know more about the order fulfillment process, what it entails, and how it works.

Receiving Inventory

The first process to order fulfillment is receiving inventory from suppliers. Products may come from a third party, another company department, or a company warehouse. In any case, the incoming inventory must be counted, inspected, and double-checked to ensure the proper amount was received and the quality is acceptable. The bar codes on the arriving products are used in the receiving and storage processes, and to retrieve goods from internal storage later.

Inventory Storage

Once goods are received in the fulfillment center, they are inventoried. Then, they’re either immediately disbursed or sent to short- or longer-term storage. Products are ideally stored just long enough to help organize the orderly distribution of goods for existing sales, rather than to hold products for future sales.

Order Processing

An order processing management system dictates product picking and packing activities per each newly-received customer order. In the online marketplace, order management software can be integrated with the shopping cart on an ecommerce or dropshipping website to automatically initiate order processing.

Picking

A picking team or automated warehouse robots select products from the warehouse according to a packing slip’s instructions. The packing slip contains specific information, such as a list of product bar codes, product colors, sizes, number of units, and location in the distribution center’s warehouse.

Packing

Packing materials are selected by the packing team or automated fulfillment robots to achieve the lowest practical dimensional weight, which is calculated by multiplying package length times width times height. Since space on delivery trucks is at a premium, optimizing dimensional weight is important to speed transport while also potentially lowering shipment costs. Furthermore, packing teams often include return shipping materials and labels in case the customer wishes to exchange or return the product for a refund later.

Shipping

The order is sent to a shipping node or a transportation channel to be shipped to the customer. Shippers and carriers, whether freight lines or airlines, FedEx, the U.S. Postal Service, or other carriers, determine freight billable costs by whichever is greater: actual package weight or its dimensional weight.

Even if the actual weight is low, such as with a t-shirt, packing it in the lowest dimension is often worth it to keep the packaging from adding significantly to the overall package weight. Likewise, most carriers have packaging rules to optimize their profits from the shipping space they have available. Failing to meet those requirements can delay shipping if carriers refuse to accept the order.

Delivery

It is common for shipping routes to involve more than one carrier. For instance, FedEx may pick up a package at the fulfillment center that will later be delivered by the USPS to the customer’s home. There are many reasons for these hybrid shipping methods. One common example is that the USPS delivers even to remote areas where most other commercial carriers don’t. It’s simply just practical to use the USPS for the last mile of delivery in those cases.

Returns Processing

92.0% of customers say that they’ll buy from a business again if the returns process is easy. Returns processing begins by including shipping materials and a return label with the original customer’s order. When a customer returns a product for an exchange or a refund, the process must be executed carefully to ensure it’s appropriate to restock it.

If the product malfunctions or is damaged or soiled, then it can’t be restocked. Returns processing includes quality control checks and sorting returned products accordingly. Return products are then restocked, returned to a manufacturer for a distributor refund or credit, or sent to a recycling center.

Take Away

The order fulfillment processes differ depending on the type of fulfillment strategy you use. But a general idea of what the order fulfillment process looks like for an ecommerce retailer, dropshipper, or online business owner has been discussed.

Now that you’ve been enlightened on how the order fulfillment process works, how you get products to your customers faster is by optimizing your inventory management, double-checking the products before shipping, improving relationships with suppliers, and being transparent with customers. Finally, you’ll be on your way to satisfying them. Good luck!

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Sustainable order fulfillment means reducing the impact of your packaging design. Order fulfillment shouldn’t take place on a massive scale for it to become costly in terms of waste. According to the EPA “Environmental Protection Agency,” packaging is responsible for a third of all household waste. Sustainable order fulfillment is necessary to save you money and impacts your brand perception. In this post, we will be discussing some wonderful tips for sustainable order fulfillment.

Standardize Your Process

The first step to sustainable order fulfillment is consistency. It is one of the most important elements of a sustainable order fulfillment process. Everyone in your business should know their role and be able to handle their duties well. Maintaining a consistent process effectively solves any issue and allows you to reach a sustainable order fulfillment goal.

Avoid Over-Packaging

Over-packaging is when more packaging is used than necessary to protect a product. Perhaps, this is a widespread problem within e-commerce. Before you make any design changes, it’s important to consider whether you need the amount of packaging you have been using. Eliminating unnecessary packaging reduces packaging waste, saves money, and saves time by simplifying your order fulfillment. By cutting down the amount of time it takes to put together each package, you are creating a far more sustainable order fulfillment.

Decide If Boxes Are Necessary For Order Fulfillment

Due to online marketplaces like Amazon, the brown cardboard box has become a ubiquitous part of online retail. However, it might not be necessary for every online order you receive. For dropshippers selling small-sized goods and with smaller order sizes, shipping mailers present a lower impact, and more cost-effective, alternative. Because they are less bulky than boxes, they will keep your shipping costs down. If you do need boxes, make sure you’re buying the appropriate size. In sum, the right-sized box is the foundation for sustainable order fulfillment.

Explain Your Order Fulfillment to Customers

If any specific disposal procedures should be taken with your packaging, it’s very important to make sure that your business communicates this. Adopting sustainable e-commerce packaging is the first step. If your customers don’t know about it, then your business can’t ensure responsible disposal. Consider enclosing packaging inserts with your orders that explain what steps you’ve taken in your order fulfillment, why you have done it, and what customers can do to help. This adds to a sustainable order fulfillment process

Maximize The Use Of Renewable Materials

When it comes to sustainable order fulfillment, renewable materials like paper and cardboard are your biggest ally. It’s easy to source. It also offers a loa t of recycling and reuse options. It’s also incredibly versatile and can be used for many different packaging elements, like containers, tissue paper, wrap, attackers, and packing filler.

Organization Leads To Success

If your online store is a disorganized mess where no one can find anything they need, efficiency will suffer. This inefficiency will make your order likely to be delayed or lost. And in the end, your bottom line will suffer. It is worth the extra time to organize yourself and to educate staff on where everything can be found.

Focus On The Customer Experience

The customer experience is key to creating lasting loyalty to your business. If your customers have been kept waiting or told inaccurate information about their product once, they might forgive you. However, if this becomes a habit, you will likely lose this customer to one of your competitors who makes customer service a priority. In the end, a good customer experience boils down to honest communication. If a product is lost, let the customer know, and tell them how you’ll make it right. While they may be upset at the moment, they’ll likely respect you more in the long run for your candor.

Encourage Reuse By Your Customers

The main reason packaging causes environmental issues is that it’s usually designed to be single-use. Once packaging has gotten a product safely to its destination, it’s fulfilled its purpose and is thrown away. In essence, it’s a linear model of production, use, and disposal. This results in mounting waste and simply isn’t sustainable. Your brand can challenge this by choosing packaging elements that can be reused by customers. For example, wrapping your orders inside branded tote bags is a fun value-added extra which is of genuine use to your customer.

Conclusion

While there are many moving pieces in a successful order fulfillment process, the 8 wonderful tips listed above are some of the easiest and most intuitive ones that can be applied to any business. As long as you implement a consistent, data-driven, organized, transparent process designed with the customer in mind, your order fulfillment process will be sustained.

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Order fulfillment is the process of warehousing, packaging, and shipping the products to the end-user. Easier said than done, this process can be complicated and stressful. So far as you as a business owner, order fulfillment issues are a common encounter. However, it’s only smart of you to know ways of solving them. Continue reading to discover feasible solutions to some common order fulfillment issues.

Locating Inventory

When customers order a product, you need to easily locate or order the product. If your warehouse is poorly organized or your communication with suppliers is mismanaged, you will have trouble locating the right inventory at the right time. And that will cause shipping delays. If customers pay for expedited delivery, they’ll get annoyed at delayed shipping.

To avoid this, maintain real-time data on your inventory. Hire warehouse workers you can trust. The faster you can locate your inventory, the faster your inventory will be delivered.

Damaged or Incorrect Inventory

After a customer has waited for days or weeks for a much-coveted product, receiving the wrong or damaged product can be infuriating. Some entrepreneurs knowingly send out slightly damaged inventory in the hopes a customer won’t notice. Rest assured, they notice. When they do, it costs you money to replace the product. At worse, the customer might think twice about ordering from you again.

Proper inventory management on the front end can prevent many of these issues. House your inventory safely. Ensure it is double-checked before sending. Invest in quality packaging, and always pay for insurance.

International Shipping

International shipping can take a week to several months. While international buyers don’t expect to get their products overnight, they will look elsewhere if they’ve to wait too long. Offer a range of shipping options to your international customers. Don’t be surprised that many are willing to pay a significant premium to get their products sooner. You might also want to consider negotiating a bulk international shipping rate if you do a large volume of international business.

Shipping Expenses

Retailers struggle with two distinct shipping-related expenses: determining how much to charge for shipping and keeping shipping costs reasonable. The simplest way to set shipping expenses is to do so by weight. If you don’t want to or can’t do that, then try establishing shipping costs based on price. Customers expect to pay more when they purchase more. So they’re less likely to balk at a slightly higher shipping fee.

Inadequate Customer Service

Customers would contact customer service if their product is missing, delayed, or damaged. Inadequate customer service may be the worst fulfillment mistake you make. If your customer service representatives can’t quickly and competently respond to customer concerns, why bother hiring them? You might also light your money on fire.

Invest in quality customer service representatives, even if it costs a little more. They’ll be better equipped to manage fulfillment issues, and you’ll have fewer angry customers on your hands.

Poor Inventory Management

There is nothing more frustrating to customers than purchasing a product only to discover that they can’t have it, or that they have to wait long to get it. Without diligent inventory management, you’ll sell out of products before you realize it, forcing you to issue refunds and incentives to disappointed customers.

Create an inventory management strategy to keep track of every product. Then ensure it automatically updates your store. If there’s a chance a product won’t be available, or you know it’s already on backorder, clearly notify customers of this fact in the listing.

Replacing Lost or Damaged Products

No matter how diligently you manage your store, some products will get lost or damaged. Replacing them can be costly. Therefore, consider purchasing shipping insurance for every product. Don’t charge customers for returned merchandise. Otherwise, you’ll have a bevy of irate consumers. Instead, you should offer them a free return envelope and pre-printed label for easy returns. Make the return process easy, and you’ll turn the mistake into a good experience that creates a loyal customer.

Moving Forward

Note that encountering order fulfillment issues are inevitable. Now that you are informed, that will give you an edge on having a prepared solution to any order fulfillment issue you might face now or in the future. Luckily, this article has done justice by giving you ways to solve 7 common order fulfillment issues. That will improve your likelihood of turning your one-time customers into your lifetime customers. Good luck!

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One of the top qualities customers consider when they shop online is the estimated time of delivery. In fact, this influences about 68% of customers’ decisions to purchase. A successful order fulfillment process makes it easier to meet those expectations. Any business brand needs to master order fulfillment. When order delivery is made at the right time without any lapses, the customer is bound to be happy. If that’s what you want, continue reading to discover some top-order fulfillment process tips for 2022 to guarantee the success and the flourishing of your ecommerce or dropshipping business.

Establish Communication

For a business to flourish, communication with customers is very important. During the product delivery, the customer would want to be kept abreast of its progress. When there is no communication, they’re likely to get worried. Ensure to build a connection with your customers. Communication influences and enhances their confidence in your order fulfillment process, which assures them that your supply chain is topnotch and can be highly leaned on.

Create a Customer Support System

In an e-commerce business, there may be cases where they’re missing products during delivery. When such happens, the typical response the customer makes is to lay a complaint to you. When there is a lack of customer service, there won’t be any room to receive customers’ complaints and this can be very bad for your business. Having representatives of customer service on the ground to receive and address order fulfillment issues is pivotal to having a happy and satisfied customer base.

Educate Customers about Delivery Costs

As an e-commerce retailer, you should make efforts to enlighten your customers on the delivery costs and criteria employed to determine them. Different e-commerce businesses take on different criteria, such as the weight of the product, to arrive at a delivery cost. When your customers know how the delivery price is determined, they will develop stronger confidence in your order fulfillment process. Also, ensure that you keep the shipping price at a pocket-friendly rate to avoid driving your customers away.

Build an Order Management System

As time goes on in an e-commerce business, the influx of orders will get overwhelming and when managed inappropriately, could initiate the downfall of a business. Establishing a distributed order management business is crucial to having an edge over your competitors. This management system allows you to monitor and manage orders instantaneously. It makes the location of the product ordered easy and organizes the order fulfillment process.

Improve Your Products Return Policy

The loss or damage of a product in an inventory of an e-commerce business might be bound to happen sometimes. When such occurs, replacement should begin regardless of the cost. In the delivery of a product to a customer, there should be a return policy as insurance for any product loss or damage. This should be done to ensure your customers of a quality order fulfillment process.

Collaborate With the Right Shipper

If your delivery time suffers some lapses because of your supplier, your e-commerce business is likely to suffer certain consequences. If your supplier underperforms, your customers are going to hold you responsible, not your shipper. To avoid that, you should partner up with an established, reputable, and reliable shipper. Ensure that they have an impressive track to avoid any order fulfillment process issues.

Double-Check the Products Before shipping

Can you imagine how frustrated you’d be if you received a parcel containing the wrong product? Not only would you be disappointed to have the incorrect item, but you would have to ship the product back and wait for a replacement. No one has time for that. An order picking strategy minimizes the risk of that happening to your customers. It’s a foolproof way of matching inventory with customer orders so that the wrong item is never shipped to your customer.

Enhance Transparency with Customers

Unfortunately, things can go wrong in the order fulfillment process, not all of them will be in your control. According to an e-commerce survey, 45% of shoppers are actively looking to shop from businesses that clearly show anticipated delivery times. However, 69.7% of customers would be less likely to shop with a retailer if their packages are delayed without a heads up.

Ensure to minimize the impact on customer satisfaction by informing them of the delay as soon as you realize it, apologizing for the delay, and giving a short explanation of why their parcel will be late. When you do this, you’ll gain an edge in replenishing them to meet the demand. In the long run, you’ll have an enviable order fulfillment process and keep your customers satisfied.

Conclusion

There you have it! These are the top order fulfillment process tips for 2022; you can likewise use these tips in the future. It will help you to establish a successful order fulfillment process vital for the growth of your ecommerce or dropshipping business. Establishing communication with customers, using a distributed order management system, being genuine, and more will help you create an excellent and successful order fulfillment process.

Do you need a reputable order fulfillment services company for your ecommerce business? Contact us today at Fulfillman. We provide a wide range of services including Global Fulfillment, China Sourcing, Drop Shipping, Third Party Logistics, and lots more. Our trusted experts will be happy to speak with you and provide suitable answers to your questions and concerns. A fantastic experience awaits you.

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Whether you’re considering performing orders in-house or are already carrying on order fulfillment internally, it’s crucial to understand some of the most common lapses you may face so you can fervently work toward evading them.

Understanding where you’re going wrong and what you can do to enhance order fulfillment will help you better manage order fulfillment and deliver improved customers experiences while still making a profit. In this article, we’ll look at some of the most common problem with order fulfillment and how to solve them and explain what you need to do to avoid them altogether.

Not Finding the Right Products in the Locations

If a product is not where it should be in your store or warehouse, this means the selector needs to spend time trying to find it. This sets back the order fulfillment, which can lead to unsatisfied customers and bad reviews. On top of that, it also makes for a highly incapable warehouse operation. With a warehouse management system (WMS), every product is scanned into a location. This means that when a selector is looking for a product, it will always be absolutely where it should be.

Impaired or Incorrect Inventory

When a client waits weeks or months for a much-desired product, receiving the wrong goods or damaged goods can be annoying. Some ecommerce businesses intentionally send out slightly impaired inventory in the hopes a client won’t notice. Some examples of this are a book with a crumpled cover, a binder with floppy rings, and a lipstick tube with a dent. Be sure that they notice.

When clients receive a damaged or wrong item, it costs them money to replace the item. In worse cases, the client may likely not order from you again. Proper inventory management on the front end can stop many of these issues from becoming a reality. Keep your inventory safe, and ensure it is checked twice before sending. It is good you spend on quality packaging, and always pay for insurance.

International Shipping

International shipping usually takes anywhere from a week to multiple months. While international customers do not expect to get their items overnight but they might look elsewhere if they have to wait too long. Offer multiple shipping options to your international customers. You may be surprised to find out that many are willing to pay an exceptional premium to get their goods sooner. You might also want to consider negotiating a large quantity international shipping rate if you do a bulk volume of international business.

You Have Hard Copy Picking

In this type of operation, you are required to print the paper and it must be carried by the picker. This process not only takes lots of time is but is also extremely incompetent and leaves a large margin for error due to missing or unfulfilled orders. This can be solved easily by eliminating paper from your warehouse by using warehouse management software with a mobile app. The mobile app displaces the paper, a bit like how your smartphone replaced the handwritten letter. When you take out the chances for human error, you’re in a good position to make sure that you’re able to ship every order at the right time, without failing

Shipping Notifications

Shipping notifications can look like such a minor thing, especially if the item is expected to arrive in two or three days. Most clients expect to get them. Many customers stalk their goods, confirming their location multiple times a day. Because most sellers offer shipping notifications, your client will probably want them. If they don’t get a notification, they might think the item hasn’t shipped. That leads to several unnecessary calls to customer service.

Labor-Intensive Picking

The truth is If you have too many selectors working at the same time, you will probably be spending more money on labor than you are getting back in return. Overtime is beginning to crawl in and in situations the time limit for fulfillment is missed. The most effective method to decrease the number of selectors needed for a single time frame is to start using automation in your warehouse. Automation should boost the productivity of all your selectors, meaning that fewer of them are needed to carry out the same amount of orders.

Incompetent Customer Service

Where do clients go when their items are nowhere to be found, damaged, or delayed? Customer service. Incompetent customer service might be the worst fulfillment mistake you can make. If your customer service representatives cannot swiftly and adequately respond to customer concerns, why bother even employing them? You may as well set your money ablaze. Invest in good customer service representatives, even if it costs slightly more. They’ll be better qualified to address fulfillment issues, and you’ll have lesser furious customers on your hands.

Bottom Line

There you have it! These are just some different problems your warehouse may be facing, with plenty of ways to settle them. At the center of it all is being clever about your techniques and people, with the appropriate tools and software you will be able to successfully fulfill your orders.

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The holiday shipping season is already here; It’s a hectic time for ecommerce businesses trying to fulfill and deliver products. Although the holiday shipping season is guaranteed to be a crazy and frantic time of year for any online business, having the correct fulfillment plan in place may go a long way toward making sure that your order fulfillment process runs smoothly and efficiently – even during the chaos. Without further ado, here are nine fulfillment suggestions for a great holiday season for your business!

Maintain a Well-Stocked Inventory

It’s critical to keep your inventory stocked at all times, especially around the holidays. On the other hand, all holiday season stock should be prepared and kept well ahead of the peak shipping period. Maintain communication with your suppliers to know when they can deliver. Order ahead of time to ensure that you have the things you need before your holiday offers begin; this is also critical for warehouse operations efficiency since it leads to better worker staffing to fulfill tasks. Due to effective inventory management, quick order fulfillment is also achievable. Additionally, estimate the number of orders you received in the previous season and procure stock appropriately.

Provide a Reasonable and Easy Returns Policy

Too many times, online businesses become so engrossed in the holiday shipping and fulfillment process that they forget to create a smart, smooth return policy in preparation for the anticipated post-holiday demand; this is a major blunder. Instead, set a reasonable return policy well ahead of the holiday season and convey it to your visitors on your website and product pages. It’s also a good idea to provide prepaid return tags in all of your clients’ orders.

Have Sufficient Shipping Supplies

Consistently acquire enough shipping supplies far ahead of time, in addition to stocking your inventories well before the peak season shipping season. The last thing you want is for your company to run out of shipping supplies during the busiest shopping season, so always restock. It’s also not a bad idea to get what you think will be a spare to be safe.

Keep Communication Lines Open With Customers And Suppliers

It’s vital to have good communication with your clients, vendors, and transporters. If a shipment of orders is postponed due to bad weather or a shortage of shipping materials, notify affected consumers as soon as possible via mailings, social media updates, and blogs. Maintain constant communication with your suppliers and couriers, and discuss concerns such as shipment deadlines, late deliveries, and inventory levels to avoid miscommunications that could sabotage your Holiday shipment and fulfillment operations.

Be Aware of The Shipping Deadlines For The Holiday Season

It’s also critical to be aware of any holiday shipping dates to maintain track of your fulfillment process. Knowing them can guide you in better preparing your fulfillment strategy and planning ahead of time to make the most of your time and resources.

Enlist the Help of a Third Party To Handle Your Fulfillment

The order fulfillment process is time-consuming, costly, and demands a great deal of effort and meticulousness from your staff, as any other online retailer will tell you. Outsourcing the processes to third-party professionals, on the other hand, can enable you to minimize this pressure and spare your time to focus on sales, promotion, and recruiting temporary staff for the holidays, among other things.

Keep Up With The Latest Marketing Trends.

Your Holiday marketing campaign should start far in before the holiday rush. Launch your promotions earlier to make them known to your target audience through newsletters, digital marketing, blog articles, and paid to advertise.

Prepare Before Time

Once it concerns having a successful holiday shipping season, preparedness is the foundation for success compared to keeping a well-stocked inventory. Always run a stress test on your website ahead of time to ensure that it will be able to manage the influx of Holiday purchases. In summary, make sure your site performs smoothly and swiftly, has an easy-to-navigate layout, and has a seamless checkout experience. It’s also a smart option to remind your employees what’s required of them before the holidays, double and that your website has updated and precise information concerning your delivery and return policies.

Maintain a Top-Notch Customer Service

Customer service is crucial when dealing with the holiday shipping pressure. Integrating chatbots and including a FAQ area on your website are both brilliant ideas. Your customer support agent should also have the necessary training and knowledge to deal with any question that comes their way. You can accomplish this with a centralized system for your site, order processing, shipping trackers. Customer service concerns will be addressed swiftly and efficiently once these systems are linked together.

Endnote

There you have it! Above are some insightful tips to handle order fulfillment during the holiday season. Often, it appears like everyone, but online retailers are having a good time over the holidays. Thankfully, enforcing the correct holiday shipping strategy and fulfillment plan can make sure that the busiest fulfillment and shipping period runs seamlessly and successfully.

Do you need help with order fulfillment during the holidays? Contact us today at Fulfillman. We provide a wide range of services including Global Fulfillment, China Sourcing, Drop Shipping, Third Party Logistics, and lots more. Our trusted experts will be happy to speak with you and provide suitable answers to your questions and concerns. A fantastic experience awaits you.

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The success of an e-commerce business is highly dependent on the supply chain. Successful order fulfillment is very essential, and when there are no lapses in the delivery process, the customer is happy. However, order fulfillment can be challenging. For this reason, it is vital to find ways to ease past these challenges. Here are ten tips that can help in optimizing your order fulfillment process:

Have the Knowledge of the Process

For the benefit of the business, you have to understand everything about the order fulfillment process. This understanding is vital because the order fulfillment process is complex and helps you to satisfy your customers. Understanding the order fulfillment process develops business and helps the business owner to satisfy customers.

Incorporate a Customer Support Service

Customer support service comes in if there are missing products during delivery. Because in an e-commerce business, there are tendencies of products getting missing during delivery or purchase. The customer support service will make a complaint to the brand about the missing product. In a situation where there is no customer support service, the customers will be helpless. Customer support services come in handy to satisfy customers.

Build Communication

Generally, communication is a vital tool in any business setting. In an e-commerce business, communication is most important because it is necessary to communicate with customers to satisfy their needs.

And there should be frequent communication with brand owners to establish long-lasting relationships. Communication influences the order fulfillment process because it gives confidence to customers.

Use a Flexible Warehouse Management System

Using a flexible warehouse management system is essential and instrumental for e-commerce business owners. Good warehouse management enables companies to increase their productivity and shipping due to smooth workflow. E-commerce business requires tracking of shipped products, and a warehouse management system makes this tracking easy. Warehouse management systems enable business owners to have flexible order fulfillment processes.

Cost of Delivery

Firstly, delivery costs should be decent to keep customers and satisfy their purchase. Furthermore, the customers should be made aware of the delivery costs and the criteria to determine them. If a customer knows how a delivery cost is determined, the customer will trust the order fulfillment process. Delivery costs depend on the weight or the speed of arrival of the product. Enlightenment of delivery costs boosts the confidence of customers in the order fulfillment process.

Establish an Order Management System.

In every business, there is always competition. Competition is even way higher in an e-commerce business. The order management system will help a business owner have the edge over a competitor. The mismanagement of a business will fall quickly in no time. The order management system allows an e-commerce business owner to manage and monitor orders efficiently and appropriately.

The order management system helps in the order fulfillment process to satisfy customers and keep the business moving.

Have the Prudence to Return Products

In an e-commerce business, the effort to return a damaged product is called a “product return policy.” At some point in the business, there are possibilities of having a damaged product or losing a product. Regardless of the cost of a missing or damaged product, the business owner should find a replacement for the product. The return policy is like an insurance policy that will give confidence to customers. Return policy offers quality to the order fulfillment process.

Use the Services of Multiple Suppliers and the Right Shippers

There will be peak time in the e-commerce business where there will be mass orders for products. It will not be ideal to start giving excuses of having limited goods and not being able to get more from the suppliers. And if the suppliers disappoint, the customers will hold the business owners accountable without asking any questions. To ensure not to disappoint customers, business owners must use the right shippers.

Be Genuine

One of the things a customer hates is seeing different products from the description of the products. E-commerce business owners should be lenient and truthful when describing or giving the features of a product.

Stating a feature that is not part of the features of a product weakens the relationship with customers. You need to create trust in the order fulfillment process, and you can’t do that with lies.

Proper Packaging

E-commerce business greatly depends on proper packaging. Proper packaging ensures that products arrive safely to the customers. Proper packaging protects products from breakage, water damage, and other physical damage.

The first thing a customer will see is the product’s packaging, so proper packaging satisfies customers. As the saying goes, the first impression matters. Business owners should use proper packaging to give such an impression to customers.

Endnote

To conclude, in e-commerce businesses, business owners need to create an efficient supply chain. To optimize the order fulfillment process, business owners need to work with the ten tips honestly.

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