Benefits of Outsourcing your Order Fulfillment Services
On a typical day, your business receives orders from customers via your website, by regular mail, by telephone or email. The order goes to your warehouse for picking and packing, the shipping company is notified, and the order is shipped and billed and added to your management statistics for future analysis. You may also have promotional materials to be printed or updated and sent to various locations. If all this goes smoothly every day, with few problems or errors, it still may be costing too much. This is where an order fulfillment services company can help.
An order fulfillment services company can do all the above for you, and save you money besides. Using the economies of scale, they can receive your merchandise from the supplier, store it in a dedicated area in their warehouse, receive the order from your customer, pick the order and ship it to your customer. They can design and monitor your website, have the shopping cart orders go directly to them, and they can handle credit card approval and payment.
An order fulfillment services company will also provide sophisticated management information, so both you and the company will know what inventory items to store, and in what quantities. They can ship products less expensively, because of the volume they do with shipping companies. Their trained personnel will be dedicated to your company, from customer service representatives to Internet experts to warehouse personnel. The customer will believe they are dealing directly with your company, making the operation seamless. As you provide them with advance notice of shipments, they will have the warehouse space ready.
An order fulfillment services company will prepare all shipping documents, including those for overseas shipment. They will receive and inspect all merchandise returns, putting acceptable returns back into inventory and issuing a credit memorandum to the customer. They will update all specific shipping information for your customers, so the merchandise will be shipped in the form the customer requires.
Promotional materials, such as catalogs, price lists and sales brochures, have to be printed, put on the Internet and updated on a regular basis. By using a website dedicated to your company, your sales reps can update the information and have it go directly to a printer at the order services fulfillment company’s site. It can then be distributed in accordance with your instructions. The order services fulfillment company will store your promotional materials, and ship them as needed. Sophisticated statistical information will aid in forecasting usage.
An order fulfillment services company will review all procedures with you on a regular basis. They will monitor volume, turnaround time and accuracy. A cost-benefit analysis will assist you in deciding if an order fulfillment services company is the right solution for you. For more information, contact us.