Order Fulfilment Centre UK
Allow eCommerce merchants to outsource warehouses and shipping. This frees the online business from the physical space required to store all products, which is useful for traders who do not have the capacity to directly manage inventory. Vendors send the goods to the fulfillment centre, and the outsourcer sends the products to the customers for them.
Inventory management is a common operational issue for many online stores, but is an essential component of improving the best possible customer experience. Fulfillment centres make inventory management much easier and give store owners more time to focus on other areas of their business.
What are some of the most important inventory management problems?
A common problem for most online stores is that merchants place more orders for a particular item as they have the inventory to fulfill. Online stores then lead to lost sales and poor consumer sentiment to email customers and notify them that the product is out of stock. If angry customers write reviews, excessive sales discourage potential sales from other buyers. Outsourcing to fulfillment tightens control over inventory management.
Stocks are when a product is displayed as unavailable on the website; This is problematic if it is a good selling product. Additionally, many small eCommerce websites face problems with collection and shipping. Wrong items occur when you select the wrong item for an order. Mishaps means sending the wrong product to the customer. Damaged products are typically the correct product, but become unusable when the product reaches the customer. Shipping issues are a risk, as there are so many tasks that ecommerce store owners have to tackle. In particular, this type of inventory problem harms customer satisfaction.
Using an order fulfillment centre to coordinate inventory and send it to customers
Online stores have a variety of options for inventory management with an outsourcing fulfillment centre. Select and review products before sending them to the fulfillment centre, or have them shipped directly from the manufacturer to the warehouse. Depending on the type of online store, you will need to choose one of these options. A fulfillment centre gives you the ability to scale your business in the future. Fulfillment will not require much attention if you plan to launch new product lines in the future. Outsourced fulfillment speeds up the time for a new line to reach the market.
In addition, this service improves shipping and returns processes. As large carriers are often willing to negotiate with shippers promising high-volume packages, fulfillment centres can often get a better price than a single online store can get alone. Lower flat shipping costs allow some sellers to start offering free shipping to customers. Outsourced order fulfillment centres send package tracking numbers to merchants, and these numbers relay information to customers.
Outsourcing strengthens your return process. Some industries such as fashion and retail have examples of higher returns. Returned products can be sent to the warehouse instead of your operation location. This gives store owners more flexibility and less hassle in processing. Sellers are required to refund only when necessary, rather than coordinating the return shipping.
When choosing an outsourced repository and fulfillment partner, it is important to make sure they can integrate with your existing eCommerce software. This makes it easy to track orders and send tracking information to customers. Many providers will work with the individual needs of an online store to find the right solution. Outsourcing for something as time consuming and as complex as fulfillment can make transactions easier for traders.
