The ecommerce industry is growing faster than ever. In 2007 ecommerce accounted for only 3.4% of retail sales but in 2021 ecommerce accounted for 21.3% of retail sales. This growth of ecommerce has led to an increased demand for order fulfillment services, especially for small businesses and startups grappling with the dynamic changes in the supply chain.
As technology evolves so does the supply chain industry. It can be tough for small businesses and startups to keep up with these changes. That’s why so many are coming to understand the impact an order fulfillment companies can have on their business.
What Do Order Fulfillment Companies Do?
What exactly do order fulfillment companies bring to the table? Essentially, they handle logistics and supply chain management, outsourcing distribution and fulfillment tasks for businesses. For Ship Central, it means not just facilitating product delivery but also alleviating the challenges of time, money, and complexities associated with getting products to customers.
To us at Ship Central it’s even more than that, it means taking the time, money and headache out of getting your product to your customers. To learn more about the fulfillment process, click here!
Services commonly offered by order fulfillment companies include:
- Warehousing
- Picking & packing
- Shipping
- Kitting
- Logistics
- Cross docking
- International shipping
Who Needs an Order Fulfillment Company?
Whether or not you need or would benefit from using an order fulfillment company depends on you and your business. Any size company can benefit from using an order fulfillment company especially if your margins are decent.
According to Shopify, “An estimated 86% of Fortune 500 companies and 96% of the Fortune 100 use these services.” So if these big brands trust their business in the hands of an order fulfillment company, why not you?
Startups and small businesses in particular can benefit from the use of order fulfillment services. As a company that’s ready to grow, working with an order fulfillment company could be a huge advantage to you. You get to take advantage of benefits typically only available to larger companies. It’s like you’re banding together with other businesses to get the benefits a single big businesses enjoys.
Why Use an Order Fulfillment Company
8 Benefits of Order Fulfillment Companies
Order fulfillment companies can be a big benefit to your company. With the help of the right fulfillment partner you can take your business to the next level. Here are 7 major benefits of leveraging order fulfillment companies for your business:
1. Warehouse Solution
One of the biggest benefits of turning your fulfillment over to an order fulfillment company is that you don’t have to warehouse your goods yourself. Managing your own warehouse can be extremely expensive. When you run your own warehouse you not only need to pay for the space but everything else that goes in that space. By outsourcing to an order fulfillment company, you eliminate the need to manage your own warehouse. This translates to significant cost savings, sparing you expenses such as warehouse racks, forklifts, conveyor belts, packing materials, and various software.
2. Seamless Ecommerce Platform Integration
An order fulfillment company can help you to integrate all of your ecommerce platforms for a stress free solution. Instead of figuring out how to integrate each individual system yourself and having to manage that which might require extra IT help (more $$) you can hand this over to an experienced order fulfillment company that can help you integrate all your systems.
Having the pros 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.
3. Negotiate Better Shipping Costs
Working with an order fulfillment company will actually help you take advantage of better shipping prices. Why? Well if you’re just doing self-fulfillment and shipping 50 orders per day you don’t have as much negotiating power than if you part of a much larger group shipping hundreds of orders per day.
The companies that do the actual delivery (USPS, FedEx, etc.) want to incentivize having a fuller truck so the more orders you ship the better the deal they will offer. So when you work with an order fulfillment company that’s shipping hundreds or thousands of packages each day, you’ll be able to benefit from that discount.
4. You Don’t Have to Hire Warehouse Employees
When you keep order fulfillment in-house, not only do you have to pay for the warehouse space and all the necessary equipment to make the system work, you also have to hire employees to run the warehouse. This can be expensive and time consuming! We know how much business owners care about their employees and if you hire on employees while you’re growing or during a busy season only to have to let them go when sales slow it can really weight heavy on your conscience.
With an order fulfillment company they take care of this work for you. We’ve structured our company so that we can grow with you. Not to mention that we have amazing employees that work hard to treat your brand with care and respect. We’re firm believers in doing what you’re best at and we’re really good at hiring, training and managing great warehouse staff.
5. Ability to Go International
Going global is simplified with order fulfillment companies. Their experience in dealing with international logistics, documentation, customs, and duties streamlines the process for businesses looking to expand globally.
According to Shopify, “One of the bottlenecks of growing internationally is dealing with global fulfillment. Few people in the world want to take care of documentation, customs, duties, and other issues that may occur when dealing with overseas sales.”
By teaming up with an order fulfillment company that has experience and knows the lay of the land, you can minimize the headache and hassle to going international.
6. Scalability
When your company is in major growth mode, the last thing you want to have to do is pull up on the reigns and slow things down because you can’t keep up with fulfillment. The alternative would be to work your employees into the ground in order to try and keep up. Neither one is a good option.
Finding an order fulfillment company that you can grow into will give you plenty of runway to really let your business take off.
7. Time Savings for Focus on Growth
If you’re a startup and still mailing packages out of your basement, then maybe 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 more could you do to grow your business with that time?
If time is money then are you actually saving any money by doing self-fulfillment? If you’re sending out 20 or more orders a day, it might be time to seriously consider upgrading to an order fulfillment company.
By outsourcing fulfillment, businesses save time previously spent on packing and shipping. This newfound time can be redirected towards strategic activities aimed at business growth.
8. External Support and Expertise
Nobody can be an expert or specialist in every area of business, and sometimes a little support in the right area can make all the difference. Order fulfillment companies can help to support your business so that you can focus on what you’re best at. An order fulfillment can give you a fresh look at the supply chain of your business and help you find areas for improvement.
Here at Ship Central we provide top-notch customer service because to us you’re not just another number. When you call us a real person can help you solve whatever problem your facing. Our goal is to support you and help your business grow.
The Takeaway
Self-fulfillment can seem like a great way to save money but that’s not always true. In fact self-fulfillment can be quite costly and require a lot cash to put together a warehouse of your own.
An order fulfillment company can save you time and money while also giving you the ability to grow and expand your business.
At Ship Central we’re ready to help you grow your business by taking the headache out of fulfillment. Our state-of-the-art facility and software allows you to stay in control with real time analytics and updates.