Behind every successful online shop is a dedicated e-commerce fulfillment team that ensures customers are satisfied with shipping times and order packing. But what do these valuable team members do day-to-day? Let's learn about e-commerce fulfillment and what goes into this crucial job.
E-commerce fulfillment is a term that encapsulates a wide range of job activities starting the minute a customer places an order on your website. The process doesn't end until your products arrive at your customer's door. Let's walk through a few of the steps that e-commerce fulfillment teams follow in this step of the supply chain.
The best part is that this process is easy to outsource. It isn't cost-effective for all companies to have their own fulfillment system and team, especially since team members need to display a high level of expertise in the fulfillment aspect of the supply chain. For this reason, many companies opt to work with an e-commerce fulfillment team, also called a third-party logistics (3PL) company.
By partnering with a 3PL like Smart Warehousing, you can reduce the financial burden of e-commerce fulfillment on your business.
E-commerce fulfillment centers must be well-organized to provide value to their customers. With the huge advancements in warehouse technologies, equipment, and automation that we have seen over the past few years, warehouse workflow and storage have improved dramatically. The processes of e-commerce fulfillment centers vary slightly between companies, but they generally follow something that looks like this.
You can't sell products without inventory. The first step for any e-commerce fulfillment center is receiving inventory at the warehouse or fulfillment center. When you are working with a third-party service, you will want to make sure that your products are labeled properly to ensure that the processing of your products is speedy and accurate.
Organizing and storing your inventory is the next step for your fulfillment team to tackle. When stored properly, your products are protected from damage and are easy for pickers to find on warehouse shelves. Proper inventory management also helps you see exactly what products you have available to ship at any given moment.
A well-run inventory management team requires people trained to operate equipment that can move large pallets full of merchandise and shelve them within a day or two of arriving at the warehouse. Once the merchandise is stocked, it needs to be logged into your inventory management system to ensure that you know exactly how much of each item you have in stock at any given time.
When an order is placed through your website, it needs to get processed. The steps of processing an order include picking and packing products.
Order picking is the stage where the items that were ordered are found and pulled from warehouse shelves. After the items are retrieved, a packer will take the products, put them in an appropriately sized box or bubble mailer, add any protective materials and inserts, and box everything up. The packer will then apply a shipping label.
The shipping process typically involves someone delivering the packages to a shipping carrier or handing the packages over to a carrier who stops by to pick up packages.
While you hope that most of your customers are 100% satisfied with their orders, you will inevitably deal with returns. When a return comes through, you need to be able to process it. When working with an e-commerce fulfillment center, the products may be sent directly to you or the fulfillment provider you work with. At this point, it needs to be evaluated to determine if the quality is high enough to be restocked on the warehouse shelves or disposed of.
Not every company needs to outsource e-commerce fulfillment, but many businesses could benefit from the service that Smart Warehousing provides. An e-commerce fulfillment company can be an economical solution for companies that don't have the means or ability to operate their own warehouse operations.
The main benefits of outsourcing e-commerce fulfillment include:
At Smart Warehousing, we know that you have many e-commerce fulfillment company options. There are a few things you should consider when trying to find an e-commerce fulfillment company to work with, including:
Smart Warehousing is a full-service e-commerce fulfillment provider that can assist in every area of the supply chain. With 38 warehouses nationwide, we can ship quickly, and our team of experts knows exactly what you need to be successful. If you are interested in learning more about what the Smart Warehousing team can do for your business, please contact us.