eCommerce Fulfilment 101: What You Need to Know About This Essential Part of Online Shopping
If you’re an eCommerce business, then you know that shipping and delivery are a critical part of the online shopping order process. But what about outsourcing your fulfilment? What is it, and why is it so important?
In this blog post, we’ll discuss what eCommerce fulfilment is, and why you need to make sure your business is using a good fulfilment partner. Adstral Fulfilment is also able to provide you with some tips on how to find the right partner for your business. So read on for all the information you need about eCommerce fulfilment!
The Basics, What is eCommerce?
Simply put, an eCommerce platform is an online marketplace. These digital marketplaces allow consumers to buy or sell products and services.
These platforms typically provide a variety of key features. Features include shopping baskets, payment processing, shipping and customer support. Many eCommerce platforms also offer additional marketing and analytics tools to gather in-depth insight into their target customer.
Selling physical goods, digital goods and services through eCommerce is simple. Businesses that utilise eCommerce to display their products online aren’t required to have physical premises.
Online stores are an essential part of any successful retailer, and simple changes to branding and product offering allows for growth. Online retailing means that companies can easily adapt as customers’ needs change over time.
Small businesses should consider using WooCommerce, Magento or Shopify. These platforms offer plenty of features that will ensure their website doesn’t get left behind by comparison.
What is Order Fulfilment in eCommerce?
Order fulfilment in eCommerce is the process from sales enquiry to delivery to the customers’ doorstep. Your business is likely following a process similar to this:
• Order in Stock
• Hold Stock in the Warehouse
• Receive Enquiries
• Process Payments
• Print Delivery Labels
• Pack Goods
• Ship to the Customer
• Await any Complications with the Order
The rise of eCommerce has been one that’s suddenly come upon us, but it doesn’t seem like the impact will be slowing down anytime soon, as we are able to buy any product or service from any seller meaning competition is fierce. There are so many options available, all of which offer speedy delivery, and so it is important to understand that consumers aren’t as patient when waiting for goods. They want ‘it’ now!
A good eCommerce fulfilment partner will be able to handle all these steps quickly and efficiently. Your customers must receive their orders as soon as possible. But, don’t think that you need to scale up the number of employees during busy seasonal periods, Adstral Fulfilment can handle an increase in demand.
Why is eCommerce Fulfilment Important?
There are two primary ways that online retailers can handle their order fulfilment, in-house or outsourcing.
Although you may be able to handle your initial volume of orders, as your business grows and orders increase, you may start to struggle without hiring extra staff or outsourcing.
There are a few reasons why eCommerce fulfilment is so important for businesses.
- It’s a key part of the customer experience.
- If orders are taking too long to arrive, or if they’re arriving damaged, customers will be quick to take their business elsewhere.
- Fulfilment plays a big role in your company’s bottom line. Shipping and delivery costs can add up quickly, so it’s important to find a partner who can help you keep these costs down.
- Saving time and money sourcing and renting warehouse/storage facilities.
- More time on growing your business, developing or sourcing new products and marketing projects.
- Savings on staff and costs – PAYE, NIC, pension payments, training etc.
- Your inventory will be securely stored in a purpose-built fulfilment warehouse, with professionally managed goods-in and dispatch services.
Why Choose Adstral Fulfilment for your Online Shopping Fulfilment?
With a 5pm cut-off time for orders, we always pick, pack and dispatch orders quickly, efficiently and accurately. Our prices are always extremely competitive and we don’t charge fixed set-up or management fees.
Adstral Fulfilment works with many eCommerce businesses, from large companies to small independent online retailers. We have large warehouse facilities which can store many thousands of products.
All our clients’ products are stored safely and securely in our fulfilment warehouses. Upon receipt, we log each product in our systems with their unique SKU reference This enables us to track the movements of every item.
Our order management software seamlessly integrates with most eCommerce platforms and online sales channels – enabling us to pick, pack and dispatch orders as soon as they are received. Our clients can view their entire order history and stock inventory through our secure client portal.
If your customer needs to return goods for any reason, we will handle the entire returns process, from updating your inventory to sending out replacements.
Whatever the size of your business, Adstral Fulfilment will provide you with a bespoke eCommerce fulfilment service that can adapt as your business grows.
