We understand the importance of a fulfilment centre for businesses to run smoothly and to meet customer's expectations. But now you might be thinking about how to find the best fulfilment service for your business whom you can trust completely and hand over the fulfilment area for your business to grow.
In this blog post, we will discuss some of the essential steps to take care of to find the best fulfilment service for your business.
1. What Are Your Business Needs?
First of all, taking note of your business needs should be your priority. If you are not able to determine what you exactly want and require, how would you tell the fulfilment centre to fulfil it for you?
You can consider important factors like:
Order Volume
Make a list of minimum orders you receive in a month to be fulfilled & their potential peak periods.
Product Range
Also, keep track of all kinds of products your business deals with. You can also include dimensions, weight, and special handling requirements for the fulfilment centre to know thereafter about the excess care of some particular items.
Customer Base
Get to know where most of your buyers are located from the history of orders. It will help you find the perfect fulfilment centre in that particular area & determine shipping needs.
Scalability
Also, check if the ecommerce fulfilment centre will be able to deal with the increased workload as your business grows.
2. Assess Service Offerings
The fulfilment centres vary based on the services they provide. You can consider the following factors to find the perfect fulfilment centre for your business:
Storage and Warehousing
As your business is expected to grow with time, make sure that you check for the ample storage area in the warehouses of the fulfilment centre. Otherwise, it would create problems for you in the future when your business will scale.
Order Processing
You can also check for their order processing, for example: how efficiently and carefully they pack the orders.
Shipping Options & Returns Management
You also need to check if the fulfilment centre offers multiple shipping options. Also, make sure that they provide an effective returns process to enhance customer satisfaction.
3. Technology Used by the Fulfilment Centre
The technology a fulfilment centre uses leaves an impact on the business in the long run. Check whether it uses Inventory Management System (IMS), Order Management System (OMS), shipping software, and customer support tools.
4. Analyze Costs
Costs also play a crucial role in finding the best fulfilment service for your business. You can consider the following factors:
- Storage Fees
- Pick & Pack Fees
- Shipping Costs
- Any Additional Charges
5. Location and Shipping Speed
If the location of the fulfilment centre is close to your business major hub or major customer bases, it will be of huge benefit. Also, if fulfilment centres have multiple warehouses, they can get the order processing done quickly and there would not be any delay in shipping.
6. Reputation Matters
When choosing the best fulfilment service for your business, experience, and reputation also matter a lot. A well-versed fulfilment centre with a fair enough reputation in the market of handling other top businesses will build confidence to leave all the fulfilment worries on it.
7. Test The Service Once Yourself
Before making any final decision, try testing the fulfilment service by yourself once. You can try a pilot test by giving a limited quantity of orders to the fulfilment centre for processing. You can evaluate the service using key performance indicators (KPIs) such as order accuracy, shipping times, and customer feedback.
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