When it’s time to outsource your order fulfillment, mail order fulfillment, and warehouse fulfillment needs to a third party fulfillment service company, you want to make not just the right choice but the best possible choice. After all, you’re consigning a large part of your ecommerce operation to another company, trusting them to reliably and efficiently manage your fulfillment duties, warehousing needs, and other tasks crucial to your continued business growth.
Looking for the right fulfillment company can take hours or days, if you go about the process without keeping in mind the effective strategies listed just below:
Consider How Much You Intend To Grow
Some ecommerce business owners make the mistake of engaging a fulfillment company based on their present order fulfillment needs. In fact, business owners should make a realistic forecast of their upcoming fulfillment needs and base their decision off that information. Your business isn’t the same size now that it was six months ago. It stands to reason it won’t be the same size six months from now. One of the greatest advantages of employing a fulfillment company for your logistics and order fulfillment management is that you can grow without having to continually increase your fulfillment resources.
Look for Fulfillment Service Companies In Your Area and Beyond
There’s another inclination among business owners seeking to employ a fulfillment company that the company’s facilities should be located reasonably convenient to the ecommerce business’ own base of operations. Though such an arrangement offers a certain amount of physical convenience, geographical proximity is not entirely necessary for a successful fulfillment outsourcing relationship.
Thanks to modern communication technologies – not least of which including the Internet – business owners can monitor their inventory at all times, and even check up to the minute information about product processing and shipment.
In some cases, having a fulfillment company removed from you works to your advantage. If you’re dealing with a southern fulfillment company based in a warmer climate, you’re less likely to worry about product shipments getting delayed due to inclement or severe wintertime weather.
Find The Best Deal, As Always
Because the fulfillment agreement is contractual and legally binding, you need to take every precaution that the fulfillment company you use is the best one for your ecommerce business. Don’t be afraid to shop around and ask for references, both from the business and in online forums and message boards.