What’s the weather like where you are today? Weather is an ongoing concern for anyone who works in the fields of mail order delivery and logistics management: always present, sometimes helpful, often adversarial.
If you’re a small business owner, the weather can play havoc with your order fulfillment plans, schedules, and day to day operations. Weather can impact deliveries of inventory, create staffing problems, and slow or even stop the order preparation and delivery processes.
Inclement and severe weather takes an even harsher toll on businesses, especially small businesses, sometimes resulting in destructing of warehousing space and inventory. At minimum, severe and inclement weather can bring the fulfillment operations of small businesses and ecommerce businesses to a complete – though mercifully temporary – halt. This can also result in a backlog of products waiting to be shipped and delivered, further complicating the delays.
Outsourcing fulfillment brings out the sunshine
By outsourcing your fulfillment obligations to a third-party fulfillment provider, you’re able to avoid all the problems and pitfalls that come from inclement and severe weather. Fulfillment service companies are prepared to deal with bad weather, arming themselves with everything from climate controlled warehouses to protocols and routines that help them stay ahead of the numerous challenges that inclement weather can bring.
How third party fulfillment works
When you outsource your fulfillment obligations to an independent fulfillment service company, you give them oversight of all your order fulfillment duties. These include inventory acceptance, warehousing, pick and pack, processing, shipment preparation, actual product shipment, and in some cases order tracking and customer service duties after the delivery.
These fulfillment service companies then work on your behalf to make sure every product sold on your ecommerce business web page is shipped and delivered with maximum efficiency and minimum expense. The fulfillment service companies’ managers are often highly-trained in implementing new and innovative shipment strategies for your delivery needs, meaning you get only the best and most cost-effective means of delivering your products.
Most fulfillment service companies charge a percentage of each product sold as a means of covering their expenses. The fulfillment service company enters into a partnership with the client ecommerce business, meaning the agreement is legally binding and agreed upon in advance. The advantage to the client company, besides the fulfillment services themselves, is that the fulfillment service company has a vested interest in helping its clients move as much inventory as possible.