On your list of business priorities, where do you place your relationship with your customers? Especially for new and growing business, the public image they hold in the minds of buyers and vendors stands an enduring, crucial component of their continued business growth. In turn, a major part of successfully building a positive public image with your customer base involves reliable, trustworthy, and efficient order fulfillment. Order fulfillment is the process by which inventory that is purchased is moved from your storage facility to the customer’s hands, or point of final delivery destination. 21st century fulfillment management is a complex and complicated process, involving the successful logistics management of several factors including inventory reception, warehouse fulfillment, order preparation, and finally shipment and tracking. Tackling such issues can become a nightmare for the small and inexperienced business owner. In turn, their confusion and mistakes can damage, sometimes irreparably, their aims of successful customer interaction and repeat conversion.
The fastest and most convenient solution to this quandary is to employ one of the new generation of highly efficient, expert independent order fulfillment houses. These third-party, multifaceted fulfillment enterprises assume control of a client business’ “back end” in exchange for a percentage of the profits from each product successfully delivered to the client business’ customers. Rather than deal in products themselves, they deal in other businesses’ product inventories with a fulfillment speed and certainty that most small business owners could not compete with given their comparatively smaller sizes and resources.
Many small business owners in the market for a third party logistics provider seek a company that’s relatively close to home, the better to maintain a physical connection to their product inventory. However, such proximity isn’t absolutely necessary. In fact, many businesses enjoy the benefits of using companies located in the Southern United States, where comparatively temperate climates help reduce product damage. The milder weather there also helps expedite fast and safe shipping, as well as prevents delays and holdovers caused by inclement or severe weather systems.