When you are an eCommerce business owner, the success of your business is important to you for more than just financial reasons. There is a sense of pride in seeing your ideas in action, and watching your business grow and develop. As such, it’s sensible and natural to be very protective of your eCommerce business. When it comes to making decisions to outsource certain aspects of your business, this can be as daunting as it is necessary. Fortunately, outsourcing your fulfilment is one of the best moves that you can make for your business as it expands and develops. Through making this simple change in the operation of your eCommerce business, you can save time and money, and feel confident that your business is running effectively and satisfying its customers.
What is involved in outsourcing eCommerce fulfilment?
Choosing to outsource your eCommerce fulfilment requires placing your trust in a reputable fulfilment service provider. When you decide to outsource your fulfilment, you remove the burden of fulfilment from yourself in-house, and transfer the responsibility to dedicated professionals who will complete your fulfilment on behalf of your company. Your products are stored in bulk at the fulfilment service provider’s storage facilities, and when an order is received, professionally trained staff then pick, pack and ship the product to the customer. Due to the specialised nature of these providers and their staff, fulfilment is completed as efficiently as possible, meaning your customers are left satisfied with the speedy service they have received.
What are the options for fulfilment?
As your business grows and develops, you may have the nice problem of having too many orders to fulfil, and not enough time or resources to fulfil them in-house. At this point, you have a number of options available to you. You could try to continue to fulfil orders in-house as it currently stands, but you leave yourself open to errors and late deliveries. As such large competitors in the marketplace are guaranteeing one-day delivery, any kind of late deliveries from your business would greatly hinder your success.
Another option would be to hire and train new staff, but this is likely to come at a sizable cost to your business, both financially and in terms of your time investment. Even if you hire and train new staff to your best of your ability, it is still likely that they may not be able to operate fulfilment processes as effectively as a dedicated service provider. In addition, you run the risk of staff leaving your business, and you once more having to invest time in training up new staff for the purposes of fulfilment.
How could outsourcing your fulfilment be the best move for your business?
The third and potentially most attractive option for your business would be to decide to outsource your fulfilment to a dedicated fulfilment service provider. With your fulfilment and many aspects of customer support taken care of, you are then free to invest your time and money into other areas of your business, such as development, marketing and expansion.
If your eCommerce business is growing and needs a low-risk and efficient change, then choosing to outsource your fulfilment might just be the best move for its success and for you.
