Are you fulfilling your e-commerce business out of your garage? That’s excellent. Some incredible companies started in garages just like yours.
You could be a billionaire some day just like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Jeff Bezos. Yep, all three of those giants actually began their companies out of their garages just like you.
But they eventually moved their work out of their home and got other people doing it for them. That’s the genius of people like them.
They come up with incredible ideas and get other people on board to help them out. You are not an island. Your business depends heavily on the network of humanity around you.
This is why it’s important that you consider ways to outsource your fulfillment process.
Even if you have been in the business for a while and have your own fulfillment process going. There are ways in which a service might benefit you.
A fulfillment warehouse service is definitely one of the best ways to go for anyone in eCommerce.
You Can Reduce Operating Expenses With Fulfillment Warehouse Service
Depending on your situation, you might actually reduce your operating costs through fulfillment warehouse services.
A distribution center is always becoming more efficient. It’s the only way they can keep up with rising costs.
They can do things you probably can’t afford to do to your operation.
In fact, 96% of DC operators are currently attempting to reduce cost.
And the more they reduce cost and waste the more efficient they become and the better the fulfillment service becomes.
Cost Is Not Always in Dollars
You have to determine what cost vs. time savings will be for you.
Because cost to your business, as you probably well understand, doesn’t always mean cash fund. It can mean time and other resources you’re using up.
Other Costs Savings
If you aren’t using a fulfillment warehouse, your business is probably getting bigger or are quite large already.
If you don’t already have one, you probably will have to lease at least a storage unit for your product.
This can be an operating cost that’s lowered with a fulfillment warehouse.
If you have to pay employees to package and ship, then that’s labor cost you’re not paying and payroll taxes you’re not paying with a fulfillment service.
A fulfillment warehouse service can order in bulk. Huge amounts of bulk.
And your company probably can’t get material that cheap. Even if they mark up their supplies, they might be cheaper.
With big data, your fulfillment service can predict better shipping times and ship faster.
And they can ship in bulk.
A Fulfillment Warehouse Service Can Offer Distributed Shipping Locations
Even if you are a much larger company with your own warehouse, can you ship out from multiple locations?
Finding the right distribution points can streamline your fulfillment service. But most small to medium size companies do not have the capital to buy or lease multiple warehouses.
It’s really not possible for them to strategically place their fulfillment services.
They are where they are and that’s about it.
Why would targeted distribution centers streamline your fulfillment?
First, It Costs Less to Ship Locally Rather Than Across the Country
This is actually how Best Buy is now competing with online retailers. They’ve turned their big box retail buildings into local warehouses with shipping.
They can quickly and cheaply get stuff you ordered to your house. Sometimes this is the same day.
This is essentially what large fulfillment warehouse services do to make their shipping strategies faster and cheaper.
Second, You Don’t Waste Energy
It really depends on what you are selling, but being close to an area also means you know the area. And if the area isn’t buying your product, you have to ship it to elsewhere.
If you have the ability to target areas that are actually buying your product, then you waste less energy and time shipping having product in unproductive places.
Large fulfillment services can do this. They have centers all over the country and all over the world. So they can move inventory to where it’s needed most with minimal effort.
Fulfillment Warehouse Services Have Better Technology And Inventory Management
We talked about big data earlier. Big data is big time.
Big data and machine learning are starting to take over the world. But instead of Skynet, we have Amazon and Google.
And they aren’t in charge of the world’s nuclear launch codes just yet, so we’re safe for a while.
But While We Have This Technology, We Might As Well Use It, Right?
That’s what services like Amazon are doing right now. They utilize big data and feed it to computers that can quickly learn patterns.
These machine learning algorithms can be trained to analyze massive amounts of data and then print labels and schedule shipping at just the right times.
These technologies keep Amazon on top of their promise of 2-day shipping for Prime fulfillment.
Without technologies like this, Amazon and other fulfillment companies couldn’t keep up with demand.
They would lose customers to companies that did use big data and other streamlining technologies.
Robots Too
How many robots do you have working for you in your warehouse? A few Roombas maybe?
Amazon uses robots to make their fulfillment warehouses more efficient.
In fact, Jeff Bezos has “hired” 45,000 robots for its warehouses.
It’s a new world and it’s been predicted to come true since the early 20th century.
What could you do with 45,000 robots
Lastly, Improve Customer Service and Returns Through a Fulfillment Warehouse Service
A fulfillment warehouse service can take care of customer returns much more cheaply than you could.
They will have a dedicated process to deal with these, evaluate them, and put them back on the shelf if they are unopened.
Conclusion:
Are you convinced now? We sure are.
Fulfillment services are an excellent way to boost your business and reduce operating costs.
Do you have experience with third-party fulfillment services? Let us know about it in the comments below.