Online business is emerging faster than any other business model around the globe. Especially during the pandemic, online businesses created a huge impact and set a new trend among retailers, and force them to go online. Small and medium enterprises want to start their ecommerce platform but don’t have a lot of money. There has never been a better time to start cost-effective online business with help of ecommerce fulfillment centers using user-friendly and accessible technology. Let’s go deep into the topic and discuss how fulfillment centers can support your online business.
What is an E-commerce Fulfillment Center?
Small and medium online business companies face challenges when multiple orders are placed as it requires detailed inventory management, picking and packing the articles, and handing the parcel to courier services for the last mile delivery. The majority of the time is spent on these operations instead of growing sales.
To resolve these challenges, partnering with a fulfillment center is one of the best solutions to which online brands have started relying on. A fulfillment center provides physical storage space to multiple ecommerce retailers to store their inventory in a more organized manner compared to traditional warehouses. A tech-enabled fulfillment center, Depoter, would parallelly integrate the ecommerce site with its warehouse management system (WMS) so that a fulfillment center can be notified when online orders are placed. The fulfillment center allocates the orders to warehouse associates who process and fulfill the orders using scanners which are usually integrated with WMS. Finally, the delivery partner will be notified, through WMS, of the parcels to be picked and delivered.
Managing inventory single-handedly increases the chance of back-orders which will eventually lead to unhappy customers. Outsourcing your inventory management and logistic operation to third-party fulfillment service providers helps in the consistent and smooth flow of your online business.
How fulfillment centers differ from typical warehouse and logistic companies?
Both Fulfilment centers and warehouses store inventory, albeit, differ significantly at service and operational level:
Fulfillment Centers |
Typical Warehouses |
|---|---|
| - Short term contract and charges you only for space you utilize | - Long terms commitment and cost you for unused spaces as well |
| - Short turnaround time for order processing | - Long turnaround time for order processing |
| - Real-time tracking of inventory, packing, and delivery | - Real-time tracking is compromised |
| - Can perform order processing, pick, pack and delivery via a single channel | - Provides only storage facility and no connection with fulfillment technology |
| - Usually, zero upfront cost and no or limited fixed monthly costs | - Involves initial setup cost and fixed monthly costs such as employees, DEWA, etc. |
Outsource the burden of inventory management, order management, and delivery management to Depoter
The success of any online business is measured in terms of customer satisfaction. If you can satisfy your customer with faster order fulfillment, safe and secure packing and above all same/next day delivery, they are more likely to recommend your online business to their friends and family and a high chance of customer retention.
Tech-enabled ecommerce fulfillment service provider, Depoter can ensure that your customer will receive high quality service based on the requirement. Depoter will take care of storing inventory, integrating your website with its warehouse management software to process online orders, picking, packing, and last-mile delivery. Furthermore, Depoter will notify you and your customers of each process, thereby, allowing you to focus on growing online sales.
