Order fulfilment is an essential aspect of your business. When customers have a bad experience with your company, they will not work with you again. Have you been experiencing difficulties with your order fulfilment and asset tracking? Are you losing or taking too long to deliver packages? You can prevent this by developing an eCommerce order fulfilment strategy.
Keep reading to learn how you can improve your order fulfilment process.
What Is Order Fulfilment?
Order fulfilment refers to the entire process of a customer buying a product from your business and getting it delivered to their doorstep. The E-commerce order fulfilment process involves picking, packing the product at your fulfilment centre, and shipping it to the customer via courier.
The success of order fulfilment relies on a third party to complete the steps of the order fulfilment process. This includes receiving the product from your online eCommerce store, picking, packing, processing, and shipping it to the customer. You can build customer loyalty and stay ahead of your competitors by developing a successful order fulfilment strategy.
Efficient order fulfilment is when you deliver goods to your customer in good condition and on time as you promised during the sale. A sale is only complete after order fulfilment. If there is no order fulfilment, there is no sale, meaning there is no business.
Order Fulfilment Process
Order fulfilment can take place in single or multiple distribution centres. The order fulfilment process often involves order processing, supply chain management, inventory management, and quality control and support for customers who may need to exchange or return a product or report a problem. Here is the order fulfilment process:
Stage 1: Storage: The products can be stored in the company warehouse or a third-party warehouse. They may also be stored in a database as digital data, among other storage sources. Stored goods are inspected, counted and inventoried, ensuring acceptable quality.
Stage 2: Picking: When a customer places an order, their order is processed for picking and packing. The picking team will select the specific items ordered depending on the instructions on the packing slip. The instructions may be product colour, size, and the number of items.
Stage 3: Packing: The packing team will select the packing materials and pack the products. They will also label the order for shipment. Aside from labelling the client’s details, they may also include a return shipping address.
Stage 4: Shipping: The package is ready for shipping after labelling. The package may be sent to a shipping node or a transportation channel to be shipped to the client. The courier company will ship and deliver the package to the client.
Stage 6: Managing returns: The process involves including a return label and shipping materials with the customer’s original order. Should a customer want to exchange a product or return it for a refund, this process must be executed carefully, ensuring the product can be appropriately restocked. Managing returns involves quality control checks.
Order Fulfilment Benefits And Challenges
There are plenty of order fulfilment benefits, including:
- Order fulfilment expands your customer base: Fast order fulfilment can help expand your customer base. You will most likely gain more customers who need their orders fulfilled on time as promised during the sale. It may also help expand your geographical reach and increase customers’ trust in your company.
- Regular fulfilment reduces the inventory: The more regularly you fulfil orders, the more likely customers will keep ordering from you. You will not need to maintain high levels of inventory as safety stock.
- Increase in sales: Order fulfilment can help your company see an increase in sales. The faster you fulfil orders, the more likely you will earn return customers who may even recommend your company to other people.
- Reduces expediting fees: Faster order processing significantly reduces your expediting expenses. When you speed up your order fulfilment, you will be able to ship your orders using less expensive options, helping you reduce your transportation costs.
- Customer loyalty: Order fulfilment can help your company foster customer loyalty. The faster you fulfil orders in excellent condition and on time, the more likely customers will trust you and keep working with your company. It can also help improve your brand reputation and allow your company to stay competitive in the industry.
While there are plenty of order fulfilment benefits, there are also a couple of order fulfilment challenges such as running out of stock. This can lead to a poor customer experience and dissatisfaction, harming your brand reputation. It can be challenging to undo the harm.
Order Fulfilment Best Practices
There are multiple benefits your company can gain and enjoy from order fulfilment. Order fulfilment practices ultimately come down to organising. Here are some order fulfilment best practices:
- Ensure you streamline your receiving processes because doing so ensures the incoming shipments are quickly processed.
- Organise your warehouse as it enhances efficient picking
- Organise shipping and logistics to ensure faster deliveries at lower costs (always have a shipping backup strategy)
- Automate as much as possible to save on the cost of labour and enhance safe operations
- Keep returns in mind as they are an inevitable part of an eCommerce business
Conclusion
Order fulfilment is an essential aspect of any eCommerce business, and it can make or break your business. It can significantly improve your sales, expand your customer base, improve your brand reputation, and ensure your business stays competitive. Your business can succeed with the proper order fulfilment process. At ASP Microcomputers, we can offer you the solution.
We have experience working with multiple clients and guarantee to help improve your order fulfilment. We offer different solutions to businesses across various industries including Inventory Management, Portable Barcode Readers, Supply Chain Management, Time and Attendance and Asset Tracking to name but a few.
Please call us today on 03 9578 7600 or 1800 061 642 or contact us through our website.
