Why are More Businesses Relying on Order Fulfilment Services Today? Your Top Questions Answered

If you are in charge of order fulfilment for your business or company, you know how much of a challenge it can really be. While you have to ensure that each order is picked and packed and labelled correctly, the next essential step is to ship it off to your customers in the fastest possible time and in the most cost-effective way as well. But while order fulfilment definitely has its challenges, you can now benefit from an order fulfilment partner as well – and this makes your job much easier, not to mention enabling you to lower your costs. If you don’t have a warehouse of your own or the proper number of workers to fulfil your orders (especially during peak seasons), an order fulfilment service can indeed be your best recourse. Here’s why more businesses today are relying on order fulfilment services: your top questions answered.

• Flexibility through sales and seasonal fluctuations

While no business should be complaining if they have a high demand for their products, it can still be difficult for businesses to take care of surges in demand due to higher sales and seasonal fluctuations. If you would like to respond in the most efficient way to changes in demand due to the seasons or sales increases, you have to invest more capital in equipment as well as workers, and you probably have to lease more warehouse or facility space, too. But when you do all these, and your sales begin to trend towards ‘normal’ at the end of the peak season or because of lower customer demand, what do you then do with all your additional workers, space, and equipment?

This is where a fulfilment company can give you the best advantage. With this type of service, you don’t need to hire more workers or purchase more equipment just to keep up with fluctuations in sales and seasons. When the demand is high, the fulfilment company will simply manage it, and when sales go down to their normal levels, you don’t have to deal with idle workers, equipment, or storage facilities.

• Lower shipping expenses

No customer wants to pay for shipping, and they tend to avoid it whenever they can. So imagine if your company can offer free shipping to your customers – it would definitely give your business a big boost in online orders. But the problem is that no shipping company will send your orders to your customers without a fee. How then can you offer free shipping? The answer is quite simple, really: if you rely on a fulfilment service, they will often have distribution facilities and warehouses located in different areas, which means that transporting your orders need not be as expensive as you may assume. These fulfilment companies will also have a broad network of contacts when it comes to shipping and distribution, and this, in turn, can provide you with bulk discounts and even freebies, allowing you to offer the much-welcomed free shipping to your customers.

• Reach out to new markets

Perhaps one of the best and most lucrative advantages of a fulfilment service is that it allows you to reach out to different and new markets. If you would like to expand but you are worried about not having the proper infrastructure to engage in overseas shipping or not having the proper facilities for your inventory, you don’t have to limit yourself if you work with a fulfilment company. With fulfilment services, you can expand your reach and target new markets without having to invest any of your precious capital. The fulfilment company can supply you with the infrastructure and scalability you need to expand, and you don’t have to deal with a significant risk of losing capital while potentially reaping the best rewards.