You know that during the summer months logistics can provide additional challenges. The price of fuel rises, orders swell and grow, and the costs of maintaining effective quality controlled warehouse storage becomes significantly more expensive. By outsourcing your fulfillment to a qualified, knowledgeable third party company, you spare yourself the numerous costs and headaches that regularly ensue from managing such important aspects of your business. By giving your services over to a logistics manager that handles order delivery and processing for a client business, you relieve yourself of the expenses in both time and money otherwise required.
How Outsourced Fulfillment Works
When you sign up with a logistics company, they assume control of your order fulfillment, which is an umbrella term for all the steps that go from moving a unit of inventory from warehousing storage into the customer’s hands. These steps can include processing, inventory storage, cold storage, shipment preparation (packing materials, some assembly) and assignment to a delivery service. The fulfillment company determines the postage, than makes sure the delivery service accepts the parcel and assigns a tracking number. Once the parcel is en route, the shipping number is then made available to the company’s client business as well as to the customer.
Making the Most From Your Fulfillment Company
In order to truly maximize your arrangement with a logistics management company, you should remember to utilize the tools and features they make available to you. The more you use these tools, which many include inventory data, customer service staffing, and bulk mail processing, the more cost effective your outsourcing agreement becomes. Remember that the fulfillment company enhances its own product margin by successfully managing all your products units, so efficiency and transparency of logistics details remains in its best interests at all time.
Take Advantage of Your Outsourcing To Offer Sales and Promotions
With another company handling the “drudge” work of your order fulfillment, you can step up your business’ pace. Offering summer sales, clearance and closeout specials, and percentage discounts will help encourage repeat visitor traffic and conversion, while at the same time keeping your inventory fresh and new. Since you’ve outsourced most of your logistics needs to the fulfillment company, you’ll have time to develop and implement other marketing plans, too, including new ideas that you wouldn’t have thought possible before, including building your SEO strengths and redesigning your website landing and category pages.