For gift shop businesses, both of the brick and mortar and online varieties, the current economic slump has been something like a terminal disease. As the average person’s wallet contracts and discretionary spending cash disappears these businesses are usually the first kind to be overlooked. However, the gift shop business still offers lucrative product potential for those entrepreneurs willing to take a few educated risks and who have the foresight to delegate business processes when it makes financial sense to do so.
Outsourcing: The Struggling Gift Shop Solution
Assigning the gift-based company’s logistics management and order fulfillment needs to a third-party alleviates many of the operational expenses that can run gift shop budgets into the red. Being free from such burdensome operating costs gives the gift shop the chance settle debts, or reinvest back into front end development plans like direct mail marketing and storefront or website renovation.Independent management companies can guarantee a higher level of customer satisfaction and product shipping and processing efficiency than the small business owner could likely manage on their own. By focusing exclusively on the fulfillment process, these companies can specialize and develop their logistics and processing systems to their highest level of efficiency and effectiveness.
What Outsourced Order Fulfillment Provides
Independent logistics management companies provide their customers with warehousing, order storage, climate control, processing and shipping, and even order tracking. Some also offer additional features like direct mail marketing management and customer service staffing. But most importantly with an outsourced order fulfillment company the client business gets a real chance at success. Using a third party company will help the business become unburdened by the hassles and troubles associated with all the costs of warehousing, staffing, shipping, and following up on customer orders. Instead, the business concentrates on its front end, helping to develop the public image and sense of taste that can often mean feast or famine.
The logistics management company typically deducts a portion of the profits from each shipped inventory unit as its service fee. But because the company’s profit base is dependent on how many product it successfully ships, they have a powerful incentive to recruit the best employees, train them well and successfully provide logistics for as many client business as possible.