Friday, November 1, 2013

How An Order Fulfillment Service Can Save A Company Time And Money

By Rachael Gutierrez


When we order something over the Internet or by telephone, it is delivered to our home, and we usually do not give much thought about who gets our package to us. Many of these companies send out thousands of packages each and every day. To help fill all of those orders, many of them use an order fulfillment service to help them make sure that all of their orders are quickly sent out.

Lots of small companies do not have enough employees to keep up with the orders they receive. The logical answer to many would usually be to hire more employees, but any experienced business owner knows how expensive that can be. Instead, the wiser choice may be to save money and hire a professional fulfillment company.

Any company that accepts orders via the Internet or telephone will want to consider using a fulfillment company. They will pick, pack and ship all of the orders. They will also handle customer service inquires and any returns. This gives a company more time to concentrate on their business strategies and not have to spend a great amount of time packing and shipping their orders.

After contacting and getting all of the details of the services that are offered, the first thing that a company will need to do is get their products into the warehouse. Once the products are received and processed, they will be ready to be fulfilled. As a company's items sell, they will have to make sure to continually replenish their items.

To help keep track of their real time inventory, companies will have access to this vital information. Keeping track of this is vital so that a company will know when to restock a certain item. Some fulfillment centers will even have an alert set for each product when they get down to a certain count. This can be very useful for a company.

The costs associated with using these services are very cheap. It is true that there is a charge for each shipment that goes out and that there is also storage space costs, but compared to hiring employees, it is a real money saver. Although it is good to get all of the details of storage space costs and amounts will vary by each company, it is safe to assume that they will charge by each square foot that a companies items take up.

Many popular companies use these services to get their orders out for them. Usually, the customer will never know that the company that they ordered from did not send them their order themselves. This is because the fulfillment company will not have their return address on the package or show any other evidence that they shipped the order out.

When using an order fulfillment service, a company sometimes has the option to use branded boxes. This means that customer will receive their order in a box that displays the name of the company that they ordered from. This marketing strategy is crucial in keeping customers faithful to them and becoming a regular customer. By outsourcing this work, a company can really get an edge on their competition.




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