If you work with a 3PL company, order fulfillment could be one service they offer.
That’s because not every e-commerce business has the budget and the reach to fulfill orders themselves. With a 3PL provider, online stores can take advantage of lower shipping rates and operating costs.
Outsourcing e-commerce order fulfillment can also help companies go global. It can also aid them in improving their customer service.
Of course, even if your company can fulfill orders, it still helps to optimize your order fulfillment process. After all, best practices can change over time.
Here, we’ll discuss some tips for improving your fulfillment services.
Organize Your Warehouse
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Any order fulfillment center would benefit from having an organized warehouse. If yours lack organization, your staff would be running all day long looking for items.
Remember that warehouse management is as much about structure and order as it is about storage. Some tips for organizing warehouses that can help include using ABC analysis. That means storing the most profitable items (A-items) near the shipping area.
It also helps to stock bestselling items at a waist-to-shoulder height. This will minimize the use of stepladders, forklift trucks, etc.
Other things to keep in mind are labeling everything, color coding areas based on product types, and reviewing your floor plan periodically.
Make Your Receiving And Inspection Processes Seamless
It’s not enough that you receive arriving products. Incoming inventory should be counted, inspected, and inventoried at the receiving area. After all, you don’t want to call your suppliers later to complain that they didn’t send the exact quantity of SKUs you ordered.
Be sure to use bar codes on these products so that your staff won’t have trouble retrieving goods. As for your inspection process, visibility should be your priority. Talk to your suppliers, shippers, carriers, and so on so you can agree on how they should present cargo to be easier for you to process.
Invest in Tech
While keeping your warehouse organized, don’t forget to improve ergonomics for your workers as well. Besides giving them frequent training, cushioned floor mats can help those on their feet for long periods.
It would also help your staff if they can work with light- or voice-directed picking systems. These will help them find the correct items faster, improving picking accuracy.
Other tech tools to consider are RF scanners, camera-based imagers, etc. If your warehouse can automate identification and data collection, your order fulfillment will be much more efficient.
Don’t Forget the Reasons You Need To Improve Your Order Fulfillment Operations
Acing your order fulfillment will not only help you save money but will also maximize your profits.
Streamlining your processes will trickle down to the end-users. They’ll receive their goods on time, and you won’t have to deal with complaints about late deliveries, lost items, and so on.
If you need more information on order fulfillment’s benefits, you can check out this page.
Ready to Make Your Ecommerce Fulfillment Better?
Getting goods to customers on time is the essence of order fulfillment. If you’re struggling with optimizing your fulfillment operations, the best practices mentioned here can help.
For more tips and advice on e-commerce, logistics, and so on, don’t hesitate to check our other posts.
