Order fulfillment companies are often a necessary step for businesses as they expand. Typically, it becomes practical once you’re shipping a minimum of 50 orders monthly.
After surpassing this benchmark, there isn’t a specific order quantity that mandates hiring outside help. Instead, various reasons may prompt you to consider this option. Below are key factors to consider:
1. Cost Savings
In-house shipping costs can escalate rapidly. Managing your own shipping could lead to high expenses on postage and packaging supplies. Even high-volume shippers may end up paying close to retail prices for postage. Additionally, expenses for materials like bubble mailers, boxes, packing tape, and bubble wrap accumulate as your business grows.
It’s crucial to prevent shipping costs from significantly impacting your profit margins. This is why many businesses opt to outsource their fulfillment.
While it may seem counterintuitive, outsourcing to a fulfillment company often results in cost savings. These companies benefit from bulk discounts on postage and supplies, passing these savings on to you. This is frequently adequate to offset account fees, pick and pack charges, and other service costs.
Moreover, outsourcing fulfillment frees up your time, potentially leading to reduced labor expenses or allowing your staff to focus on more revenue-generating tasks.
2. Enhanced Customer Service
Today’s customers have high expectations when it comes to eCommerce shipping. A large percentage expect free shipping, regular updates on their orders, and swift resolution of any shipping issues. Meeting these demands can be challenging if you lack expertise in logistics.
While it’s possible to manage this internally, the time and cost implications can quickly become overwhelming.
By engaging a fulfillment company, you entrust these responsibilities to professionals who specialize in shipping daily. This means that you won’t personally be accountable for ensuring timely and problem-free delivery to your customers.
3. Expanding Customer Base
Commencing a business is challenging. Expanding a business is even more challenging. Accumulating a large number of satisfied customers can greatly benefit your business, a goal pursued by every entrepreneur. However, as your customer base grows, the effort required to attend to their needs also escalates.
Engaging a fulfillment company is a crucial measure to safeguard the future of your business. The disparity between managing 5 and 500 orders daily, especially if undertaken by you or your team, is substantial. To a fulfillment company, this increase is hardly perceptible.
4. Depleting Space
Real estate comes at a premium. Storing goods in your workspace, garage, or a storage facility swiftly becomes a costly affair. When you begin to face space constraints, it becomes financially and logistically prudent to enlist the services of a fulfillment company.
Clutter can disrupt your peace of mind and hinder your productivity, so relocating excess inventory from your residence or place of work often proves beneficial. Moreover, if you’re paying for a storage unit nearby and making frequent trips to retrieve stock as needed? Employing a fulfillment company not only saves you money but also simplifies the operational complexity of your business.
5. Stress and Overexertion
Even the most dedicated entrepreneurs require some level of work-life balance to thrive. No individual can sustain peak performance around the clock. Therefore, if you are experiencing stress, feeling overburdened, and still managing your own shipments, it may be time to seek assistance.
Perhaps you’ve calculated the costs and outsourcing to a fulfillment company still appears pricier. That is understandable. However, it’s essential to recognize that stress diminishes your well-being and capacity to devise strategies for business growth, and outsourcing shipping is one of the simplest tasks you can delegate.
Outsourcing storage and shipping allows you to dedicate time to other facets of your business. Utilize these extra resources to concentrate on growing your eCommerce business rather than getting caught up in day-to-day operations. Consider expanding your product line, heeding customer feedback, and enhancing your grasp of client requirements.
With so many benefits, fulfillment centers are an incredible tool for any e-commerce business looking to sustain its success and provide its customers with a flawless shipping experience. And Wolff/SMG Fulfillment USA should be your choice.
