How well do you fulfill your online orders?
You likely have room for improvement. All types of sellers face the challenge of perfecting this process. It isn’t easy to turn your current fulfillment practices into an efficient and cost-effective process that still provides the best value to your customers. That’s why many sellers turn to eFulfillment services for help. If you’ve been thinking about changing how you do fulfillment, here’s 5 things everyone should know about eFulfillment services.
1. What is eFulfillment?
In broad terms, eFulfillment is the all the people, processes and technology it takes to deliver an online order to a customer. The key is to make all of these come together to create a positive customer experience before, during, and after a sale.
For you, eFulfillment includes everything from the online checkout process, payment provider, and order management system, to the the steps taken to pick, pack, and ship the order. Instead of doing all these yourself, you can use an eFulfillment service to do them for you.
eFulfillment services can also be referred to as 3rd party logistics (3PLs) or pick and pack fulfillment services.
2. eFulfillment services can save you time and money.
Whether you’re new to selling online or not, eFulfillment can save you time and money, when done properly. eFulfillment services automatically fulfill your orders for you. This saves you from:
Stopping your business when you’re on the road or vacation
Hiring employees just to fulfill orders
Renting warehouse space to store inventory, instead you can store it with the eFulfillment provider’s warehouse
Investing in technology to efficiently pick, pack, ship, and track orders
Handling logistics for returns
Spending too much fulfilling orders, taking away time spend on marketing and customer experience
While these benefits are easy to distinguish for yourself, there are also many benefits for your customers, too.
3. eFulfillment is crucial to your customer experience.
One major difference between buying in-store versus online is that when you buy online, you have to wait for the product. When you buy in-store, you usually get to walk away with it right there.
What happens during the time a customer waits for their online order is crucial to the overall customer experience.
When customers enter in their credit card information online, before they even have the product, they expect you to deliver. When you don’t, you’re going to lose customers.
The challenging part of fulfillment is that a lot can go wrong between the time an order is placed and when it’s shipped to their doorstep.
Sellers can miss the order, not have inventory to ship, enter the wrong shipping address, and take too long to ship. Not to mention that the package may never get there or the item can be damaged when it does arrive. The list can go on and on.
When you’re handling fulfillment for your own online orders, these mistakes are easier to make. This is especially true when you become overwhelmed with an influx of orders.
Some of these mistakes can be eliminated when using a service that specializes in eFulfillment. Your orders will be automatically fulfilled. You can trust your provider to deliver.
eFulfillment services then help you provide a better customer experience. You can offer faster shipping times, guarantee well-packed items, consistent on-time delivery, and an easy return process.
4. eFulfillment is a competitive advantage.
Sellers with a reliable and consistent fulfillment process gain a competitive advantage in the market.
Would you buy online from someone who can offer 2-day shipping for free or 5-7 day shipping for $15? That’s a quick decision for your customers.
If your competition is Amazon or other online sellers, customers will compare shipping times, delivery, and costs.
eFulfillment services can help you offer 2-day shipping for free because of automatic order fulfillment and cost savings. You’ll win over more potential customers.
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