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The Best Functions of eCommerce Order Fulfillment Services

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Fulfillplex
The Best Functions of eCommerce Order Fulfillment Services

You may be considering outsourcing eCommerce order fulfillment services to a top eCommerce fulfillment company at this point. What happens at an eCommerce fulfillment center may appear mysterious, but it does not have to be.


WHAT IS ECOMMERCE ORDER FULFILLMENT SERVICES?


Receiving products, processing them, and finally delivering them to customers is known as eCommerce order fulfillment services. The procedure begins when a customer places an order and ends when they get it. If the buyer wishes to return a product, order fulfillment will handle the return transaction as well. Order fulfillment and eCommerce fulfillment are frequently used interchangeably. Order fulfillment is the responsibility of any eCommerce business, whether they self-fulfill or partner with eCommerce fulfillment providers.


HOW DOES ECOMMERCE ORDER FULFILLMENT SERVICES WORK?


Here is what happens at an eCommerce fulfillment center after a customer place an order on your online store.


Step 1: Receiving Orders


To begin fulfilling orders, your eCommerce fulfillment providers must have your inventory on hand. Receiving is the process of accepting and storing inbound products at the fulfillment center. Each fulfill company has its methods for collecting and maintaining goods, which may need documentation provided by the retailer. It keeps everything organized and on time, allowing your orders to begin shipping promptly.


Step 2: Managing Orders


Order management is the broad concept of keeping track of all purchases made by your consumers. It entails receiving, tracking, and fulfilling client orders across several sales channels. From the time an order is made until it is dispatched, eCommerce businesses should handle it all in one place. It allows you to track the individual status of every order and order trends over time, returned orders, orders with errors, and orders that it cannot complete due to insufficient inventory levels.


Step 3: Warehouse Picking


When you send an order to your eCommerce fulfillment providers system, it is given to the picking team. A picker receives a packing slip with the products, quantities, and storage locations at the facility to collect the requested products from their designated places.


Step 4: Packing Products


Once all of the products in an order have been picked, they must be adequately packed. Packing materials may be charged by certain eCommerce fulfillment companies, while others provide them as part of their fulfillment services. Your eCommerce fulfillment provider will select packaging materials that will protect your items while also resulting in the lowest practicable dimensional weight. If you wish to maintain your brand in the spotlight, some third-party logistics (3PL) provider will enable you to stock your unique boxes or utilize plain brown boxes.


Step 5: Fulfillment Shipping


When the order is already packed, it is ready to ship. Most 3PLs will buy shipping labels from the shipping carriers on behalf of the business. eCommerce order fulfillment companies work with preferred carriers, while others compare shipping prices from various deliverers. The latter ensures that every given delivery choice has the most inexpensive cost possible. You will get order tracking information once your order has shipped. Depending on the technology used by the 3PL, you may either automatically or manually communicate this information with customers.

Step 6: Managing Returns (if ever there is any)


Returns in eCommerce fulfillment entail receiving, evaluating, and processing returned products before restocking them. As the procedures get more complicated, enabling the returns process becomes more expensive and time-consuming. Some eCommerce fulfillment providers offer prepaid return labels, share return tracking information, support integrations that SMS return and refund updates to customers, and even allow returns to be routed to the eCommerce business rather than the eCommerce fulfillment center.


TAKE AWAY


If you have decided that outsourcing order fulfillment to a service provider is the best option for your eCommerce business, selecting a third-party logistics (3PL) provider can be a daunting job. It is critical to choose eCommerce order fulfillment services you can rely on to handle your inventory, deliver a great customer experience, and ultimately help you expand your business.

Do you need help with order fulfillment? Fulfillplex is a professional order fulfillment company that stores inventory, packs boxes, and ships orders for eCommerce businesses. Get in touch with us to discover whether we are a suitable fit for your business’s needs.


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