How to improve order fulfillment

Order fulfillment is one of the challenges that all e-commerce store owners face. The fulfillment process starts from the moment you receive an order online. As a rule, it is followed by a request to the warehouse, where the product will be selected, packaged and shipped. Throughout the process, you must update the client with quick notifications. In addition, you may have to handle returns and refunds occasionally. If you manage all these steps smoothly and your products usually reach customers on time, you may consider the order fulfillment processing process to be satisfactory. In this article, we will examine the options.

INVEST IN A GOOD ORDER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

It is likely that you buy your products from several distributors. It is therefore important to be in contact with all your suppliers in order to optimize your procurement process. By investing in an order management system to establish a seamless connection between your store and your suppliers, you would make a world of good for your store. This should allow the supplier and you to have clear visibility of the catalog and stocks.

SEVERAL WAREHOUSE LOCATIONS

Once you have received an order in your store, you want it to be immediately recovered and shipped immediately. How will you handle this regularly? By choosing warehouses and carriers that would ensure fast execution of this process. Another useful strategy adopted by many e-commerce store owners is to choose multiple warehouse locations. If your warehouses are located in your delivery regions, you can get there faster and at a lower cost. You may need to do some analysis in advance to make sure this approach is feasible.

REDUCE ERRORS IN PREPARATION

From a warehouse management perspective, picking errors can be a concern when processing orders. Automating as much as possible the picking process would help you reduce human error. Getting the right product shipped to customers will also help reduce return requests.

CHOOSE THE BEST CARRIER

The carrier that you choose to deliver your products would also play an important role in customer satisfaction. In many cases, your carrier's mistakes may affect your store and brand. This can hurt the prospects of your store in the long run. Regular audits of your carrier would be helpful in identifying recurring issues. Problems such as delayed shipments, lost shipments, damaged products, etc., should prompt us to change carriers.

NEGOTIATE FOR THE BEST RATES

Most carriers offer discounted rates for large customers. Depending on the quantity of your shipments, you can always reach an agreement with your carrier. If you use multiple carriers, create a system to use the best rate available for a particular shipping service or destination.

HAVE A PLAN B FOR SHIPPING ISSUES

There is always the risk of an accident when shipping a package. Even with the best carriers, you might face such problems, even if they are less common. How do you handle such a situation in front of her? You can quickly inform customers of the delay to reduce the negative experience a bit. However, it would be much better to be able to find an alternative solution and deliver the package at the promised time. Having an automated system to choose the best carrier or service for a given product or destination can be a solution. Automatically switching to a faster service would help you a lot in late situations.