A robust eCommerce order fulfillment system enables you to ship and deliver products to your consumers more effectively. This, in turn, will enhance your store’s general reputation and may result in more sales as customers will be pleased to shop from you again.
In this post, we’ll look at the top techniques or models to consider, as well as how to improve your fulfillment process to help you surpass consumer expectations and increase the profitability of your shop.
What is eCommerce order fulfillment?
eCommerce fulfillment manages online consumer orders and effectively ships and delivers them to their destinations on time. Inventory management, order management, warehouse management, order fulfillment (picking, packing, and shipping), and returns management are all part of eCommerce fulfillment.
Tricks to improving eCommerce order fulfillment
Assure smooth integration
Very likely, you don’t produce the products you sell inside. Your online items are most likely supplied by numerous distributors, warehoused, and then drop-shipped to your clients.
Suppose this is the situation for your firm. In that case, it is critical to incorporate seamless communications with your suppliers via an order management system (OMS) that interacts easily between your methods and those of your suppliers.
Apply order visibility from beginning to end
This implies that you and your suppliers should be able to access the same catalog, inventory fulfillment, and order fulfillment procedures – to see what things are available, in what quantities, and where they are located.
Moreover, your eCommerce clients who are browsing should be able to see whether an item is in stock and, if quantities are limited or quantity matters, how many things are available.
This clarity is referred to as end-to-end visibility, which is critical for customer pleasure and accurate order fulfillment.
Choose the best shipper
It’s time to tackle the primary stumbling block of eCommerce order fulfillment: shipping. If your shipper is less than outstanding and/or consistently underperforms, your consumers will express their annoyance on you – on your company’s reputation, not the shipper.
Let your existing shipper be evaluated regularly: Do they provide real-time, precise order tracking? Is there a recent increase in late, delayed, missing, forgotten, or damaged deliveries at your shipper?
Consider your warehouse sites carefully
Today’s eCommerce customers expect their orders as soon as possible. Your organization can meet this demand in two ways:
- Select warehouses and shippers that can match your needs for speedy picking and quick dispatch.
- Put items in many warehouses spread around your delivery region and hence close to your clients’ residences to assure speedy yet low-cost ground shipment.
Talk to your consumer
You should maintain constant contact with your consumer throughout the process. We’re also not talking about a basic “Thank you for your order” email. No, we mean real-time, on-demand notification about order progress, from order, received and in the process to order shipped and shipment delivered.
In conclusion,
When you recognize the significance of fulfillment in your eCommerce business and commit time and effort to improve it, you are ultimately investing in the quality of the customer experience and the future success of your business.
This is because an effective fulfillment plan will not only help your eCommerce business increase total income, but it will also make consumers happier because you will be able to deliver items more swiftly and precisely than ever before.
Want to learn more about how Atom8’s technology helps improve the vital last-mile delivery step of your eCommerce order fulfillment process? Contact us to check out our product demo today.
