Last week, one of my entry’s discussed why location is one of the biggest factors to consider when choosing an order fulfillment service. But location is only one of several items that need to be taken into consideration when you are considering your needs during the fulfillment service selection process.
Today, I’m going to discuss another important factor to consider when considering an order fulfillment service:
Size and Volume
Your goal is to select a service provider that can cater to you and your daily order fulfillment needs. Fulfillment warehouses come in all sizes – ranging from very small with just a few employees, to large Fortune 500 companies with thousands of employees. On one hand you may need to ask yourself if you are the largest client, will you have to drive the organization to provide the services you need? On the other hand, if you are the smallest client, will you get lost in the daily operations?
Talk with your order fulfillment warehouse and ask about peak seasons and holidays. Peak seasons can impact fulfillment centers, and your fulfillment operation needs to be able to manage our peak season needs without any service interruptions. You will also want to know if the warehouse’s other clients peak seasons will have an adverse impact on our business. You will want to ask the following questions: How much additional staff do they hire during the peak season? How are the seasonal people trained? Do their standards for service change during this time?
It is essential that you know when the last time available is for you to send a file and the cut offs for rush orders. You will also want to know the house of operation, whether or not you will be able to contact a customer service representative during your business hours and the requirements for orders to be processed the same day.
Not all fulfillment companies specialize in certain types of projects. Some warehouses only handle full pallets in and out, and some will pick down to full cases level, while others will pick individual units, cases lots and full pallets. You will want to know what types of clients they service, if they include B2B, direct to consumers or large chains.
It is important to know whether or not the facility has the equipment in place to handle complex assembly of kits for multiple products in one single order. One method for increasing the average selling price is to develop a kit. You can have a personalized order processing system, shrink-wrapping and many other benefits. These additional services may also include returns management, confirm receipt, inspection, testing, re-packaging products and the disposition of returns. In terms of order fulfillment, what more could a company ask for?
One additional factor of size is shipping options. Make sure the fulfillment service provider you choose offers the shipping options your customers are currently using or may want in the future. Some of the smaller facilities may only work with one carrier, such as UPS or FedEx. Most facilities will work with all of the different carriers. A good question to ask is whether or not there are certain carriers that the fulfillment house does not work with.
In the coming weeks, I will continue to discuss other important items to consider when choosing an order fulfillment service. But, if you can’t wait to read them here, they are now available in a Whitepaper on our website. If you have additional questions, or are interested in receiving this white paper by email, please feel free to contact me directly. I can be reached at (708) 587-4116 or kshay@ware-pak.com
Ware-Pak provides 3PL fulfillment services to support publishers in their competitive marketplace.
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View our White Papers for helpful topics, such as "Finding the Right Fulfillment Partner".
