How to avoid the 6 most common mistakes when outsourcing your order fulfilment

One of the key benefits of outsourcing fulfilment is that you will have more time to focus on growing your sales and online order volumes.  But choosing the right fulfilment company will be critical for the experience your customers receive.

To help you assess the many fulfilment companies available, we’ve put together a list of the most important aspects you need to consider and resolve as part of your research.

1. Remove Picking Errors forever!

Picking errors upset customers. Unhappy customers are unlikely to buy again and highly likely to complain about your company on social media and reviews.

Eliminate the risk of upsetting your customers by choosing a fulfilment company that insists on every product having a barcode. It’s a no brainer!

By scanning product barcodes throughout the pick and pack process, you can be confident that not only the correct items will be despatched but that the correct quantities of each item have been sent.

2. Be realistic: Set your expectations

Fulfilment companies do not pick and pack like you do.  The good ones are ‘process driven machines’; optimised to achieve accurate and timely order fulfilment using inexpensive labour and a few tools (e.g. warehouse management system, scanners, forklift truck, printers etc).

Your products will be handled alongside all their other clients.  Understand how your fulfilment company operates and be confident your products are sufficiently robust to withstand the trials of trolleys/packing benches/conveyor belts etc

Remember: warehouses are dusty places.  Products that have been stored on open shelves for many months will get dusty so make sure you use promotions to clear old stock and think about product packaging that can be wiped clean

Do you have to generate a minimum number of orders per week/month?  If so, what happens when your order volumes fall short?

3. Know the daily capacity of your fulfilment company

How many of YOUR orders can they despatch each day?  On busy days, will some of your orders not be despatched?  If so, how will you know?

How can you measure the performance of the fulfilment company?

Don’t accept the sales message of ‘yes’ to everything.  Some fulfilment companies focus on winning new business and will say yes to anything just to get you to sign up. 

Is your business too large for the fulfilment company?  Or for many fulfilment companies, will you be too small?

4. Automate as much as you can

Use this opportunity to automate as much as you can of the order process.  At the very least, you should integrate your shopping cart with the fulfilment company. But look into all areas: for example, could you automate the generation of customs forms for international orders? 

However, you should also look to automate order collection, parcel tracking, international customs forms and anything else that will free up your time.

Additionally, you need to be alerted when things go wrong: orders not being despatched, deliveries delayed due to bad weather etc. This way you can react quickly and inform your customers and so manage their expectations

5. How will you communicate with your provider?

Do you need an account manager?  If so, be prepared to pay more for the service.

Alternatively, if you’ve automated much of the process you may only communicate with your fulfilment company once or twice a week (if that).

Some fulfilment companies offer only telephone support, but this doesn’t work for sellers based outside the UK and invariably you will not be able to speak with the person who can answer your question.  Instead they’ll call you back

These days, many fulfilment companies offer a ticketing service.  Ticketing is an online service similar to the ticket on a deli counter; you are answered on a first come first served basis.  

This works fine as long as there is a guarantee of a maximum answering time (i.e. all tickets replied within 1 hour)

But make sure you’re happy to accept the preferred communication method offered by your provider.  If you want to telephone your suppliers and they keep asking you to send an email instead, this will stress you out very quickly

6. Know what your costs will be?

Sounds obvious, but make sure you understand the price list that has been provided.

Some sales staff can gloss over the additional costs that can creep in from time to time.  For example:

- Parcels too heavy for one shipping method will be upgraded. How much?

- Invalid delivery addresses require manual intervention. How much?

- If your products are arrive without barcodes, how much?

Additionally, you will want to know how your costs relate directly to your orders.  Having a detailed breakdown of order and shipping fees at order level will be essential for your analysis

Outsourcing the pick and pack for your online business is an important decision and you should take your time researching the many companies offering fulfilment services.

Be clear on what you can afford and what kind of service your business needs and avoid companies that just yes to everything.

Ask for a copy of the fulfilment agreement and make sure you understand the 'rules' of business.  For example, what happens when things go wrong?

And finally, make sure you are partnering with a company that will provide an excellent service for your customers.  

Happy customers are likely to buy again and may even comment on their positive experience

Happy customers, therefore, are essential for growing your online business.