In 2021, global eCommerce sales totaled approximately 4.9 trillion dollars and are expected to reach 3.4 trillion dollars by 2025. With the rapid growth of eCommerce, consumer buying channels have expanded and evolved. This growth can be seen in B2C, B2B, and C2C channels. Tech-enabled 3PL partners, like ShipTop, can develop and implement omnichannel fulfillment solutions.
Benefits of Using an eCommerce Fulfillment Partner
There is more than one perk of outsourcing and using the service of a dedicated fulfillment partner. Using an order fulfillment service has become a practical decision for online merchants to ensure a seamless and flawless fulfillment process. Besides, online retailers don’t have the distribution and warehousing facilities to meet complex order fulfillment needs.
Keeping that in mind, let’s take a look at the top five benefits you can expect by having a professional fulfillment partner:
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Efficient Storage, Distribution, and Shipment:
Merchants can hire a fulfillment service company to store, maintain, and ship a wide range of orders efficiently. You can depend on your fulfillment partner to receive, maintain, and manage a variety of products. In fact, fulfillment partners provide instant and easy access to online merchants to track their stock levels. Fulfillment partners cut out the added risk attached to shopping orders. Modern-day fulfillment partners use automated processes, advanced inventory technology, and streamlined methods to ensure an efficient and accurate order fulfillment process.
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Reduce Costs:
One of the major benefits of having a fulfillment partner is to cut back on operational and logistical costs. On the surface, it may sound like fulfilling orders on your own would save costs, but having a fulfillment partner will help you save significant costs.In fact, hiring the services of a fulfillment partner will help you minimize your overhead in various ways. For starters, you can save costs by not settling for expensive warehouse leases for an extended period. Typically, leasing warehouses significantly impacts the budget of online merchants.
Through a fulfillment partner, you can just cover the cost on a monthly basis and occupy the space for rendered service. Using a fulfillment service also helps you negotiate a realistic rate with various couriers. And most importantly, hiring a fulfillment partner allows you to not have additional staff to take care of logistics and supply chain matters.
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Scale Up Your Business:
Once you start to depend on your fulfillment partner, you’re bound to increase sales and avail the expertise of the most efficient team. Through a fulfillment partner, you can save valuable time and resources for your business. This would allow you to focus on activities that can accelerate and expand your business and allow you to achieve long-term financial goals faster. With the help and support of a fulfillment partner, you don’t have to stress about managing inventory, distributing inventory, recruiting new fulfillment staff, or finding cost-effective warehousing space. In no time, you’ll be able to streamline your order fulfillment process which will boost your confidence to leverage more scalable opportunities.
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Drive Growth for Your Business:
Having a fulfillment order is one of the best ways to transform the operational efficiency of your business. This, in turn, allows online merchants to drive the growth of their business over time. The truth is that even packaging boxes is a time-consuming and costly effort.But eCommerce retailers can opt for the services of a fulfillment partner and cut out this burden of responsibility. The less time you spend on logistics and supply chain, the more time you will have to improve online marketing, product sourcing, and sales.
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Be Part of New and Bigger Markets:
The most competent fulfillment partners have a smart and dedicated fulfillment network that allows online retailers to make international sales easily, achieve scalability, use modern tools, and drive growth throughout the world.Opting for a fulfillment partner is the best way to boost sales, cut back on operational costs, and be part of a bigger network. Ultimately, you can use this network to launch your products in new markets efficiently. On top of benefiting from a fulfillment partner’s low shipping rates and ideal distribution location, you can attain and retain the attention of new customers in new markets to drive more sales and growth.
In terms of scalability, your fulfillment partner can help you expand to more locations within a specific timeframe. Fulfillment partners have a lot of resources and are able to meet added capacity requirements. This, in turn, helps online merchants to scale up and meet complex fulfillment obligations without having significant resources.
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Streamline Your Supply Chain Process:
There is a reason modern-day online merchant owners outsource their order fulfillment. In fact, 3PL vendor helps eCommerce players maintain complex infrastructure and ensure seamless procurement and delivery of inventory.
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Centralize Operations:
Ultimately, having an order fulfillment partner allows eCommerce players to centralize the procurement process. And if customer expectations increase, a reliable 3PL partner can help you maintain competitive and efficient operations. Not to mention, this is also the best way to optimize resources.
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Swift Tech Adoption:
With the advent of new technologies, it can get difficult for eCommerce players to keep up with advanced and modern tech innovations. Through an order fulfillment partner, eCommerce players can have more comprehensive and ubiquitous access to ERO solutions and advanced inventory management tools.
Final Thoughts
Today, there are many recognizable and reputable players operating in the fulfillment market. Each company offers its own set of specialized services and custom features. In most cases, however, it is easier for eCommerce retailers to meet their 3PL needs through a mid-range order fulfillment company.
Since there is an endless list of market offers from fulfillment partners, it can be overwhelming for eCommerce entities to choose the best partner. The trick is to review your business and then make sure whether or not a specific fulfillment partner would be a perfect fit.
