With the rapid growth of e-commerce, customers have set new standards for businesses. Order processing times may influence a customer’s satisfaction and exceptional customer service is important for a business to retain existing customers and to grow new ones. Challenges may arise when fulfillment times are delayed and customer service reps are behind on requests. With so many moving parts, it’s important to be on top of everything. Implementing an efficient order fulfillment process is important to combating some of these challenges. Below, we will look at some of the most common challenges in fulfillment that may affect your business.
Challenges in Logistics:
- Supply Chain – It’s important to have a good working relationship with your suppliers. When you’re low on stock, it’s important to know how long it’ll take to manufacture and ship the products to the warehouse.
- Inventory Levels – It’s important to know what you have in stock, what to replenish and how often to replenish. By knowing your stock levels, this will create a better shopping experience for your customers.
- Demand Planning – Demand planning should be done on a seasonal basis to help businesses forecast customer demand for products. It’s never good to be understocked, but it’s also not great to be over stocked. By using a combination of historical data and growth forecasting, this will help your company minimize excess inventory.
- Talent – With seasonal and cyclical demands, it may be hard to forecast and hire talent to meet operational needs. Attracting and retaining talent is also another problem. With the baby boomers retiring, the number of jobs are increasing while the talent is decreasing. A survey conducted by Supply Chain Talent indicates that the industry is struggling to find and retain employees in this sector.
- Fulfillment – It’s important to know when your peak seasons are, and when you may have cyclical demand. Knowing when your business will surge will allow your operations team to find and hire talent so your processing times are not delayed.
Running a business will come with many other challenges. Partnering with a 3PL provider can offer great value in helping your business overcome fulfillment challenges. By leaving your operations and fulfillment requirements to experts, this will help free up your time in providing exceptional customer service to customers while growing your brand.