Best Reasons To Use a Order Fulfillment Service

7 Great Reasons to Use a Fulfillment Service

Sometimes lists like these are numbered in order of importance. Those numbering schemes can go from most important to least important or be in the countdown style that David Letterman has made so popular on his late night talk show.

We’re going to skip that for this list. Managers and owners from different businesses are going to have varying reasons that impress them as being the most important. We’ll let you decide which is your “number one reason to use a fulfillment service.” Let’s get started:

1. Allows you to focus on what you do best. There’s a good chance your business is excellent in a specific area, such as product development, sales or marketing. Working in partnership with a fulfillment service lets you spend your energy, intellectual and creative firepower where you excel. Launching a home-grown fulfillment center is very likely to dilute your overall effectiveness.

2. Get the best shipping rates. There’s a wide variety of ways to ship your products and the landscape changes quite frequently. A full-service fulfillment company is always on top of the most economical and most dependable ways to ship and negotiate discounts based upon their shipping volumes.

3. Maintain flexibility and be properly staffed for demand. Product cycles and business in general have peaks and valleys. There is no reason to carry a big shipping department when you’re in the lull between product introductions, marketing campaigns or seasonal demand. With a product fulfillment service you’re properly staffed all year long. Any manager who has had to ramp up—or down—knows the burden it puts on training, quality control, HR and virtually every facet of the operation.

4. IT doesn’t need to install or develop additional software. Dealing with shipping, tracking, ordering and inventory software can be very difficult. With a fulfillment service, you’re able to tie into proven software to instantly review order status and all the other functions that revolve around shipping and inventory control. We haven’t met any manager yet who needs another software headache.

5. Removes worries about kitting. Fulfillment centers are experienced with handling custom orders, even it they involve kitting (putting a group of items together). They have the systems in place to be certain that the right materials go out the door and to the customer.

6. You can have your offices anywhere. Locate your headquarters wherever it makes the most sense for your business plan or personal lifestyle preferences. If you want to be out in the countryside and enjoy a slower, rural lifestyle, but away from major shipping arteries that’s great. If you need to be near a major technology hub, where