What services can a fulfillment house provide you?

How order fulfillment services could help small businesses

In order for a small or startup company to get a boost in income, it needs to cut back on unnecessary costs if it can. These companies usually have smaller spaces and have minimum number of employees to start the business rolling. One business owner for instance, could opt to employ people for marketing and sales of the products only with some accounting people to manage the finances. The other parts of their business they outsource to companies that offer order fulfillment.

These outsourced activities may include storage, packaging, and delivery for order fulfillment. Other businesses require customer service or call center facilities, E-commerce integration services, and customer relationship management systems for additional marketing or after-sales satisfaction of their customers.

These do come with high price tags but the ultimate effect of such investment is still pretty much acceptable. The costs will definitely be much, much higher if these processes are made within the startup company since additional spaces in the office account to additional manpower and additional utilities.

Order Fulfillment for the Customers

The most common job orders for fulfillment focus on taking care of the products and the customers. Products that may not be stored in the company’s office can be stored in third-party warehouses where they can be properly taken care of in case they need special climate-controlled facilities. Most ordinarily boxed products can stay in the ordinary warehouses which these fulfillment houses own, and which really cover a lot of real estate.

Once sold, the products that are stored can be picked by the coordinators in the warehouse and prepare them for packaging. They also schedule the delivery for these items by using trusted couriers like DHL, UPS, and Fedex.

The business owners will find that the storage fees are cheaper because these service companies distribute their warehouse charges among the companies that use their facilities. They also ship in bulk, so they can negotiate lower shipping fees with the couriers. This is something a small retailer won’t be able to do since it cannot match the bulk of deliveries that the fulfillment services companies have.