E-commerce sales worldwide equaled over 4.28 trillion US dollars in 2020, and it’s set to increase into 2022.
Now is a great time to be in the e-commerce arena. With online business still on the upswing, you need to know your options for outsourcing and scaling up.
Packaging fulfillment is a simple way of ensuring that your e-commerce business keeps up with the fast-growing world of online business.
What Is a Packaging Fulfillment Service?
Simply put, a fulfillment service is a third-party warehouse. They handle the logistics of storing your products, packaging them up, and mailing them out to fulfill orders. It’s an ideal partnership for businesses who’d prefer not to deal with shipping, or who’ve outgrown their current warehouse capacity.
Fulfillment Service Benefits
Using a fulfillment service to handle the logistics of packaging and shipping will free up time, manpower, and warehouse storage space. There are some less obvious benefits too, such as:
- Avoid long-term warehouse leases
- The fulfillment company will adapt as you grow or go slow
- Hire the experts without committing to a salary
- Spend your time doing what you’re good at, not packing boxes
- Freedom and time to experiment with strategies, inventory management, and growth techniques.
When Is a Good Time to Make the Shift to Outsourced Fulfillment?
Most businesses handle their own orders in the beginning and outsource as they grow. However, the size of your business isn’t a determining factor when it comes to choosing to use a fulfillment service. Small businesses and large businesses make use of a warehousing and fulfillment service. So what are the signs that it’s time to investigate outsourcing?
Cyclical or Fluctuating Sales
Running your own warehouse and keeping warehouse staff permanently employed will be a challenge if your sales are uneven. This goes for low sales as well as the high sales spikes. Not delivering due to an overwhelming number of orders can cause you to compromise on efficient order fulfillment.
Too Busy
If dealing with order fulfillment leaves no time for you to concentrate on growth, it is time to start outsourcing. As the owner, you need to be free to focus on sales, marketing, expanding to other e-commerce platforms, and product development if you want to maintain a growing, healthy business.
Insufficient Infrastructure
Fast geographic growth sometimes happens too quickly for your business to adapt fast enough. A fulfillment and packaging partner can meet the needs of your widespread customer base.
Can you still use custom packaging?
Custom packaging fulfillment contributes to client satisfaction and loyalty. It is a vital part of the overall customer experience. Not all packaging fulfillment services can offer custom packaging, so choose wisely.
Quality Packaging Fulfillment
Quality packaging fulfillment is about keeping orders safe, reducing shipping costs, and efficient order fulfillment while keeping branding spot on. Getting this right will mean a growing, satisfied customer base.
Using a quality packaging fulfillment company will set you free to pioneer and take your brand and products beyond where they are now. If you’re ready for the next stage of growth for your business, contact us today.