The most wonderful time of the year is an important season for many retail brands, as sales can make up a large percentage of a retailer’s annual revenue. In addition to creating a killer marketing campaign for the gift-giving season, retailers must be sure to prepare a holiday fulfillment strategy.
A seamless holiday order fulfillment strategy has many parts, including inventory, warehousing, packaging, shipping, staffing and returns management. If all of this sounds like a lot for you to manage, you may want to join the large percentage of retailers that outsource their order fulfillment. Here are four reasons to outsource your holiday order fulfillment this season:
Holiday fulfillment services can keep up with the high volume of orders
Shoppers are expected to spend 5% more this year than they did last year, with more than half of all holiday shopping being done digitally. The holiday season is when many eCommerce brands happily see their sales increase, but there is a lot of work that comes with fulfilling these orders. Shopping holidays like Black Friday and Cyber Monday can significantly multiply an eCommerce retailer’s average sales volume, and they must be able to keep up. Not having a good system in place can result in costly mistakes like lost orders, and customers receiving incorrect or damaged products.
If you expect fulfilling orders to be a big challenge this holiday season, consider outsourcing to the fulfillment experts. Outsourcing to a holiday fulfillment services provider allows you to focus on more important things while resting assured that all orders are being fulfilled in a quick, efficient manner, even on the busiest online shopping days of the year.
Outsourcing eliminates the need to hire seasonal employees
After fulfilling orders, another common concern among eCommerce business owners is staffing. Recruiting, hiring, training and managing a staff of seasonal employees can be time consuming and exhausting. Outsourcing eliminates the need to spend time on any of that, and when a 3PL services company handles your fulfillment, everyone working on your orders is already trained and experienced.
3PL services providers use innovative technology
A successful holiday sales season requires much more than just an amazing website and marketing strategy. When it comes to fulfilling orders in a seamless manner, technology including shopping cart integration, bar code scanning, EDI (electronic data interchange), and a user-friendly web portal can make a big difference.
Last minute shoppers expect fast shipping
While some people start their holiday shopping in August, many frantically purchase gifts just days before Christmas. Online retailers that are unable to offer next day or two-day shipping will miss out on this rush of last-minute orders.
Outsourcing to a 3PL services company gives eCommerce businesses access to two-day and next-day air shipping options at a discounted rate through their relationships with carriers such as USPS, FedEx or UPS. Not only does this help retailers save money on shipping costs, but it will also result in increased revenue from last minute shoppers.
