If there’s one major trend in retail, it’s that more and more consumers are choosing to shop online. With the ecommerce industry rapidly growing in size each year, it is estimated that there are currently about 1.3 million e-commerce companies based in the United States and Canada.
New ecommerce businesses launch every day, and many of them keep their order fulfillment in-house in the beginning. However, once their order volume increases, these businesses look into outsourcing to a 3PL services company with a fulfillment center.
Fulfillment centers are becoming more popular with ecommerce retailers of all sizes, and for good reason. Whether they need the extra space to manage more inventory, or they wish to have more time and money to continue growing their business, outsourcing to a fulfillment center can offer many benefits.
What is a fulfillment center?
Fulfillment centers are physical locations that enable ecommerce retailers to outsource storage, shipping, returns, and more. Businesses choose to outsource to fulfillment centers for a variety of reasons, from saving money on everything from shipping costs to supplies, to taking advantage of the expertise that a third-party logistics (3PL) partner can offer in many areas.
When you outsource to a leading order fulfillment center like ShipWizard, here’s what you can expect:
- A safe, temperature-controlled place for your business’s inventory to be stored in preparation for fulfilling customer orders.
- That the security of your products and merchandise will be a top concern. Access to our fulfillment center is restricted, and all visiting vendors are accompanied by a staff member when they visit.
- A knowledgeable, experienced team of order fulfillment experts. ShipWizard is proud to be a registered drug-free workplace, and we perform background checks and drug testing services on our employees.
- Seamless ecommerce fulfillment and reverse logistics processes. Each of our clients is allotted a designated location in our fulfillment center, and careful measures are implemented to track and manage each step of their process.
How can outsourcing to a fulfillment center help your business?
To give you an example of how one company has benefited from outsourcing a fulfillment center, we’ll share a case study about a client that we’ve worked with since 2012. This company, which sells dietary supplements, creams and a variety of nutraceutical products both online and through TV infomercials, came to us in search of a 3PL partner with at least 20 pallets’ worth of storage.
Outsourcing a variety of services to our fulfillment center— warehousing, storage, pick and pack, shipping, wholesale orders, and returns logistics and processing– has helped this client focus on growing their core business, and the company has thrived over the years. Their average daily volume is up to 120 orders (a 100% increase since 2012), they have grown to have over 100 individual SKUs, and their reverse logistics process is now an efficient and seamless process.
To learn more about how outsourcing to a fulfillment center can help your ecommerce business reduce costs while improving your bottom line, contact us at ShipWizard.
