+1 800 967-0030

How To Find Vitamin & Supplement Fulfillment Services

Locating the right company for pharmaceutical fulfillment can be a difficult process.

Unlike clothing or other general retail fulfillment, the products that vitamin and supplement companies offer can be highly volatile. There are plenty of companies that can handle standard logistics with products that never expire, but it takes a special set of skill to manage vitamins and supplements. Because of their delicate nature, 3rd party logistics companies who hope to handle these products should have their process set up with expiration dates and fast processing in mind.

Anatomy of an Ideal Pharmaceutical Fulfillment Partner

If your fulfillment partner doesn’t keep a close eye on the expiration dates of your products, you could lose a lot of money very quickly as returns come pouring in and products in the warehouse become unsellable.

As you’re interviewing potential logistics partners, make sure to ask about these items:

Stock rotation. It’s vital that your new 3PL look closely at expiration dates and push the oldest stock to the front of the rotation for the pick, pack and ship process first. Newer stock should always be moved to the back of the line because it will have a much longer shelf life than the products that have already been in the warehouse a while. Although you’d never want to send expired products to customers, sending out the newest stock first just means that you’re going to waste a lot of money on products than languish on the shelves.

Distribution speed. Customers ordering vitamins and supplements typically need these products quickly. Between that and the sometimes-delicate nature of the orders themselves, it’s vital that your orders ship quickly and don’t spend too long in transit. Choosing a 3PL that’s centrally located in relation to shipping means that your customers will always receive products that are fresh and potent.

Reverse logistics. Although it’s important that any 3PL have a reasonable plan in place for reverse logistics, when it comes to pharmaceutical fulfillment, this goes double. When returns are difficult, customers will sometimes drag out the process and the end result is that the vitamins or supplements that are returned unopened are still unsellable because they’ve expired. Reverse logistics should be about loss prevention as much as it is about customer retention, especially when delicate products are involved.

There are plenty of vitamin and supplement fulfillment services available, but it’s important that you don’t just hire the first one that you come across using Google. Make a short list of the companies that seem to offer the services you need, then interview them carefully about their policies and practices. If you can view the warehouse (either in-person or via online video), so much the better. Referrals and customer reviews can also help when it comes to choosing a 3PL partner for supplements.

November 26, 2015
Share This:

Related Posts

RECENT POSTS

Using RFP to Meet Your New BFF (Best Fulfillment Friend)

Helping people brings me such fulfilment. Cropped portrait of an attractive young female call center agent working at her desk in the office. As the e-commerce landscape becomes more complex, outsourcing logistics operations to a third-party logistics (3PL) provider...

Temperature-Controlled Warehouse

3 Reasons to Get Cozy with Temperature-Controlled Warehousing Are you an e-commerce business owner specializing in temperature-sensitive products? If your inventory includes items that demand specific climate conditions, you're already aware of the challenges that...

Finding the Perfect Fulfillment Fit for Your Shopify Business

For Shopify merchants, there is a lot to juggle on a daily basis. Managing product listings, maintaining the website, running marketing campaigns, and handling customer inquiries are just a few of the many tasks that fill up the to-do list. With so much on your plate,...

AI-Generated E-Commerce Product Descriptions

It’s 2023, and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know the AI revolution is here. From home chefs asking AI tools to plan their dinner menus for the week, to financial analysts leveraging the computing power to uncover the next hit stock, it seems everyone is...

Tax Implications of Shipping From Multiple States

If you run an e-commerce business, you know the risks and rewards associated with this format. You don’t need to worry about a storefront, leasing space, staffing your store, and providing face-to-face customer service. You can work on your business outside normal...