Amazon delivery is setting the standard for e-commerce fulfillment. In the customer’s mind, small retailers must keep up to compete. That’s why it’s important for startups to understand the benefits of fulfillment services.
All businesses that sell goods need to get those goods into customers’ hands safely, quickly and efficiently. When customers order from Amazon and Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA), they expect to receive their orders intact and on time. Why should ordering from a small company be any different?
Smaller companies may not be equipped to handle the order fulfillment needs of their customers. Should a startup enlist fulfillment services from a third party or try to handle it in-house? Fulfilling your own orders looks like a cheaper option on paper. But you will save time, effort and money in the long term if you enlist the services of a fulfillment company.
What Are Fulfillment Services?
Fulfillment is a business service that helps startups manage their orders, product inventory and shipping. These services are especially beneficial to startups because they provide a convenient and cost-effective way to handle their order fulfillment needs. By outsourcing these tasks to a fulfillment service, startups can free up time and resources to focus on other aspects of their businesses.
With a fulfillment service, startups can manage their orders more efficiently by automating the process. This automation reduces the cost of order processing and ensures that orders are received on time. Fulfillment services also can provide detailed tracking information so that startups can monitor their orders and ensure they are arriving safely and on time. This information can also be used to analyze customer purchase patterns, allowing startups to better understand and serve their customers.
Fulfillment services also provide startups with access to a wider range of products, including items that are difficult to find or too expensive to stock in-house. This access to products can help startups expand their offerings and better meet customer demand. Fulfillment services also often provide discounts on shipping costs, which helps startups save money and offer competitive prices to their customers.
Overall, fulfillment services provide startups with an invaluable business service that helps them manage their orders, product inventory, shipping and customer data more efficiently. This service can help startups save time, money and resources, enabling them to focus on other aspects of their business and remain competitive in their industry.
What Challenges Do Startups Face?
Startups have many things to worry about ranging from creating their products and figuring out how to sell them to how to market and advertise effectively. The last thing they need to worry about is the logistics of getting that product into the hands of customers.
Fulfillment can be a headache, especially for a new company with no history of getting their product out to customers. Some of the common issues that startups face are below.
Shipping
Shipping, as daunting as it may seem, doesn’t have to be overly difficult. All you have to do is make an online sale, determine which products to package, the total size and weight and confirm the shipping destination. Determine the shipping method and carrier to use, and consider hiring a drop shipping service if your product is time sensitive. Then send the package through the chosen carrier at the predetermined price.
Easy peasy right? But if you’re a new company focusing on specific product development, the last thing you probably want to think about is the logistical hoops you must jump through to get your product to a customer’s doorstep.
But when you make sales, shipping your products to consumers will need to be done efficiently. If not, you may not continue to get business no matter how awesome your product may be.
Managing Inventory
If small businesses take orders from customers, they are making commitments to delivering that product on time, no matter what. This may be OK with smaller quantities. But if the business grows and you don’t scale appropriately, you could be looking at inventory issues. These issues may cause a disruption in the distribution chain.
Some customers can forgive smaller businesses and shipping mishaps. With large companies like Amazon out there, customer expectations for delivery quality are high. It may be best to outsource your fulfillment. This way, your inventory can be properly managed, and customers do not have delays or other issues.
Customer Service
The best way you can retain an existing customer that has experienced an issue is through extraordinary customer relations. Customer service is one of the most important aspects of a company. It can also be one of the hardest to implement correctly.
For startups, customers may experience more complications with their products and want to return them. If this happens and you do not have experience dealing with returns effectively, this could reflect poorly on the business as a whole. Order-fulfillment companies provide reliable and organized services to handle returns. They also refill stock and get deliveries out on time to customers for you.
Technology
The supply chain is much easier to navigate these days with GPS and other technologies. You are able to track your deliveries in real-time and know the exact location of your delivery truck. This is at your fingertips if you have the right technology.
If you do not have the technology of a major logistics company, you may not be able to have the ability to know exactly where your products are going and on what schedule. This could be a problem if issues arise in the shipping process.
Order Management
Sometimes orders get mixed up and customers get sent an incorrect product. No big deal right? This happens every now and then; no one is perfect.
But it may be hard for a startup to store, pick, label, pack and ship their own orders in an organized fashion without making mistakes. By trying to manage all of your orders as a single company, you may not have the capabilities to track your inventory with barcodes and scanners and manage your warehouse inventory appropriately.
Benefits of Fulfillment Services For Startups
Print Bind Ship is a single source as both a manufacturing and fulfillment expert. This creates opportunities for a fully customizable experience no competitor can offer. Not only do we offer this service, we provide startups with a litany of other benefits.
Product and Inventory Management
Print Bind Ship can create your product for you. Or if you prefer to send us your merchandise, we can warehouse it for you and ship it when it’s purchased. If you have an on-demand product, no inventory will be kept and the product will be created when it’s ordered.
Packaging Design
Are you just finishing up a product and looking for custom packaging designs during launch? Custom packaging designs are our specialty. The designs can be created with your small-business startup. All you have to do is work with our team of experts to develop the perfect packaging solution for your products.
Storefront Integration
If your startup is worried about knowing where your orders are at any moment, Print Bind Ship has you covered. Print Bind Ship will sync our order fulfillment software with your e-commerce platform. We want to give you access to up-to-the-minute order processing and inventory tracking so all of that information is at your fingertips.
Order Fulfillment
Our specialty is handling all of your fulfillment needs. We pick your product from our warehouse and pack each order according to your business’s specifications. If you have a product we have created a custom box for, we will pack it in that packaging.
If you have an on-demand order, we will create your product on the spot and pack it according to your specifications. All orders through Print Bind Ship use the best quality packaging materials so your customers have the best experience possible.
Shipping Worldwide
We will ship within 24 hours of order processing to anywhere within the world. Print Bind Ship is a certified shipping center. This allows us to have some of the most competitive shipping and freight costs in the industry. Your business will save money using Print Bind Ship’s shipping instead of trying to coordinate shipping and handling in your company’s infancy.
Why Startups Hire Fulfillment by Print Bind Ship
As your business grows, there will come a moment when you are not able to manage the services that a fulfillment company handles. In the beginning, when sales are minimal, a startup may be able to handle its own fulfillment. But after ramping up sales, businesses usually realize professional help is necessary. Fulfillment is tricky, and it has a direct effect on a company’s bottom line. Using a reputable company such as Print Bind Ship is the best fulfillment solution for startups. We offer businesses the flexibility to grow with demand, kitting and assembly services, warehouse storage, worldwide shipping access and tracking and reporting services.
FAQ
Fulfillment services allow startups to focus on growing their business while having the peace of mind that their products are being shipped promptly and accurately. Fulfillment services can also provide cost savings because they can handle the labor associated with packing and shipping as well as provide access to discounted shipping rates.
Startups can take advantage of a variety of fulfillment services, including inventory and order management, warehousing and storage, shipping and tracking and returns processing. Some services may also include additional features such as pick and pack, kitting and assembly and customized packaging. Contact Print Bind Ship for customized solutions.
When searching for a fulfillment service for your startup, look for providers that have experience in your industry, offer reliable shipping and tracking services and have reasonable pricing. It is also important to look for a provider that is willing to work with you to develop customized solutions that meet the unique needs of your business. When in doubt, turn to Print Bind Ship.