Health, wellness, and beauty products hold the top spots for eCommerce when it comes to revenue growth.
That said, health and beauty brands selling online must consider a few things, especially as they start to grow and scale. From shipping times and eCommerce integration to branding and cost constraints, these are important things to keep in mind when taking on more customers.
If you manage logistics and fulfillment for a fast-growing company, you might be looking for a solution that has the ability to handle your situation.
In this article, we’ll go over what order fulfillment is, as well as health and wellness fulfillment. By the end of this article, you’ll be equipped with solutions for your growing health and wellness business.
What is Health and Wellness Fulfillment?
Order fulfillment is the entire process of what occurs from when an item is purchased or ordered; this includes all the way to the customer receiving that product. More specifically, health and wellness fulfillment refers to the picking, packing, and shipping of health and wellness goods.
These goods can include meal replacements, protein powders, protein shakes, energy drinks, and more. Since these types of products have a shelf life and also must be approved by the FDA, they need extra attention. Due to the nature of the products and industry, health, wellness and beauty brands need to pay special attention to inventory storage and shipping products safely.
The US health, beauty, and wellness category are forecasted to reach $86 billion by 2022. This is because their products are in high demand! More than half of US consumers (53.9%) online say that they’re likely to try beauty and self-care products from these kinds of brands in the future.
If you’re a business in one of these categories and are seeing growth, it may be time to take a look at the challenges your inventory can pose.
Challenges of Shipping Health and Wellness Products
Fulfilling health and wellness orders comes with more challenges than other products like apparel, merch, books, etc.
If you’re seeing more orders pour into your health and wellness brand, or you’re looking to scale, you should make sure you address the following challenges.
Health & Wellness Products Are Error-Prone
Traditional approaches to fulfilling orders, such as self-fulfillment, can lead to a lot of errors. Additionally, when selling health and nutrition products online, you have to consider things like; FDA regulations, quality control, and additional safety measures.
Keeping track of multiple orders as well as fulfilling them can lead to errors down the line. Additionally, these errors can lead to drops in product quality and more.
Expiration Dates of Health & Wellness Products
Health, wellness, and beauty products have expiration dates and shelf lives.
Keeping up with your product’s expiration dates are crucial for quality as well as staying FDA compliant. With a multitude of expiration dates, maintaining a health and beauty fulfillment warehouse can be challenging. It can be even more challenging if you’re self-fulfilling.
As previously mentioned, these categories are forecasted to reach $86 billion by 2022. To keep up with this growth trajectory, it’s worth looking into 3PL solutions for fulfillment; which we will get into soon.
The Need of Special Packaging
Packaging orders are another challenge that is important to address. This is because most health and wellness products can be considered as fragile fulfillment.
Health and wellness products often have special packaging requirements due to their temperature-sensitivity and fragility. So, it’s important that your packaging is optimized for product quality and security. Furthermore, the right packaging for shipments determines everything; from shipping costs to product aesthetics to whether products arrive safely at the customer’s doorstep.
In addition, considering the projected growth of this industry, companies should want to invest in a customer’s boxing experience. Even though the unboxing experience is a temporary moment, it is, however, a part of the product that customers are buying. Furthermore, any extra effort that brands put into packaging increases the perceived value of your product.
In other words, it can psychologically feel good to open a package that’s aesthetically appealing. Tackling your custom packaging before scaling is definitely beneficial in the long run.
How 3PL Services Can Help Health & Wellness Fulfillment
After going over the challenges that health and wellness brands can face, it may seem overwhelming to invest in a one-size-fits-all solution. However, there’s no need to stress.
When it comes to logistics and fulfillment processes, 3PLs often provide all the services that eCommerce businesses need. Third-party fulfillment (3PL) partners are ideal solutions for health and wellness companies. 3PL partners, like Print Bind Ship, can provide solutions such as; FDA-compliant warehousing, 2-day shipping, custom packaging design, inventory management, and shipping and returns!
Let’s take a look at the services 3PLs should provide for health and wellness brands.
What Should You Look For In A Health and Wellness Fulfillment Service?
3PLs that are FDA compliant have the experience and capacity to help health and wellness brands grow and scale. By providing warehousing, shipping, order management, and professional eCommerce consulting, partnering with a 3PL is like having your own warehousing team.
Depending on your needs, the right 3PL should be able to rise to the occasion. If you’re looking to scale your health and wellness business, ultimately, these are the services a 3PL partner should provide:
2-Day Shipping & Global Shipping
Consumers today are becoming more accustomed to fast shipping. You could thank (or shake your fist) at Amazon Prime for that.
However, if you’re looking to sustain a competitive edge in this quickly growing market, 2-Day shipping is one way to do it. A 3PL fulfillment partner should be able to provide this kind of expedited shipping.
In addition to fast shipping, great 3PLs should have the ability to ship internationally.
It’s beneficial to invest in a 3PL, like Print Bind Ship, that have certified shipping centers. As a certified shipping center, Print Bind Ship is able to ship orders worldwide; and within 24 hours of order processing as well as 2-day shipping nationwide.
Product Integration
Health and wellness companies are likely to have a wide variety of products. So, it’s important that your 3PL partner is able to integrate a myriad of products.
3PLs should be able to provide warehousing for products such as; vitamins, dietary, and detoxifying supplements, cosmetics, skin-care creams, and more. If not, you will continue to face the same challenges when it comes to scaling your business.
Inventory Quality and Climate-Controlled Warehousing
In this industry, it’s extremely important to have a climate-controlled warehouse, along with sturdy heat-resistant packaging.
Quality control for inventory is a must, due to the time-sensitive nature of health-related products. 3PLs typically possess the logistics to ship products out on a first-in-first-out basis.
Print Bind Ship is a great 3PL option not only for their inventory quality but also their FDA-Compliant warehousing. With them, you can trust your products will remain up to standard in their care.
A Great Unboxing Experience
Providing your customers with an amazing unboxing experience can do wonders!
Up until now, you may have been simply shipping your products to customers as is; meaning, you ship them their ordered products in standard, generic packaging. However, when you take the time to put a little more thought into your shipping experience, it can really pay off in the long run. As previously mentioned, any extra effort that brands put into packaging increases the perceived value of your product.
Partnering with a 3PL, like Print Bind Ship, gives you more capacity to connect with your customers, instead of dealing with the hassles of order management and shipping. A great 3PL should have the ability to help scale your business in all areas; starting with your unboxing experience.
Subscription Order Management
Health and wellness brands can benefit greatly from a subscription business model. This is because customers are likely to stay loyal with subscription plans!
Being able to keep up with your subscription box fulfillment is crucial; and having a 3PL partner can ensure orders are out on time. Pairing your subscription business model with a great unboxing experience will do wonders for your brand. So, it’s important to make sure your subscription 3PL partner has you cover on this end as well. Learn more about custom packaging for small businesses.
Working With Print Bind Ship For Your Health and Nutrition Fulfillment Needs
Now that we’ve gone over the challenges health and wellness brands face, as well as the features you should consider when looking for a fulfillment partner, you can further relax by knowing Print Bind Ship offers all of these services and more!
Print Bind Ship is a certified shipping center. Not only does this allow them to ship orders within 24 hours of processing, but they can also ship orders worldwide; which is extremely beneficial for subscription-based business models!
Furthermore, Print Bind Ship’s warehousing is FDA-compliant. So, you can trust that your products will be stored and shipped safely—ensuring top quality. Additionally, Print Bind Ship offers box manufacturing and printing on-demand services. This means Print Bind Ship is well equipped to craft a great unboxing experience for your customers.
To find out more on how Print Bind Ship can help you, get in touch with an expert and take advantage of our free consultations.