For eCommerce businesses, a great product alone no longer guarantees success. The entire customer journey—from browsing to unboxing—has become crucial in winning and retaining loyal customers.
With expectations for accuracy, speed, and seamless experiences at an all-time high, even minor hiccups in order fulfilment can lead to customer dissatisfaction, returns, and lost sales.
Even more challenging is the fact that as your eCommerce business grows, so does the complexity of your order fulfilment process. What works for smaller brands often becomes unsustainable as order volumes increase. That's why a well-designed, scalable fulfilment strategy is essential for long-term success.
In this blog, we'll walk through the five critical steps to creating a smooth order fulfilment process. Whether you're just starting out or looking to optimise your existing operations, these insights will help you meet customer demands, streamline your workflow, and prepare for sustainable growth in the ever-evolving world of eCommerce.
A Quick Recap: What is eCommerce Order Fulfilment?
But eCommerce fulfilment is more than just a logistical necessity—it's a powerful tool for building a good foundation for your eCommerce success. When streamlined, it can help your business gain a competitive edge in preparing and delivering products that meet and exceed customer expectations.
However, as your eCommerce business scales, managing this complex process in-house can become increasingly challenging. That's where third-party logistics providers (3PLs) like SKUTOPIA come into play. Specialists like us can help you transform your order fulfilment from a potential bottleneck into a streamlined, efficient operation.
Ready to find out how to streamline this process? Let’s jump right into how third-party providers (3PLs) can help you achieve a smooth order fulfilment process in five steps.
Step 1: Automated Inventory Receiving
The journey of a successful order begins long before a customer clicks "buy." It starts with the critical process of inventory receiving – a step that, when optimised, sets the stage for flawless fulfilment.
This process may seem straightforward, but it’s crucial to get it right. It is more than just counting boxes – it is a meticulous process that involves verifying product quantities, assessing item quality, cross-checking documentation, and updating inventory systems in real-time.
Get this step right, and you pave the way for smooth operations downstream. Get it wrong, and you risk a domino effect of issues: shipping errors, delayed deliveries, costly returns underselling, and overselling.
With the help of 3PLs who offer automation for this process, leveraging automated methods can greatly reduce the risk of human error and streamline the order receipt process so you can have real-time data and insights into your business's operations.
Tips for Efficient Inventory Receiving:
- Automate Data Entry: Use barcode scanners and inventory management software to automatically log received items into your system. This reduces the risk of human error and speeds up the process.
- Quality Check: Implement a standard procedure for quality checks to catch any defects or discrepancies before they affect your stock levels. You can use barcodes to verify the right item, and then use product weight to validate the right amount of the product.
Step 2: Streamlined Inventory Management
After receiving inventory, the next critical challenge is managing it with precision. By streamlining your inventory management, you can worry less about not having enough products to pack for incoming orders nor having overstocks that don’t sell, which only costs you storage fees and lost sales.
Imagine never having to disappoint a customer with an "out of stock" message or watching profits dwindle due to excess inventory gathering dust. That's the promise of a well-organised inventory management.
Tools & Techniques for Inventory Management:
- Just-in-Time (JIT) Inventory: Consider implementing JIT inventory to minimise storage costs and reduce waste by receiving goods only when they’re needed for fulfilment.
- Automation with ASRS: Leverage Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS) to enhance stock control. Automation significantly reduces the risk of shrinkage, making inventory management more accurate and efficient.
Step 3: Robotic Picking and Packing
Order processing is where the magic begins. Now you’re finally ready to pick and pack your orders! In this step, the items included in an order are picked and prepared for shipment. This typically involves retrieving the items from storage, ensuring they are in good condition, and packaging them appropriately for shipment.
Picking and packing is one of the most critical steps in the fulfilment process, as it can greatly impact the speed, accuracy, and quality of deliveries.
Many 3PLs still rely on manual picking and packing to fulfil orders. SKUTOPIA, on the other hand, believes in the promise of robotic accuracy and efficiency. With robotic order fulfilment, orders are picked, packed, and dispatched within minutes and not hours, allowing your business to scale even during peak seasons.
SKUTOPIA’s cut-to-fit technology also allows orders to be packed with quality and sustainably. Plus, it allows you to save on shipping costs with smaller orders that are charged less than big, airy boxes.
Best Practices for Picking and Packing:
- Robotic efficiency: Leverage the power of robots to pick, pack, and dispatch efficiently and accurately.
- Cut-to-fit packaging: Pack items with quality materials and cut-to-fit boxes so you can save on shipping costs, especially for smaller items.
Step 4: Swift Dispatch
After picking and packing, it's time to dispatch your orders with speed and precision. Swift dispatch ensures that once your orders are packed, they are quickly sent to the shipping carrier, minimising delivery delays and keeping your fulfilment timeline on track.
At SKUTOPIA, our advanced robotic technology enables us to pick, pack, and dispatch orders within minutes. This efficiency supports our commitment to same-day fulfilment, allowing eCommerce businesses to offer rapid delivery options like same-day and next-day services.
Tips for Enhancing Swift Dispatch
- Integrate with Shipping Carriers: Use technology that integrates seamlessly with shipping carriers to expedite the dispatch process and reduce manual entry.
- Fulfil with robotic efficiency: Employ cutting-edge technology to prepare and dispatch orders within minutes, not hours, ensuring a swift and accurate fulfilment experience.
Step 5: Fast Shipping
Shipping is the final outward-facing stage of the order fulfilment process, where you deliver on your promise to the customer. This critical step involves selecting the right shipping carrier, preparing shipping labels, and ensuring that packages are dispatched promptly.
Efficient shipping is essential—swift picking, packing, and dispatch are of little value if your partnered carrier is slow. To uphold your commitment to fast delivery, choose reliable carriers that align with your fulfilment goals, ensuring your customers receive their orders as quickly as promised.
When choosing a shipping carrier, you must consider several factors such as cost, delivery speed, and reliability. For example, while a local carrier may offer faster delivery times, it may not be cost-effective for larger or heavier orders. On the other hand, a national carrier may offer more affordable shipping rates, but longer delivery times.
With SKUTOPIA’s Shipping Platform, you can get access to a comprehensive list of carriers to choose from so you can offer same day, next day, express, and standard shipping options to your customers. Plus, our partnership with couriers allows us to offer the most competitive rates in the market.
Workflows can also be built in the tool so you can automate your shipping carriers depending on product SKUs, recipient’s shipping address, and the shipping method. This allows you to personalise each delivery and choose the best shipping option that balances cost, speed, and reliability.
Optimisation Tips for Shipping
- Real-Time Tracking: Use tools that provide real-time tracking information to both your team and your customers, enhancing transparency and trust.
- Multiple Delivery Options: Offer customers various delivery options, such as standard, expedited, next-day, or same-day delivery, to meet their specific needs.
- Efficient Restocking: Once returns are received, have a system in place for quickly inspecting, restocking, or disposing of returned items to keep your inventory up to date.
Robotic Order Fulfilment: Paving the Way for eCommerce Success
Mastering these five steps—receiving inventory, inventory management, order processing, picking and packing, and shipping—is key to ensuring a smooth and efficient eCommerce order fulfilment process. By refining each step, you can reduce errors, improve delivery times, and ultimately boost customer satisfaction.
SKUTOPIA’s end-to-end logistics solutions allow eCommerce businesses to streamline your entire order fulfilment process – from checkout to your customer’s door. With our robotic fulfilment, smart shipping platform, and fast delivery services, we offer a new era of order fulfilment so you can scale your eCommerce with confidence.
Ultimately, this will allow you to handle your growing orders and be the brand your customers love receiving their orders from.
Dare to grow with SKUTOPIA. Partner with us today.
