subject: Factors To Consider While Choosing Order Fulfillment Services [print this page] In these days of outsourcing, order fulfillment services are one of the first departments to be outsourced. There are several reasons for this, but one that readily comes to mind is the protection of company values and secrets. For instance, while it will be very easy for a canned food company to outsource their order fulfillment services, they will never be willing to outsource any department that involves sharing their recipe.
In today's business environment where most purchases are carried out online, the importance of order fulfillment services cannot be overemphasised. Order fulfillment services involve the receipt of customer's order, the filling out of the order, dispatching it and monitoring of the order till it gets to its final destination. While most companies will be happy to outsource only their order fulfillment services, others might add other services such as enquiries.
Before choosing the perfect order fulfillment service company, several factors must be considered. First and foremost, the nature of the product is important. Is it heavy, fragile, durable, or perishable etc? If you deal in heavy machinery, it will not make good business judgment to outsource your order fulfillment service to a company that specialises in distribution of magazines and paperbacks; though they will accept your business, but they will charge a much higher fee since they will go out of their way to fulfill your order.
Location is another important factor. Here location means several things including your office location, your customers' location, and the location of the order fulfillment service company. For a company manufacturing in China, with over 90% of its orders coming from Europe, and less than 2% coming from the US, its order fulfillment service company will be ideally located in the Europe.
The size of your business also determines the size of the order fulfillment service company to use. There are several order fulfillment service companies out there, ranging from smaller order fulfillment services to big corporations handling large orders. For a start-up online business, it is better to use a small order fulfillment service, not because of their efficiency, but because of the interpersonal relationship that this will ensue. This relationship will provide you with quality feedback on your customers' desires, and also be able to pass on quality and desirable information to your customers, kind of an unpaid advert.
Monitoring is another important aspect of an order fulfillment service. Customers wish to know exactly where their orders are at each particular point in time. This has been made much easier by the use of software that updates such information in real time. Orders can also be directly routed to the order fulfillment service company data base, making for fast and accurate filling out of orders. Companies without this ability can manually send their orders to their service company once or twice daily, depending on mutual agreement.
Never blindly choose an order fulfillment service company. Thoroughly research each company and enquire about their past records from those who have made use of their services in the past. Once you get it right, you can relax and concentrate on what you know best, looking after your business.
Factors To Consider While Choosing Order Fulfillment Services
