How Order Fulfillment Services Can Increase Your Bottom Line

Ecommerce has become more accessible than ever. Online shopping puts even the smallest business in front of customers worldwide. However, order fulfillment can become a costly obstacle as you try to grow your business. Between shipping, warehousing, and staffing, it can quickly eat up more of your time and budget than you have to give.

Fortunately, there is an easier way to ensure your customers receive their purchased goods in a timely and affordable manner. Here are 5 ways ecommerce order fulfillment services, like Elite Ops, can save your business money.

Eliminate Warehouse Staffing Costs

Employees cost money. You have to pay for their salary and any offered benefits. The hiring process can also be expensive, especially with employee turnover.

If you hire warehouse employees, you also have to hire managers to train and coordinate the rest of the employees in the warehouse. Even with a talented staff, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to rival the efficiency of a specialized service. With an order fulfillment service, you can eliminate these costs from your budget.

In addition to any hired staff, if you choose to go with in-house order fulfillment, you’ll likely have to choose and pay for an inventory management system in order to keep track of inventory levels, shipping, etc.

Negotiate Better Shipping Rates

Bulk purchases often come with a discount. The same logic extends to the shipping industry. Order fulfillment companies are often able to negotiate better rates on shipping because of the large volume of inventory they ship every day. They can often access better packaging costs for the same reasons.

Take Over Inventory Storage

If you fulfill all of your orders on your own, as your business grows, so will your inventory storage costs. This is especially true for home-run ecommerce businesses. Leasing a warehouse is an option, but an expensive one.

Though your inventory will be stored away from your business, you’ll always stay in the loop. Order fulfillment services will provide the access you need to track your stock levels, shipping, and inventory.

Along with the rental fee, you’ll have to foot the bill for other overhead costs like utilities, maintenance, and more. With ecommerce order fulfillment services, you can save your working space for the core components of your business instead of inventory storage.

Extensive Industry Experience

Specialized focus leads to expertise. The order fulfillment industry comes with a learning curve, which can cost your business in time and mistakes. Instead of spending money trying to find the best shipping methods and prices for your business, you can turn over all order fulfillment to a company that has already done the legwork for you.

Inventory and shipping becomes even more complicated if you want to fulfill international orders. Simple mistakes in the paperwork can lead to costly delays and returns. If you choose to go with an order fulfillment service, you can save yourself the time, headache, and money associated with learning how to do it on your own.

Enable Cost-Effective Scaling

Many ecommerce businesses start in a garage or spare room. Rapid growth can be simultaneously exciting and frightening for a new business owner. While order fulfillment may have been feasible when the business only got a few new orders a week, when orders increase in frequency, it can become difficult to store and keep up with the increased load.

Elite Ops already has the capacity to handle the increase in orders. We can help your business grow without suffering through the growing pains associated with in-house order fulfillment.

For more information about how our order fulfillment services can increase your bottom line, contact us today.