5 Must-Haves Every Fulfillment Service Should Offer Your Business
When you’re looking for third-party logistics to help you with order fulfillment, it can sometimes be hard to know if you’ve found a good company to work with. While price will always be a factor, you also need to consider just what the company has to offer you in the way of services and features. If they don’t meet your needs, you’re going to be wasting a pretty penny by partnering with them. So to help you determine if the service you’ve found is a good fit, here are 5 must-have features/services that you should expect from them.
Kitting and Assembly
If you sell products that are complicated and require a little bit of assembly prior to shipping, but don’t want to do it yourself, find an order fulfillment team that offers kitting and assembly. That way, you can ship them the raw inventory, and have them put it together when it comes time to ship out an order.
Reverse Logistics
This one is critical. Odds are, you’re going to have some returns, and those returns can be a hassle to deal with. Having experts on hand who know how to handle and process those returns will keep you from tearing out your hair in frustration.
Customized Reporting
Every business is tracking different metrics, so don’t automatically expect that the ones you track are run-of-the-mill. You need a logistics team that’s going to be feeding you the data you need, not giving you numbers and figures that you don’t care about. So look for customized reporting, especially if you’re tracking some unique metrics.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
EDI is the system that allows electronic forms of different formats to communicate and share information. Your order form for your products are likely different from what the order fulfillment team are using, and you don’t want to enter all that information manually. So pick a team that uses EDI, and minimizes time-consuming paperwork.
Web-Based Inventory Tracking
Nothing’s worse than telling a customer that an item is in stock and on its way, only to find out they’ll have to wait two weeks while you order new inventory. That’s why being able to login to your account with a logistics team to check your inventory is so important. You need access to those numbers from anywhere, and with web-based solutions, you have it.
For more information on third-party order fulfillment, and how it can help your business grow, contact our Utah distribution company today