What is Fulfilment?

The fulfilment of an order is the entire process of getting your product to your customer. The process begins at the of the point a customer makes a purchase, all the way to the delivery of the product. Order fulfilment is a form of logistics services, which is mainly utilised by eCommerce or online businesses.

Many eCommerce companies will use an external logistics partner or 3PL company to do their order fulfilment for them. This involves the third-party company dealing with all thing’s logistics, and they will store, pick, pack and ship your orders to your customers.

Types of Fulfilment

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Merchant Fulfilment (Self-Fulfilment)

This involves sorting all of your own fulfilment and orders. You will manage the entire process yourself, leaving you with total control. This is ideal with businesses who are starting up or have low order volume.

Third-Party Logistics (3PL)

This involves outsourcing your fulfilment to a specialist company, who will sort all stock and orders for you. 3PL is perfect for businesses experiencing growth, wanting to offer faster and cheaper delivery options, or companies who can't keep up with order volume.

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Drop Shipping

This is the process of your manufacturer or wholesaler shipping products directly to your customer. This has low upfront costs for your business but limited inventory management.

How do 3PL Fulfilment Services Work?

A 3PL fulfilment centre will offer a range of warehousing and fulfilment services for your business. It is their job to get your products to your customers door, fast and efficiently. The fulfilment process involves various stages, including receiving orders, processing them, and delivering the products to the customer. It all begins with your customer making a purchase on your eCommerce store. The 3PL team will then pick, pack and ship that order to your customer.

Services offered:

Order fulfilment

3PL will send out your orders to your customers quicky, safely and efficiently. By picking your item, packing it and sending it with trusted couriers.

Storage

Don’t face large warehouse costs, store your chosen 3PL's site. Here at GNOC our huge 350,000 square foot warehouse is big enough to store all of your items, even as your company continues to grow. Making sure you choose a 3PL with a large amount of space is crucial, as you can never predict the rate of your growth.

Reverse logistics

People may not always want to keep their items, so you want to make the returns process as streamline as possible. Let your chosen 3PL sort your returns and exchanges with fast communication and stock updates. Your items will also be checked once they are back at the 3PL warehouse to ensure they are ready to resell.

Bespoke packaging and re-labelling

Want to offer more personalised packaging to customers? Or maybe you need your orders packed in a certain way in order to keep products secure. Bespoke packaging and re-labelling services ensures your 3PL will provide the most efficient and personalised packaging to suit your companies needs.

What are the 3PL Order Fulfilment Steps?

The order fulfilment process is complete in 5 simple steps, and we will go through those with you now to get a full understanding.

Step 1: Integration

The very first step of the 3PL fulfilment process will be the integration of your chosen 3PL'S systems and your products. 3PL providers will work with world leading software and marketplaces to make the fulfilment process as easy and streamline as possible.

No matter which marketplaces you sell on, there will be software used to help track all orders, stock and returns easily. Once these integrations have been set up, your 3PL journey starts.

Step 2: Receiving inventory

When your business chooses to use a third-party logistics (3PL) provider, you will have to send all of your stock to their warehouse. This may involve you dropping off products at their warehouse or have them shipped directly there.

When you do choose to partner with a 3PL provider, this task is completely taken care of for you. Your 3PL provider will receive your stock and begin to synchronise it to their systems (working out types of stock, code numbers and stock count).

Step 3: Picking and packing

Once a customer makes a purchase, the order fulfilment process truly begins. Most 3PL companies will use specialised software that syncs up sales and notifies your 3PL in real-time, so orders can be picked fast and there will be specific codes for each of your products.

After your order has been picked, there are some careful steps to take before packing and shipping the items. Firstly, the correct packaging will be chosen (this depends on product type, such as material and client preference). The item will have careful quality checks, to ensure it is safe to go to customers and meets all of the criteria it needs to.

After the item is carefully checked, and passes all quality assurance checks, it will be packaged up very carefully, ready to be sent out.

Step 4: Shipping

Once packed, it is time to be sent to your customer. Here at GNOC, we use our trusted couriers to send your items safely to your customer. These couriers do regular collections, to ensure your customer receives their order quickly and carefully.

Shipping rates can depend on the area you’re sending to, as well as if you have specific requirements for your products.

Step 5: Managing returns

The fulfilment process is only complete with returns management, and here at GNOC we offer reverse logistics for all of our companies. Returns can be a difficult process, but 3PL makes this seamless and easy for your company. The return process usually involves the customer initiating the return and sending it back to the warehouse. Our 3PL team will inspect the product for any damage, update all of your stock and finally refund the customer (It really is that easy).

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How do Intergrations work?

Your 3PL provider should use high quality technologies that can connect to the marketplaces you sell on. The integrations will make it easy to manage inventory, track your orders, connect with customers and track returns.

No matter which platforms you sell on, your 3PL provider should be able to integrate the systems to keep a track of these orders in one place, making life so much easier for you as a business.

Whether you sell on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopify or any other platform, you can integrate your sales into one place. Read more on integrations at GNOC here.

What are the Benefits of Fulfilment?

Having your fulfilment done correctly and efficiently is key to your businesses success, as it can be extremely beneficial on your customers experience.

With streamlined fulfilment, you will have:

Higher customer satisfaction

By outsourcing your fulfilment to a 3PL provider, you can offer fast and free delivery, which is key for boosting customer satisfaction. Online shoppers expect their orders to be with them fast (and free when possible), and when their orders get to them fast and safely, they will be happier. The happier your customers are, the better your reputation will be.

Increased repeat purchases

Customers are likely to never shop with a company again if they have a bad experience with them. By exceeding customers’ expectations, you can begin to build brand loyalty and a community with your customers. This will help increase your sales.

Invest more into your business

When partnering with a 3PL company, any money saved on shipping and warehousing costs can be invested into other areas of your business for growth. Things such as marketing, staff or even product development.

Streamlined Operations

With advanced technologies, 3PL can eliminate time-consuming order processes, as well as increasing accuracy on your orders. Picking, packing and shipping orders is finally made easy. Using a 3PL to fulfil orders also means that you can keep up with the demand of orders (no matter how much it fluctuates).

Gained Valuable Data and Insights

Get access to detailed reports and analytics, by tracking stock movement and costs. This gives you the ability to forecast and look for areas of improvement to make data-driven decisions.

Time to Focus on Other Areas of your Business

Free up valuable time and resources by outsourcing your fulfilment. Partnering with a 3PL will leave you with more free time to focus on things such as product development, customer service, marketing and other areas to help you grow and scale your business.

Which Couriers are Used?

Each 3PL provider may use different couriers to deliver your items, but they will all use a range of trusted couriers, who are guaranteed to get your products to your customers safely. With tracking available, you will always know where your product is and can see ETAs on all orders. If there is a specific courier you prefer, or a courier you believe is best suited for your products, you can let your chosen 3pl provider know this. The trusted couriers may offer next-day delivery meaning your customers will never be sat waiting.

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What Sort of Industries Can Outsource Their Fulfilment?

There is no specific industry that can use 3PL and outsource their fulfilment, however it is mainly eCommerce (sells online) businesses that outsource their fulfilment. 3PL providers work with companies from all different industries, whether that be fashion, electronics, health and beauty, sports, pets or even home and lifestyle.

What if you Have Specific Needs?

Each industry has specific needs when it comes to order fulfilment, and your 3PL fulfilment centre will do their best to accommodate to all of your needs when fulfilling your orders. Whether you sell fragile items, food products/ products that may go out of date, big items, small items, or any specific products that may need extra attention, this can be information passed on to your chosen 3PL provider who will ensure they take extra care with these products. Whether you need to send your items with specific couriers, or in specific packaging, this can be arranged.

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Offering Expert Advice

There are no limits when it comes to 3PL, as each eCommerce business will have it's own unique niches and needs. Your chosen 3PL will likely have a lot of knowledge and expert advice on key areas of logistics, eCommerce and warehousing.

Here at GNOC we took the knowledge gained from our own eCommerce experiences and have used it to develop the ultimate 3PL solution to help brands thrive.

What Factors Should I Consider Before Choosing a 3PL Fulfilment Provider?

Third-party logistics (3PL) is the process of outsourcing your fulfilment and allowing your provider to store, pick, pack and ship your stock. This will help save your company on warehousing and staffing costs, as well as taking away the pressure of sending your items out efficiently and cheaply.

Deciding to partner with a 3PL is a decision you need to take carefully, as you want to ensure you’re picking a provider who can take care of all of your needs.

Putting your trust into a 3PL can seem daunting, but when you choose the right one, the rewards are endless. There are many things to consider when choosing your 3PL provider, and many important questions you should ask.

Questions to consider when choosing a 3pl:

These are all key questions to consider when choosing a 3PL provider to partner up with. Making sure your 3PL partner ticks every box is key, as you want to be able to grow with your 3PL and ensure they are going to help that.

Do they fit my company’s needs?
Can they offer free and next-day shipping to customers?
Is there expertise that can be offered?
What is the picking accuracy like?
Do they offer personalised shipping?
Do they offer a customer service function?
Do they have enough space to handle our stock and future growth?

How Does Pricing Work?

Pricing may differ depending on each company, due to your unique and specific needs. If you get in touch with today, you can let us know a little about the services you require from us, and we'll work out the most cost-effective way to get started. For our fulfilment, we offer a range of services you can choose from, and these do have their own costs. Things such as inventory onboarding, storage costs, picking costs, packing and labelling costs and shipping costs.

The Pricing Breakdown Includes:

Inventory onboarding

These are the costs of setting up your brand within a system (whichever systems your 3PL may use)- it will include importing your SKUs and setting up your channels via API integration.

Storage Costs

Storage costs are the price of storing your stock in a warehouse. Here at GNOC, you're charged per CBM (cubic meter) meaning you only pay for the space you use. This may differ depending on 3PL.

Picking Costs

This is the charge for the process of warehouse workers picking and packing your orders when they come in and are often billed per parcel, but again this may depend on the 3PL you choose.

Labelling and Packing Costs

If you require additional services like re-labelling or special packaging requirements, a 3PL will charge you per-parcel for this service. These costs will be totally dependent on the service you require.

Shipping

You will be charged for the shipment of your items from the warehouse to your customers door. The price of this may vary due to things such as shipping service (next-day, Saturday delivery etc), shipping zones, item size and weight, etc.

Reverse Logistics

This is a fee for items being returned back to your chosen 3PL provider. This fee will cover everything to do with returned items and upon receiving the returned products, your 3PL will perform a quality check to ensure their condition.

Where Can I Get Started?

Getting started has never been easier, you just need to fill out our contact form and give us as much information on your business as possible or contact us and give us any information you believe we need to know. Once we have more information, our sales team will contact you and give you a pricing structure and the list the best options for you and your business.

Let's work together

No matter the size of your business, we have the expertise to help you boost sales, reduce costs and provide exceptional service levels. Take things to the next level with our tailored 3PL solutions.

The Ultimate Guide to Fulfilment

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