How to Fulfil eCommerce Orders Yourself

Did you know that many small businesses across the UK are fulfilling their orders directly rather than hiring a third-party company?

While this approach can benefit small businesses, there are many hurdles to consider.

As the UK’s leading third-party fulfilment company, MCF fulfils orders for some of the UK’s leading retailers, like Wilko and The Range.

Read below to discover how you can fulfil orders yourself.

What is Self-Fulfilment?

Self-fulfilment means you manage the entire fulfilment process in-house.

This process includes inventory storage, order processing, picking and packing, and shipping orders directly to customers.

It’s important to determine if self-fulfilment suits your current needs.

Fulfilling Orders Yourself

If you’re a small or local business, fulfilling orders yourself can be a smart option if:

• You want complete control
• You need to keep costs to a minimum
• You manage a smaller amount of orders
• You want to handle order fulfilment directly

However, as your business grows, self-fulfilment can become a time-consuming and financial restraint, leading to poor management, unhappy customers and fewer sales.

Common Shipping Mistakes

If your business plans to self-fulfil orders, consider the common mistakes businesses make below to avoid poor fulfilment.

Incorrect Packaging

Fragile packing can damage goods before they reach the customers. Also, unnecessarily large packaging can lead to unnecessary costs.

Wrong Shipping Labels

A small mistake with shipping labels can be costly. Incorrect addresses and label misprints through machine malfunction or human error can delay delivery and frustrate customers.

Ignoring Regulations

Certain products have regulations, and ignoring these restrictions can lead to fines. Now, that’s an extra outgoing your business doesn’t need.

Not Tracking Orders

Many small businesses cut corners in an attempt to cut prices by failing to provide shipment tracking. Customers want tracking updates to keep an eye on orders and feel like they have control.

How to Manage Order Fulfilment Yourself

Managing the order fulfilment process yourself is rewarding for small businesses trying to keep costs low before they scale.

Processing Orders

After a customer places an order, it’s time to pick, verify, and pack the order for shipment. A team of packing experts will help reduce mistakes and delays in processing the order.

Pick the Right Packing Materials

The right packaging materials depend on your needs. Are you eco-friendly? If so, consider sustainable packaging for conscious customers.

What product are you selling? If it’s fragile, you want reliable, durable packaging. Do you want to keep costs low? Consider a cheap alternative.

Package Your Orders

Expert packaging will reduce the likelihood of damaged goods and, therefore, the likelihood of returns.

You should also consider if you want personalised, branded or tailored packaging when you fulfil orders yourself. Personalisation, like a note for your customer, is a powerful marketing tool.

Label and Ship Your Order

Double-check the shipping address to avoid any delivery disasters. Sending it to the wrong address is a surefire way to lose a customer.

Assess cost, speed, reliability, and efficiency before choosing a carrier to deliver your orders.

Tracking Packages

Always provide customers with tracking numbers to monitor deliveries. This is the bare minimum because customers expect full transparency with their orders.

Why? Well, it boosts trust, convenience, and peace of mind when they’ve spent their hard-earned cash.

Challenges with Self-Fulfilment

Difficulty Scaling

As your demand increases, your sales increase. It’s important to keep up with fulfilment demands, and this can become overwhelming without a strategy to handle the increase.

Without a strategy, mistakes and delays can increase, leading to unhappy customers and bad reviews. In turn, this leads to less revenue and stunts your growth.

Complex Tracking Orders

When orders increase, managing the tracking process across multiple carriers can cause confusion and cost time. You may even need to hire more staff to handle the process.

Additionally, better tracking software may become a necessity, adding to ongoing overheads.

Shipping is Costly

While self-fulfilment can save money, you don’t benefit from bulk shipping discounts that third-party fulfilment centres receive.

Packaging materials, postage, and return costs can quickly add up. When you partner with a fulfilment centre, exclusive bulk shipping discounts remove these costs.

Time-Consuming

Self-fulfilment in-house costs valuable time; time you could invest in marketing and product development. 

Outsourcing the process to a third-party fulfilment centre will reduce operational costs and free up time to focus on what really matters–scaling your business.

When Should You Outsource Fulfilment?

Scaling Your Company

If you’re planning on scaling in 2025 and struggling to maintain quality fulfilment, outsourcing is best for your company’s growth.

This prevents the quality of your fulfilment from decreasing, and you keep customers happy.

Fulfilment is Becoming Costly

If self-fulfilment is constantly adding to your overheads, fulfilment centres relieve this stress with bulk shipping discounts and a streamlined process.

You reduce costs and boost order fulfilment efficiency, leading to an increase in customer satisfaction and repeat buyers.

Time-Consuming Inventory Management

When inventory management becomes too costly, it could be time to hand over the workload and stress to a third-party.

A fulfilment company, like MCF, has expert inventory management staff who work tirelessly to fulfil orders to the highest standards, maintaining your excellent reputation.

This way, you save money on inventory management and staffing costs, so you can reinvest this cash into new markets and product releases.

Let MCF Fulfil Your Orders

If you plan on growing your business in 2025, don’t let self-fulfilment get in the way of reaching your goals. Let MCF, the UK’s leading fulfilment centre, take care of your order fulfilment process.

Get a free quote today and discover how MCF can save you time and money by taking your order fulfilment to the next level.

Article prepared & written by CreateTheWeb.