Order Fulfilment In-house vs Outsourcing

Inhouse vs Outsourcing

Starting up your very own independent business can be a very thrilling journey. There are a lot of paths to go down, multiple opportunities will come your way and it can give you a whole new perspective as a business owner, but as such you will more than likely be spinning many plates; from managing the customer experience, creating products, developing your brand and specifically fulfilling your orders to the consumers.

Keeping everything inhouse may seam the right thing to do if you want to control quality and micro-manage your brand. However it gets to a stage where you may be stifling your growth by not completing important tasks or your existing facility becomes too small.

You want to invest into giving yourself the time to do the vital work for gaining new customers and reputation? By outsourcing.

When moving into the world of eCommerce, it’s a critical point to configure your route to take of who will be processing the orders to ensure 100% customer satisfactory. This is where fulfilment centres come in to play! Fulfilment centres can provide, pick, pack, storage, and despatch solutions where you may feel the pressure growing and neglect of administrative affairs.

What exactly does this entail? How can I benefit from using a fulfilment warehouse instead of keeping it all inhouse? Below is a comparison of different aspects of your operation that you need to consider when keeping it inhouse vs outsourcing.

Orders

Inhouse

Handling orders yourself can eat into a lot of your work hours, leaving less time for you to spend on the bigger picture. This entails keeping on top of consumables (boxes, tape, brown paper rolls for internal protection), isolating orders from others to ensure accuracy (single lines orders multi orders) and delivering the parcels to the local depot/post office. At the end of the day this will take up more of your time than you could possibility anticipate. In all stages of owning a business, it is vital to get in the work that goes on behind the scenes to reap reward be it viewership, new members or new potential collaborations.

Outsourcing

Third party fulfilment centres can handle the pick, pack, storage, shipping, sea container, etc. Allowing you to free up your schedule, fulfilment centres have designated team of professionals which will get all the orders sorted timely and with ease. Fulfilment centres invest heavily in their order processing capability, they have technology that will download your orders on each channel and update them with tracking references and mark them as despatched.

Some fulfilment centres handle with the customary packaging, additional items and invoices that need to be included for each order, that way it can feel like it never left your personal touch. 

Returns

Inhouse

Returning products is sadly an inevitable process of running a business. There will always be circumstances where the customer might want to return an item. The item could be defective, they may want to exchange, or request a refund and occasional the carrier can fail to make the delivery due to an incorrect address or having no access.  Managing a return in a timely manner can enhance the customer experience and turn a negative experience into a positive.

If the item is of limited availability, processing the return if in good condition in a timely manner can also maximise your revenues.

Outsourcing

Raising the fulfilment centre’s address as the return address stops returns coming back to you. These will go to a designated unit at the facility where they are processed separately from the orders with a different operative, that way there is no confusing the stock at hand and products can be thoroughly checked for any damage or use and consider if the product can be cycled back into stock for another order. In addition to this, any problems caused by the courier can be raised by an operative in customer service to claim any damage or loss that has impacted a customer’s experience, so you are not at a complete loss.

Despatch

Inhouse

Understanding all the different delivery service format can be quite complicated. Formats from large letter, small parcel, standard parcel to oversized.  Plus being clear on what items are prohibited and getting discount through volume are some constraints you face when keeping it inhouse.  Getting later collection times from the carriers allowing you to cut off your orders later for a next day delivery can be difficult using your parcel traffic in isolation.  By not having the in-depth knowledge could be costing your company more than it should and reducing your profit margins.

Outsourcing

Operators in a fulfilment centre have continuously flow parcels to couriers throughout the day not to mention a wide variety of couriers to choose from without you having the hassle of creating different accounts through their websites. They can help you identify if a parcel is light/small enough to go on a certain service or if a courier has delays/occurring strikes in which we can actively switch over your automated courier selection with ease.

Their software can provide live tracking viewability, meaning it is easy to follow what has happened to the order and update it within minutes to the customer. Giving you an effortless communication with the customer and in a timely manner!

Inventory Control

Inhouse

Businesses big and small all need a place for their offices and workspace let alone making space for storage of stock. This can be an awkward part of the process as without the necessary software or technology to keep on top of the products you have available and which has been applied to an order, the numbers can mismatch and cause issues to orders.

Outsourcing

Many fulfilment facilities will perform monthly stock-checks and even ad hoc requests if it’s an urgent request, not only this but the stock will be accurately showing you how much is currently at that unit. Giving frequent figure updates that will let you determine if more needs to be created/ordered and sent in for inbound. This is the more ideal option as you are giving the workload to the professionals who can help keep the accuracy and you’ll be up-to-date with all of the information of where your products are, how many are left and how many orders are being fulfilled.

Summary

If time or space is your biggest barrier to growth, then outsourcing your fulfilment is an option which will allow you to maximise your opportunity.  Here at MCF we could be filling in those shoes, providing you with the support you need for your orders while you operate your day-to-day, giving you the space and time back to grow your business. Get in touch with us today for a further enquiry, be it Shopify, Amazon or any other kind of fulfilment, we’re here to help you touch the stars!