Build Your Business Order Fulfillment For Your Customer Satisfaction

By Author: Dave
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In a sales process, order fulfillment is very important. It is how your customer get the product they paid. This where the supplier assembles the order and ship it to the customer with their supporting processes to complete the order. The process includes receiving, packing, and shipping of orders. Order fulfillment may take place under area, in an organized warehouse. However, it still depends on the size of your business. Some takes place in-house with a simple process, while bigger enterprises on the other hand have a more complex distribution and strategy. But whatever the size of the business is, the main objective is to efficiently have the customer received their order as quickly as possible.

Process in Order Fulfillment

1. Receiving Inventory – this where the source of incoming goods from manufacturers, wholesalers, or farms. Goods may come from other third party or other company departments depending on the variety of forms from other external or internal sources. it is important in these first process to count the inventory inspect and ensure that proper amount is being received and the quality ...
... is very acceptable.

2. Storage - inventory storage is a second process in order fulfillment. This is where the goods received are being inventoried for a short- or long-term storage. So basically, it is stored to help the organization for their distribution of goods for existing sales rather than holding those products.

3. Order processing - This is where the product picking and packing activities happened for a newly received customer order. in today's online marketplaces or other processing happens on the ecommerce website by simply initiating the order processing and added to cart.

4. Picking - this is where the items are selected from the warehouse according to the packing slip that they received which is where all the instructions are taken and specific information of the items.

5. Packing - there is a packing team who selects the packing materials needed with specific dimensional weight calculated by multiplying the package length, width, and the height. This is essential in the order fulfillment since they need to lower the shipment costs.

6. Shipping - once the item is done packing it has to be shipped and transported to a shipping channel like airlines FedEx UPS or other carriers. Carriers only ship items depending on their shipping space available that is why order fulfillment might be delayed due to refusal of some shipping channels to accept the order.

7. Delivery - most shipping routes include more than one carrier like USPS which delivery included the local areas while other commercial carriers do not.

8. Returns Processing - this includes the quality control check and sorting of return products accordingly and it's being executed carefully to make sure it is right to restock it. those products that are being returned are then restocked and returned to the vendor or manufacturer for a further distributor refund or credit or to a recycling center.

How to minimize costs in an order fulfillment process

a. It is important that you keep your customers informed - this is important so the customer will know the arrival time of their order. You need to give your customers a control and regular updates with the tracking facilities and the option to return the item in case they are not satisfied. Through this you can build a better customer relationship that can lead to your business growth.

b. You must motivate your staff - it is important that you educate and reward your staff for their performance as they are the key for your existing order fulfillment process and for its effectivity. You must provide them the essential tools and equipment so they can achieve and fulfill their task with less to no inefficiency.

c. You have also to monitor your supply chain - this is where the backbone of your operation success. Continuity in your operation is important to have a regular monitoring basis and ensuring the products are arriving on time without defect.

d. Try to implement smarter systems - with the advancements in technology there are many smarter systems you can use for your operation and for your order fulfilment. The best system you have the quicker you will be able to finish and complete your job. Also, it can help you solve incidences faster and create a better solution.

e. You can also leverage third party service providers - Order fulfillment is quite tedious so somehow if you want to concentrate on strategy and product innovation, you can have a third-party service provider who can work for your order fulfilment.

f. And the course you must continuously improve - innovation is always there and you must be on top of your competitors and has a competitive advantage in the market. Continuously improving your operation will help you grow on your field and enhance your customer satisfaction.

Order fulfillment nowadays are entirely driven by technology. Online marketplaces and different shopping platforms now have an advance software to ensure sustainable and stable order fulfilment that can assure the customers of their product and arrived on time without delay. When you used to shop online you can also check the status of your order thru their tracking facility.

To get better understanding on order fulfillment just visit https://www.markettplace.com.au