As an online seller, it must be your dream to be your customer’s hero. You might want to deliver products expeditiously, package to create an impact, as well as make profits to scale your business. This is where you need a 3PL fulfillment process in place. But don’t worry if you can’t figure out what is 3PL fulfillment. We’re here for you!
Third-party fulfillment can help you take off with your online business. There are a lot of things that a 3Pl can do for you, which can help you increase your business profits and serve your customers. Moreover, it can be the key to help you maximize your reach to the customer.
Why Do You Need 3PL Fulfilment?
If you’re wondering whether 3PL might be the right choice for you, you’re not alone. Online sellers who are just getting started in the market often try to understand whether 3PL will add business expenses. However, most good 3PL fulfillment platforms don’t charge a fee for using their platform.
Save Shipping Costs
If you’re an online seller, just stepping into the world of eCommerce, 3PL fulfillment might be the right choice for you. This is because you want to save on your business costs. While order fulfillment accounts as the most important part of fulfillment, it is also an expensive affair.
Right from picking, packaging to shipping, there are a lot of costs involved. By understanding what is 3Pl fulfillment, you can easily start leveraging them for your business. A 3PL has multiple courier services on its platform that can help you ship with the lowest cost provider.
Lesser Hassle
When you ship with a 3PL, you have much lesser hassles in your business. 3PL fulfillment will help you manage the A to Z of all tasks for you. As a result, you get to focus on other aspects of your business and grow them. They have options like automated shipping, label generator, bulk processing, etc. that can help you save a lot of time and reduce your shipping woes.
Better Decision Making
Order fulfillment is a full-time job. When you have less on your plate, you can make better decisions and analyze critical business areas requiring improvement. This way, you can keep your usual business processes moving as you focus on optimizing them at the same time.
What is 3PL Fulfilment?
3pl company can store and maintain the inventory for you. It picks your product, packs it, and ships it. 3pl company acts as a mediator or link between the manufacturer’s operation and the customers.
Your business grows, and customers are happy when your order fulfillment operations run smoothly.3pl warehouse provides the full range of e-commerce fulfillment services, including order processing, warehousing, shipping, and receiving. Other services offered by 3pl companies such as return processing, customization, and customer support.
You don’t own the warehouse; instead of that, you rent the shelf space for your product in the warehouses. It’s outsourcing your order fulfillment. The 3pl companies work with many carriers that deliver the orders to your clients. Once the products are placed in the inventory, and the warehouse employees pick the product to fill orders and security pack them for shipping.
3PL Fulfillment Process
If you are new to outsourcing shipping, 3PL would be the best option for a startup business. Well, the 3pl fulfillment process is not a mystery. It may be like what’s going on in a 3pl fulfillment center, which seems to us like a black box. So let’s find out precisely what happens 3pl fulfillment process.
Receiving the inventory and warehousing
Third-party logistics can’t ship orders if they don’t have stock on hand. Is third party logistics has its capacity and process for storing and receiving the inventory.
For example, In a shipping company, they require their clients to fill out the warehouse receiving order (WRO) to know which product will be receiving and how many units are needed. So they can start fulfilling the rankings more quickly and efficiently because of the timely and organized way. Once the inventory is received, then the items are stored in the fulfillment centers. Each SKU has a separate storage location; it could be at the shelf on a pallet or in a bin. 3pl warehouse spaces are not created equally; different 3pls have different storage capacities.
Moreover, a 3pl with more storage for your inventory – as your product line and order grow volume working with such a 3pl is essential as your 3pl storage would scale with you. As it comes to products, the surroundings, and the temperature-controlled warehousing is needed depending upon the product. Therefore to meet these needs, different 3PL have different levels of accommodation available.
Picking and Packing
3pl fulfillment process begins when a customer places an order. In some 3pl, you are required to upload your order to their system manually. This involves a spreadsheet in which order details, customer shipping details, and more are included. This could be an inefficient and complicated way to manage orders. While the other 3 PLs have this sophisticated tech that integrates directly to your E-Commerce platform, For example, To bring orders, shipments, inventory tracking, and stock levels are integrated through this 3pl fulfillment software. As soon the online order is placed on your 3pl, it automatically pushes the customers.
The order is assigned to the picking team when it is sent to the three 3PL. The picking team then receives the list of the picking items, their quantities, and the storage locations to collect the ordered products from their respective areas.
When all the items in the order have been selected and picked, it’s time to pack them for the shipping securely. Depending upon the 3pl capability, brand preferences, the packaging material will be used.
Packaging Materials
The most common packaging material includes:- Bubble mailers, poly bags, packaging tapes, bubble wraps, unbranded boxes. Some of the 3pl will charge for the packaging material as their separate line item, while the other 3pl will include them as a part of their fulfillment service.
To achieve the lowest practical dimensional weight and protect your product, the 3pl will choose the best packaging materials. 3pl will also optimize the packages. The dimensional weight is a type of shipping pricing technique to determine the shipping.
To keep logistics costs low, using the right packaging material is helpful. This also helps create a wonderful first impression in the mind of your customer. Therefore, to make a big impression, you can try branded packaging if you want your brand to shine.
Shipping and returns
The next step is shipping the order. A carrier such as USPS, DHL picks orders from 3pl warehouse. The order’s shipping speed depends on the 3pl partnership and policies and options selected by the end customers.
The tracking details are automatically pushed to merchants through integrated technology used by the 3pl when the order ships. Many of the three PL also provide the process of return service. Whenever the customer returns the order, the 3pl will process the return and restock it in the inventory. This is according to the policies or based on your preferences.
Conclusion
With 3PL, you can give your business the boost it requires. Make sure to carefully research before you choose your 3PL provider. One of the best 3PL services is Dash101 that helps you ship your orders to 26000+ Pin codes at the lowest costs. Therefore, you get to make the most of your business without having to worry about costs.
