For growing ecommerce businesses, order fulfilment can prove to be a complex task. In order to consistently deliver for your customers, you need to make sure that each stage of the fulfilment process – from click to delivery – runs efficiently.
Ensuring that your customers receive their orders on time and undamaged is no small feat. Challenges can arise at every step — like reducing order processing time across sales channels including your website and social media stores, integrating back-end systems, and managing multi-unit orders.
As your business grows, so does your order volume. Many businesses find it hard to maintain fast, frictionless fulfilment operations on their own, and decide to engage third-party logistics (3PL) providers – like Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfilment (MCF) – to help. Indeed, around 60% of all ecommerce shipments are handled by 3PLs and 86% of US-based Fortune 500 companies use 3PL providers.
3PL providers offer a suite of services that can be customised based on each business’s needs. Many 3PLs can support ecommerce fulfilment with offerings such as:
- Fast, reliable order fulfilment with real-time order tracking and transparent pricing.
- Integrations with ecommerce channels to automate the order fulfilment process.
- Access to cutting-edge logistics technologies and a team of experts.
In this blog, we highlight the five main reasons to outsource your ecommerce fulfilment to a 3PL, and discuss how a 3PL can help you scale your business.
1. Improved operational efficiency
Companies are constantly looking for ways to streamline operations in order to realise benefits such as improved productivity and reduced costs. Most ecommerce businesses start out handling logistics in-house, but over time may opt to outsource these operations to a 3PL – who can help them optimise everything from their order fulfilment and inventory management to storage and transportation.
Many 3PLs offer integration options, which enable you to seamlessly connect your back-end systems with your 3PL’s systems and automate the order fulfilment process across all your sales channels. Typically, your 3PL’s systems will handle tracking, analytics, and reporting – so you can focus on driving sales and building your business.
And if you engage a best-in-class 3PL provider, you’ll get access to all the latest logistics industry innovations. By working with MCF, for example, businesses can leverage Amazon’s cutting-edge warehouse robotics and transportation technologies to make the end-to-end fulfilment process run as smoothly and successfully as possible.
2. Superior on-time delivery performance
Delivery times are a priority for today’s consumers. In fact, 22% of online shoppers abandon their carts if the delivery times are too slow.
A 3PL can help you offer fast shipping speeds and keep your delivery promises – so that you can maintain a positive customer experience. For example, MCF helps you ensure your orders arrive on time by:
- Leveraging Amazon’s global fulfilment network, which has over 2,000 facilities (including 77 fulfilment centres in the UK and EU and over 200 globally).
- Strategically distributing your inventory across that network – so your products are as close as possible to your customer base.
- Offering shipping speeds as fast as one day.
- Achieving a greater than 99% on-time delivery rate.
It’s important to note that most 3PLs use external carriers to ship your products from their warehouses. But some providers, like MCF, are carriers themselves. MCF utilises Amazon’s fleet of 120,000 trucks, vans, and planes, putting these resources to work for you – so that you can consistently deliver your customer orders on time.
3. Improved customer conversion, satisfaction, and retention
Customer loyalty can really benefit your bottom line. On average, returning customers spend 67% more than new customers. However, 85% of shoppers state that a poor delivery experience would keep them from becoming repeat customers.
Delivering on time for your customers can help drive business growth by improving customer trust. Outsourcing your logistics operations to a 3PL can enable you to drive greater customer satisfaction with a seamless online shopping experience from checkout to order delivery.
4. Reduced operating costs
Streamlining your ecommerce fulfilment can help reduce your operating costs. When you work with a 3PL, you get access to their logistics expertise and resources, eliminating the need for your business to invest in your own logistics team and technologies – and thereby help you to reduce your operating costs. You can also avoid infrastructure investments, like owning your own warehouses, and instead rely on the established network of your provider. Besides reducing overhead, a 3PL can enable you to cut storage, shipping, and other costs associated with logistics by operating with greater efficiency.
5. Improved ability to handle volatility and scale your business
To forge a path to profitability in today’s complex and constantly changing business world, you must be able to manage supply chain volatility and disruptions.
Working with a 3PL can give you the flexibility and operational agility you need to cope with supply chain issues due to seasonal spikes, weather conditions, or other factors. Some 3PLs – like MCF – offer on-demand fulfilment services and pay-as-you-go pricing for fulfilment – so that you can easily scale your fulfilment operations up or down according to your changing business needs and shifting supply and demand dynamics.
Planning to expand your ecommerce business? The support of a 3PL can help you expand across new sales channels, product lines, and markets.
Conclusion
In this blog, we’ve highlighted how 3PLs can help you optimise your order fulfilment operations with their expert teams and fulfilment networks and resources. With a 3PL partner, you can realise increased customer satisfaction, improved delivery performance, reduced operating costs, and improved operational agility – and all of this can help you scale your business to new heights.
Once you decide to outsource your logistics operations to a 3PL, the next step is choosing the right provider for your needs. With different services, pricing models, and areas of expertise, finding a 3PL that aligns with your current requirements and future goals can make all the difference. Our guide to choosing the right 3PL can help you find the right provider for your business.
