When Do You Need A Fulfilment Partner? Your Essential Questions Answered

You may already have a good idea of what a fulfilment partner can do for you, and the concept behind it is relatively simple. Your fulfilment partner can essentially take care of your orders, and they will be in charge of picking and packing those orders as well as shipping them off. But fulfilment services can also take care of your warehousing needs and assist you when it comes to product inventory – since they have their tracking system, they can tell you when your stocks are running low, how many orders they have packed and shipped for each day, and so on. But when do you need a fulfilment partner? Here are the answers to your essential questions.

• Do you have enough time to fulfil customer orders?

Companies go for fulfilment services for one apparent reason: they don’t have enough time to focus on fulfilling orders. Or it could be the other way around, too – you may be too busy trying to fulfil orders that you don’t have any more time to focus on the growth of your business. It may be the ideal time to outsource your fulfilment needs because you should concentrate on your marketing and sales efforts as the owner of a business. With a fulfilment company such as https://cannonpacking.co.uk/fulfilment/ as your partner, you can focus on other tasks, from expanding your platforms for e-commerce to sourcing out new ideas and products and more.

• Do you have the necessary infrastructure?

If you are a growing business and are also expanding geographically, then the likelihood of you outgrowing your existing infrastructure is great. Therefore, you need to adapt to your expansion, and not only this – shipping to other countries can be a logistical nightmare. If you don’t know how to do it right, you can end up increasing your shipping and delivery time plus your expenses, which can affect your large-scale and long-term growth.

But when you have a fulfilment partner, they will have the proper facilities to help you adapt to your customer base. They will even have several locations or a network around the globe to help you optimise their fulfilment service (and save money as well).

• What else do you have to consider?

There are indeed some considerations. If you are starting and don’t have the necessary funds yet, it may be better to take care of order fulfilment yourself. At this point, you may still have extra time on your hands, so it’s a good idea to handle it then. Doing this can also be positive because you learn the ropes on order fulfilment and have more experience.

Another consideration is if you have highly specialised needs. Whilst plenty of fulfilment partners can fulfil your needs for customisation; not every company can do so. So it makes sense to talk precisely about what you need so you can be sure your fulfilment partner can do it for you. Otherwise, it may be better to handle it yourself.

But there are indeed plenty of advantages that come with relying on a fulfilment partner. They can offer you flexibility because you only pay for what you use, whether it’s the storage space or each customer order that needs picking, packing, and shipping. They can do the job more thoroughly and efficiently as well.