5 Proven Tips for Selecting a Reputable Fulfillment & Shipping Service

After considering the many benefits of outsourcing fulfillment and shipping, you have decided to hand over the responsibility of moving your products to another company. Outsourcing fulfillment and shipping frees up more time for you and the team to handle other tasks. You also benefit from lower costs, as well as fewer fulfillment and shipping errors. The question is not whether your business should outsource fulfillment and shipping. Instead, the question is how does your business select the best company to move your products?

Here are five proven tips for selecting a reputable fulfillment and shipping service.

Shipping Speed

Early in the shipping war, Federal Express guaranteed some product orders could reach customers as fast as overnight. Amazon Prime has perfected its fulfillment and shipping system to make two-day delivery speeds the norm. Because of the new standards set for delivery speed, customers expect their orders to reach them as soon as the day after placing an order. At Complete Mailing and Printing, our team of fulfillment and shipping professionals has set one of the fastest delivery speeds in the industry.

Warehouse Location

One of the most important criteria that establishes delivery speeds for fulfillment and shipping orders concerns the location of the nearest warehouse to your business. To achieve super-fast delivery speed, you want to work with a company that has built a centrally located warehouse, preferably near major roads and highways. Centrally located warehouses translate into shorter shipping routes, which is a huge factor in getting customers the product they ordered on time.

Types of Features

The best fulfillment and shipping companies offer features that give them a competitive advantage. Advanced order fulfillment software should be highly organized and easy to learn. You want to confirm that the fulfillment and shipping company that you choose uses software that never encounters a glitch, as well as calculates accurate arrival times. A fulfillment and shipping company that offers digital printing services and customer mail services allows your company to take care of many of the logistical tasks in one convenient location.

Responsive Communication

You have several fulfillment companies to choose from when searching for the right partner. The search process might come down to a factor such as responsive communication. Your fulfillment and shipping partner should respond promptly to emails, as well as text and phone messages. This is an especially important factor when you receive word from an unsatisfied customer that a product order has not arrived in a timely manner. Responsive communication also is an indication of a fulfillment and shipping company’s commitment to transparency and visibility.

Cost

You have heard the timeless adage, “You get what you paid for.” The adage means that if you cut costs too much, you might end up with an inferior product or service. Cutting cost corners when selecting a fulfillment and shipping company can lead to delayed orders that upset customers. Cost is a factor when selecting a fulfillment and shipping company, but it should not be the only factor. Treat cost as a make-or-break factor after considering the other factors on our list.

What are the 6 Typical Steps Involved in Fulfillment & Shipping?

Customers expect their orders to arrive on time and in mint condition. To exceed customer expectations, the best fulfillment and shipping companies typically follow a series of the same steps. Although the steps remain the same, the level of execution among fulfillment and shipping companies is not the same. Issues such as weather, equipment malfunctions, and logistical errors committed by drivers differentiate performance. At Complete Mailing and Printing, we ensure the completion of the following six steps involved in Fulfillment and Shipping in a timely manner.

Receive Inventory

After a customer places an order, the fulfillment and shipping company receives the inventory from the manufacturer or a third-party vendor. Receiving inventory requires a shipping and fulfillment company to verify the condition of the inventory, as well as the quantity of the products shipped. The key is to confirm all of the products have arrived in a condition that exceeds customer expectations. For especially large orders, a fulfillment and shipping company lets the manufacturer or third-party vendor know about the reception of the orders.

Store Order

After sorting, labeling, and organizing inventory, the next step in the process involves moving products to short or long-term storage. Most fulfillment and shipping companies that move products to short-term storage hold the products for existing orders. They often conduct another inspection before the processing step for each order. For bulk orders, fulfillment and shipping companies ensure a large number of products are in stock to prevent shipping delays.

Process Order

This is the step in which advanced technology plays an important role in ensuring the accurate transfer of products. Automated technology used for an order processing management system works seamlessly with shopping cart features to select the right products for imminent shipment. A packing slip created by digital printing services or custom mailing services presents the details of an order that include product features and specifications,

Pick Products

The processing steps get products ready to be picked manually or by operating an automated system that scans barcodes. Some large fulfillment companies such as Amazon use warehouse robots in conjunction with employees to select and retrieve the products required for shipping. Members of picking teams are assigned specific roles during the picking step to choose the correct products. Workers must be aware of amounts, colors, and sizes when picking products.

Packing Products

The same group of workers used for packing products also completes the packing products step. Automated robots also play a role during the packing step to improve speed and efficiency. The types of packing materials used depend on the weight of the cargo, as well as how fragile the products are while in transit. For example, products constructed with at least some glass require packing materials that provide sufficient cushion.

Ship Order

Fulfillment and shipping companies either ship orders directly to customers or involve third-party vendors to handle larger orders. They send orders to customers via an airline, freight line, or postal carrier. One of the most important criteria for successfully completing the last step is to keep customers aware of the status of their orders. Another important shipping criterion is to follow the shipping requirements established by third-party carriers.

5 Expert Ways to Build a Better Business With Fulfillment & Shipping Services

You understand the benefits of outsourcing fulfillment & shipping to an established and highly-rated third party. Your business can decrease processing times, which increases the number of orders sent out each day. With less to do onsite, you free up employees to provide better customer service. The number of order errors decreases, as a company such as Complete Mailing & Printing works with the latest technology to ensure order accuracy. Finally, a reduction in operating costs combined with generating more revenue improves your bottom line.

Understanding the benefits of outsourcing fulfillment & shipping is one thing. It is quite another thing to implement strategies to reap the financial rewards of those benefits. Let’s take a look at five expert ways to build a better business with fulfillment and shipping services.

Warehouse

The warehouse model for fulfillment and shipping has been around as long as motorized vehicles. However, Amazon defined the long-term warehousing model by handling orders that help customers avoid paying costly fees. Fulfillment and shipping services provided by a third party can include long-term warehousing, which saves your company money, especially if it sells high-end products such as furniture and appliances.

Retail

One of the most common ways to build a better business with fulfillment and shipping services involves going through traditional retail outlets like Target and Walmart. Even the COVID pandemic could not destroy the traditional sales channel for businesses operating across every niche. Retail giants also provide other services, such as digital printing services and custom mailing services. A company such as Complete & Printing enforces strict shipping guidelines to ensure your products arrive at retail outlets on time and in the correct quantity.

eCommerce

When a consumer orders a product online, the consumer receives an estimated date of arrival. The estimated date of arrival is often accurate down to the day and even the time. Due to the explosive growth of online sales, many businesses rely on fulfillment and shipping services to deliver products in a timely manner. A shopping cart created online immediately processes a customer’s order by engaging with a warehouse management system (WMS). The WMS then manages the distribution of the product through every delivery point.

Multi-Channel

By working with a fulfillment and shipping business, you can access every sales channel that is available to consumers. Your business meets product demand through traditional channels like retail, as well as more cutting-edge sales channels like a subscription service. The ability to broaden your sales options helps your company grow sales by reaching consumers that you otherwise would not attract.

Subscription

This sales strategy also goes by the name of auto shipping service. Subscription box fulfillment ships out products on a regular schedule. For example, the subscription fulfillment and shipping model is how the Dollar Shave Club sends razors to signed-up customers once a month. Businesses that handle this type of fulfillment and shipping model must be experts at processing batch shipping orders.

5 Mailing and Printing Services That Will Enhance Your Business

Efficiency.

It is a word discussed by business owners to find ways to get more out of less, which is the longer version of saying increasing productivity. You have only a finite amount of time to get things done during each business day, which makes efficiency an important buzzword for your business. One way to wring more out of less involves outsourcing fulfillment & shipping responsibilities to a third party. With the help of Complete Mailing & Printing, outsourcing fulfillment & shipping allows your team members to focus on other tasks, such as promoting products and services to potential customers.

Another way to free up your time involves working with five mailing and printing services that will enhance your business.

Bulk Mailing

Bulk mailing operates on a simple economic principle: The more items that you mail, the lower the mailing cost of each item. Savvy business operators send out items such as brochures, letters, flyers, postcards, and business cards in large quantities to reap the savings of lower per-item costs. This is an especially beneficial service for businesses that announce grand opening sales in which items go out to everyone living within a certain distance. The key to optimizing the financial benefits of bulk mailing is to leverage the power of the other mailing & printing services on this list.

Digital Printing

Printing the correspondence sent out by your business puts a dent in your monthly budget, as well as takes a considerable amount of time. You can save both time and money by changing over to digital printing services. You can easily meet the demand for large printing orders by using digital technology to get the job done. Digital printing is an effective service to meet the demand for large printing orders, such as for flyers that promote an anniversary event held at your business.

Coding Accuracy Support System

Mailing large quantities of items like brochures and letters costs plenty of money in postage, even if you play it smart by utilizing bulk mailing services. The cost of postage rises much faster when a percentage of mailed items go to the wrong address. To reduce the number of mailed items sent to wrong addresses, an important tool called Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) automatically corrects wrong addresses. CASS is effective at eliminating duplicate addresses, such as when the owner of a home goes by two different names.

National Change of Address Database

Americans are a highly mobile population, with an estimated 20 percent of all residents in the United States moving each year. How does your business keep track of all the movement? The answer is by accessing the National Change of Address (NCOA) database. The NCOA database updates one time a week to identify the people and businesses that have moved a few blocks away or halfway across the country.

Advanced Graphic Design Tools

First impressions matter for your business the moment a customer walks through the front door. Making a first impression also matters for the items that you send out in the mail. Advanced graphic design tools turn ordinary mailed items into correspondence that immediately attracts the attention of recipients. Advanced graphic design tools can change an ordinary-looking business logo into a business logo that sticks in the minds of both regular and potential customers. The tools play an important role in enhancing the appearance of items that are part of your fulfillment & shipping program.

Seamless Delivery Solutions for Your Business Needs

If only there were more than 24 hours in a day. It seems to be a wish on the wish list of most business owners and operators.

Business owners and operators who run profitable organizations are typically skilled at time management.  They delegate responsibilities to the appropriate team members, as well as define processes that need to become much more efficient. One process that many business owners streamline concerns fulfillment & shipping. During an era of historically major supply chain disruptions, it pays to have seamless delivery solutions for your business needs.

At Complete Mailing & Printing, we offer seamless delivery solutions for your business needs. Why do seamless delivery solutions for your business needs matter?

Eliminate Order Errors

What is one of the most frequently cited complaints found in online reviews left for businesses? The answer is customers complaining about receiving the wrong products or not receiving the right products at all. An understaffed business can make mistakes by sending the wrong product to the right customer or sending the correct product to the wrong customer. Outsourcing fulfillment & shipping helps your business eliminate order errors.

Enhanced Customer Service

Growing a loyal customer base is the ticket to increasing sales. Around 20 percent of your customers generate about 80 percent of your sales. The key to retaining customers is to provide them with superior service. A business such as Custom Mailing & Printing that specializes in fulfillment & shipping allows you to spend more time with customers to answer questions, as well as offer different types of services to meet their needs.

Faster Processing Times

Speed is a huge factor in providing seamless delivery decisions for your business needs. A business like Complete Mailing & Printing invests in the most advanced fulfillment and shipping software technology to ensure the timely delivery of products. Our cutting-edge logistics software takes the guessing game out of fulfillment & shipping, as well as allows you to deliver more products in less time. You also benefit from communication tools that immediately alert customers about delivery glitches.

How Does Outsourcing Fulfillment & Shipping Make Your Business More Money?

The primary goal of outsourcing fulfillment & shipping is to make your business more money. You can accomplish this primary goal in four ways.

First, outsourcing fulfillment & shipping frees up more of your time to grow sales. You get the time required to devise sales growth strategies, such as implementing email marketing campaigns. Second, outsourcing fulfillment & shipping decreases your costs by eliminating errors. Third, fewer mistakes during the distribution process build trust with your customers, which often translates into referrals to potential customers. Fourth, Complete Mailing & Printing operates a much more efficient back office system, which allows your business to spend less money on making technological improvements.

Increase sales and decrease costs today by outsourcing your fulfillment & shipping responsibilities with Complete Mailing & Printing. Be sure to ask for our digital printing services as well.

Reclaim Valuable Employee Time With Fulfillment & Shipping Services

Did you know that by outsourcing your fulfillment & shipping responsibilities, you help your employees reclaim valuable time? A business like Complete Mailing and Printing takes care of time-consuming fulfillment & shipping tasks, such as resolving shipping issues and confirming the accuracy of every product order. This allows your employees to work on other business-related tasks, which means you get more out of your team in less time. Higher productivity translates into an improved bottom line.

Reclaiming valuable employee time with fulfillment & shipping is just one of several benefits delivered when you partner with Complete Mailing & Printing. Here are a few other benefits of outsourcing your fulfillment & shipping responsibilities.

Increase Sales

What do you do with all the time reclaimed by your team? The first item on your to-do list should be to focus on increasing sales. Outsourcing fulfillment & shipping to a highly-rated business such as Complete Mailing & Printing gives your employees more time to implement sales growth initiatives like answering customer questions and running proven digital marketing campaigns. Your staff also can spend the time required explaining the benefits and features of your products to prospective customers.

Reduce Costs

Outsourcing fulfillment & shipping adds another expense to your profit and loss statement. However, by outsourcing fulfillment  & shipping, your business saves money in the long run. Your team does not have to address costly shipping delays. Your business is not on the financial hook for shipping mistakes and the costs associated with paying for damaged products. At Complete Mailing & Printing, we know where the closest warehouses are located to reduce shipping times, and thus, reduce the cost of shipping.

No More Errors

What typically happens when overwhelmed employees handle fulfillment & shipping responsibilities? The answer is your business has to deal with a growing number of errors, especially when it involves shipping the wrong products. At Complete Mailing & Printing, we have established a system that ensures every one of your customers receives the products that they ordered. Our multi-step product confirmation process checks and double-checks the accuracy of each order placed by your customers.

Faster Product Processing Times

Does your business have to deal with long product processing times because your employees have too much on their plates? Instead of allocating labor resources to packing and shipping your product, you partner with the team at Complete Mailing & Printing to deliver much faster product processing times. We incorporate the most advanced product tracking system into our business model to speed up processing times dramatically.

Much Improved Customer Service

You understand one of the most important facts that determines the success of your business: Twenty percent of your customers generate 80 percent of your revenue. In other words, your loyal customers take up the largest slice of the revenue pie. How do you grow your loyal customer base, and in the process, also grow sales? The answer is to improve customer service by outsourcing fulfillment & shipping responsibilities.

Research shows that American businesses lose more than $60 billion in revenue each year due to poor customer service.

The ABCs of Successful Shipping Strategies

Learning requires successfully mastering building blocks. One of the first building blocks of learning involves mastering the ABCs, which helps young students form words and recognize letter patterns in books. For fulfillment & shipping, business owners and operators must master the ABCs of successful shipping strategies. One startling statistic makes it apparent why it is important to master the ABCs of successful shipping strategies.

Thirty-six percent of online customers abandon a purchase because of shipping costs.

Several factors determine shipping costs. The size and weight of the items shipped represent the most important factors for calculating shipping costs. Business owners and operators also have to account for packing materials, as well as the labor used to fulfill and ship orders. However, lowering shipping costs should be just one of several successful shipping strategies implemented by your company.

Outsource Fulfillment & Shipping

The ABCs of successful shipping strategies start with outsourcing fulfillment & shipping. Hiring a company such as Complete Mailing & Printing to take care of fulfillment and shipping responsibilities delivers several benefits.

First, you free up considerably more time to address other business challenges, such as deciding how to grow your loyal customer base. You no longer have to spend time organizing each fulfillment and shipping order. Second, you save money on printing and mailing costs. Although you pay a third party for fulfillment and shipping services, you save money by not wasting postage on sending mail to the wrong addresses. Third, outsourcing fulfillment & shipping streamlines your back-office management responsibilities.

Offer Varied Rates

One popular shipping strategy involves mixing it up by offering varied rates.

Live rates represent the standard for businesses calculating shipping rates. You offer shipping rates for the exact cost of different sizes, weights, and distances. If the third party handling your shipping services increases rates by 10 percent, your business automatically updates the shipping charges to account for the higher rate.

Table rates follow a set of criteria to calculate shipping charges. For example, one order might calculate shipping rates based on weight, but not size and destination. A table rate allows your business to account for the most volatile costs involved in shipping a particular product. You can offer a discount for shipping on any order that weighs fewer than 1,000 pounds.

Offering a flat rate is easy to calculate because your business charges the same amount regardless of any criteria. This type of shipping rate is used by businesses that outsource a majority of shipping orders to the same third party.

Offer Free Shipping

Offering free shipping does not seem to make good business sense. However, your customers love free shipping. Ninety-three percent of all consumers would buy more products if they received a free shipping service. You can add an incentive like providing free shipping for customer orders that exceed a certain value. Free shipping is not the right service to offer for some businesses, such as businesses that ship low-value orders to the same customers several times every month. Nonetheless, offering free shipping is a smart move for most businesses, especially businesses that ship high-value products.

Understand the ABCs of successful shipping strategies to increase sales and lower operating costs.

Free Up Office Resources By Using a Qualified Fulfillment & Shipping Service

As the owner or manager of a business, one of your most important goals is to get the most out of your resources. Optimizing what you have increases productivity, which typically fattens the bottom line of a business. However, devising ways to optimize resources can be difficult to do, especially for small business owners and operators who operate on razor-thin budgets. What if we told you that your business can free up resources by using a qualified fulfillment and shipping service?

At Complete Mailing and Printing, we offer fulfillment and shipping services that allow our partners to devote tight financial resources to other business objectives. Instead of using valuable labor resources on fulfillment and shipping, you can assign workers to other projects. You also do not have to invest in the materials required to complete fulfillment and shipping orders. If your business devotes warehouse space to fulfillment and shipping orders, you can free up the valuable dock space for other reasons.

Free Up Office Resources

Handling fulfillment and shipping orders requires a substantial investment in back-office resources. Just the investment required in logistical software can set a small business back tens of thousands of dollars. By outsourcing fulfillment and shipping, your business can reallocate the tight resources used for back-office technology to other areas of your operation. You no longer need to install computer programs that track inventory in real-time. Your business also does not have to install communication tools to stay in touch with customers concerning the status of their orders.

What Are the Other Benefits of Outsourcing Fulfillment and Shipping?

Freeing up office resources is just one of many benefits of outsourcing fulfillment and shipping. As a business owner or operator, you also free up more of your time to concentrate on other business matters. You get much more time to focus on increasing sales, such as attracting new customers and motivating loyal customers to buy more of your products and services. More time also allows business owners and operators to discover strategies to reduce costs, which includes doing a better job of monitoring the supply chain and carefully vetting potential distributors of your products.

Outside of freeing up office resources, no other benefit of outsourcing fulfillment and shipping is more valuable than building trust with your customers. A company that provides superior fulfillment and shipping services such as Complete Mailing and Printing ensures your customers receive the right products at the times designated on their orders. A fulfillment and shipping service also offers the transparency required to build trust with your customers. According to several studies, more than 50 percent of consumers do not buy again from a business that does not deliver fulfillment and shipping transparency.

How to Choose the Right Fulfillment and Shipping Partner

Now that you know why you should outsource fulfillment and shipping, how do you find the right partner to help you reap the many benefits? Start by looking for an experienced partner, preferably one that specializes in fulfilling and shipping orders of the products you have in stock. Reading online reviews is helpful as well. Tour the facilities of potential partners on your shortlist to confirm they meet technological and physical space criteria. The fulfillment and shipping company that you hire must have installed the most advanced logistical technology, as well as have enough space to store your products.

What is the Process for Outsourcing My Company’s Fulfillment & Shipping Needs?

One of the most critical steps in serving a customer is to ensure timely and accurate order fulfillment, which also involves shipping a product through the most efficient channels. Your business can execute each step of the customer engagement process and still fall short of meeting expectations by implementing an inferior fulfillment and shipping program.

Outsourcing fulfillment and shipping involves hiring a third-party logistics company such as Complete Mailing & Printing to handle this critical last step in the customer engagement process. Businesses benefit from outsourcing fulfillment and shipping for several reasons. First, your business quickly scales up or down operations based on customer demand. Second, you enjoy cost savings by implementing a much more efficient fulfillment model. Your business is no longer on the financial hook for expenses like labor, equipment, and warehousing. Third, your customers receive better service because of faster shipping times and enhanced product order accuracy. Other reasons to outsource fulfillment and shipping responsibilities include reducing legal liabilities and gaining access to the most advanced technology.

Now that you understand the benefits of outsourcing fulfillment and shipping responsibilities, what are the steps you should take to achieve optimal performance?

Choose the Right Partner

Many factors come into play when choosing the best partner to handle your company’s fulfillment and shipping needs. It starts with identifying your needs, such as knowing where your customers live and ensuring your new partner has warehouses close to where your customers live. Then, you should consider the technology used by a potential partner, such as the type of inventory management software that integrates flawlessly with your technology platform. The partner that handles your company’s fulfillment and shipping responsibilities also should possess expertise in moving the types of products sold to your customers.

Prepare for the Switch

Choosing the right partner to handle your company’s fulfillment and shipping responsibilities is just the first step to making the transition work. You also must prepare for the switch by factoring in order SKU counts, order volume, and storage requirements. Planning for the transfer of inventory represents one of the most important phases of the transition to outsourcing fulfillment and shipping. This includes closely coordinating shipping logistics, labeling requirements, and inventory management procedures. Training your team members to adapt to the new fulfillment and shipping model also represents an important step in the preparation process.

Monitor Your Partner’s Performance

Your business should set clear metrics for your partner to achieve fulfillment and shipping goals. Establish KPIs for order accuracies, shipping times, and customer feedback. You should assign one or more team members to track and report on the established KPIs to highlight where your fulfillment and shipping partner needs to improve services.

Communication represents the key factor for monitoring performance, such as daily check-ins and once-a-month live online meetings to address issues and/or discover better opportunities.

Improve Performance

It is one thing to stay on top of your fulfillment and shipping partner’s performance. It is quite another thing to take the metrics you have gathered and then devise strategies to enhance operations. Based on hard data and softer customer feedback, your business should be able to make quick changes to operations, such as improving technology and hiring more experienced team members.

You also want to implement measures that ensure your partner complies with industry best practices, as well as state and federal government regulations.

6 Popular Services That Define Fulfillment & Shipping

Businesses spend a considerable amount of money to bring a product to market. From conducting extensive consumer research to paying for expensive manufacturing costs, businesses ride the razor-thin line between making a profit and falling deep into the black. When the time comes to fulfill product orders and then ship the products thousands of miles away, the razor-thin product margin gets obliterated.

This is why working with a fulfillment and shipping company can help your business sit on the right side of the razor-thin profit margin line.

At Complete Mailing & Printing, we offer six popular services that define fulfillment and shipping for our customers.

eCommerce

Because of the tremendous growth of online sales, many fulfillment centers offer an eCommerce fulfillment service that allows your business to link directly to an online shopping cart. An online shopping cart automatically processes product orders via a warehouse management system (WMS), which ensures each order is processed according to a customer’s location information. A web store provides your company with a convenient virtual warehouse, along with access to other online sales portals such as eBay and Amazon.

Retail

If your company is looking to grow sales, one of the most effective strategies involves reaching out to big box stores like Walmart, Best Buy, and Home Depot to reach your sales goal. Big box brick-and-mortar retailers remain viable sales channels for most types of consumer products. Because of strict guidelines, a fulfillment and shipping company such as Complete Mailing and Printing ensures each of your products contains the correct routing guides and instructions for shipping

Multi-Channel

Multi-channel means a fulfillment and shipping company has the capability to meet product requests through a wide variety of different sales channels. Your company can meet product requests through traditional sales channels such as direct-to-consumer (D2C), as well as leverage the power of selling products to retail outlets through business-to-business (B2B) sales channels.

Subscription

Also referred to as auto shipping service, subscription box fulfillment relies on a company handling orders that occur on a regularly scheduled basis. One example of this type of fulfillment and shipping regards the Dollar Shave Club, which sends razors to customers every month. This type of fulfillment and shipping service requires a business to be experts at batch shipping, which includes handling rapidly changing orders each month.

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing via sites like Kickstarter and IndieGogo has emerged as a popular way to ship products to consumers. Many of the products are gifts sent as a thank-you to customers for donating money to a charitable cause. Unlike most fulfillment and shipping orders, orders typically are large, one-time orders completed after a crowdsourcing campaign.

Long-Term Warehousing

Amazon has revolutionized the product chain management model by creating long-term warehousing. The result is fulfillment and shipping companies that specialize in handling orders that help customers avoid paying Amazon’s long-term storage fees. Also called FBA Prep Services, long-term warehousing is an especially important fulfillment and shipping service for companies that manufacture high-end products such as furniture.