Selecting the Best Fulfillment Center for Your Needs

While the impression might be that only large companies warehouse products, the reality is that a lot of small businesses utilize a warehouse to fulfill your customer orders.  Since small businesses typically have very little space for storage, it is practical to rent space or contract with a fulfillment center to maintain the product until it is sold. 

Select the best fulfillment center

There are a lot of benefits to using fulfillment centers.  The fulfillment and distribution center will store your product until it is sold or ordered.  Once the order comes in, the warehouse will handle the packaging and shipping.  This process involves shipping to both business locations or directly to the final customer.  The fulfillment distribution center will also handle all fragile and perishable items, ensuring top quality of your items when shipped.  Once a product is packaged, then it is a matter of finding a fulfillment center that has an efficient process, a high expectation of success, and a high willingness to work with the business owner and managers.

The benefits of a fulfillment center

There are a lot of reasons to use a fulfillment center to support your business.  The main reason is that it will allow you to mass manufacture a significantly larger volume of product for a lot less.  Having a cost savings in production means a larger profit for you.  Also, it also means being able to service a larger number of customers without having to worry about backorders and lags in fulfilling orders.  Customers become very frustrated when their order is placed on backorder.  Those customers are more likely to cancel their order and make their purchase elsewhere.      

There are a lot of warehousing options to choose from.  If you are seriously considering the route, the best way to determine if they are the facility for you will be to research their success rates and capacity.  Once you narrow down your options, then you should request a meeting and tour, pricing, and process-specific information.  Always find out the details of the process, from packing, shipping, guarantees, and other partners.   

Visit your top choice in facility several times, and spend several hours observing the process.  Ensure that the process compliments your process and levels of customer service.  Ensure that they can deliver to your standards and will value your customers as much as you do.