Tracking Orders: All Part of the Job
If the plan is to sell products online, take a long, hard look at order fulfillment – how orders are delivered to those buying customers that make up your clientele. Online retailers, for the most part are mail order shippers, though with the growing popularity of local search, buyers may stop by your shop downtown, and in this case, order fulfillment is no problem. It takes place at POP.
The Space Factor
Where are you going to store 3,000 festive sombreros or 100 queen-sized mattresses? If you don’t have the room (or the desire) to store inventory in a spare room, you’ll need to rent storage space. And that costs money.
In calculating your operating expenses, determine how much space you’ll need. Then call one of those “U-Store-It” places and start adding up the numbers.
The Time Factor
Let’s say you hit a home run right out of the box and you’re shipping 150 different orders worldwide each day. How much time each day will it take to prepare the paperwork on those 150 shipments, wrap and box each order so it arrives safely and drive those 150 orders to the local shipper – UPS, the USPS, FedEx or other shipper?
If it’s taking you and your kids all day to manage order fulfillment, that doesn’t leave much time for marketing, site revisions and other online business chores.
The Cost Factor
There are order fulfillment companies that do nothing but take orders and oversee all handling and shipping for their clients. But this service costs money – sometimes a great deal of money, money you don’t have. May be a problem, may be not.
Kind of depends on what and how much you’re selling and shipping. If you’re selling dozens of extension ladders each day, you need order fulfillment help. No way you’re going to be able to handle shipping all on your own – and your spouse will be none-too-happy with 118 extension ladders stacked in the spare bedroom.
On the other hand, if you’re shipping 10 or 15 small items – figurines, for instance – order tracking software is relatively inexpensive and a must-have for the small, online business owner and retailer.
It’s all about taking good care of your customers.
Customer Care
Even the best run mail order business makes mistakes. We’ve all received the wrong order at one point. This is where client care becomes critical.
How quickly can you fix the problem and make that unhappy buyer a happy camper? No one says a thing about correct orders that are delivered on time. No problem. It’s expected. But, if you want that dissatisfied buyer who just received 12 pair of purple PJs to ever shop with you again, time to get busy.
The importance of resolving shipping errors can’t be overstated. Companies like LL Bean and Amazon have reached the heights of success through the quality of their customer care.
When you call LL Bean’s with a problem, someone in
If It Weren’t For Humans…
Most fulfillment mistakes are caused during the manual phases of order processing. The stock picker grabs the wrong item, the wrong label is affixed to the wrong box – most errors are human errors so, whether it’s just you at the dining room table, or a warehouse full of order pickers on Segues, remember that human error is the cause of most problems so a quality control system is always a good idea – a final check before the order ships.
Order Fulfillment Houses
These companies manage order fulfillment and store your inventory. They capture the online order at the same time you do. They do all the packing and haul the orders down to the shipper. They provide you with complete fulfillment information including names, dates, back-orders, returns and other s&h activity.
These companies work on a flat rate plus postage system or percentage of order system. Ask around. There’s likely an order fulfillment company in your area and it’s always nice to stop by to check inventory stats in person.
Order Fulfillment Software
If you are going to handle order fulfillment out of your home or work space, you’ll need order fulfillment software, sometimes called inventory management software. Basically the same tool.
This software automatically captures online orders or equips telephone service reps to enter orders manually. Each order is assigned a number and entered into the order database. From here, you can track the stage of each order and identify problems before they become problems.
These tools keep a running total of inventory on hand so you can re-order before running out of a hot seller.
These software tools also print out shipping labels and invoices. The invoice is placed in the shipping box, the box is sealed, labeled affixed – next! It streamlines the process so instead of taking hours out of your day, order fulfillment software cuts this critical chore down to size.
Further, it tracks the status of problem resolution. As the business owner, you can quickly see that something has been back-ordered and get an auto-responder out to all buyers of that item. All done with a few clicks.
The More Orders the Better
Of course. Why else are you working so hard to build an online business? However, there are other important aspects of your job as webmaster, business owner, order shipper, marketer and custodial engineer. Order fulfillment is simply one aspect of your business, albeit a critical factor.
So, as you put together the big plan and start making sales projections for the next five years, don’t forget order fulfillment costs in addition to postage and handling. It’s going to cost time or money, but it has to be a cost factored into the operation of your business.
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