What to know about your fulfillment house
that could increase your sales and decrease your shipping time..
We decided to put out a quick discussion on how to deal with your fulfillment house (center). Most companies think that dealing with a fulfillment center is a horrible processes. They never call you back, they don’t ship on-time, boxes are wrong, product is damages, etc. We are not amazon, where we take 10-15% off the top then add in your fees and services. Yes we don’t have 1 hour shipping When we talked to possible clients they have asked us some really good questions and some really bad questions and we put together that list for you. Here is how to differentiate you from other clients that a fulfillment center has;
How many clients does your fulfillment center have?
Most fulfillment centers have between 30 – 50 clients on their fulfillment house. Imagine the amount of time and effort that is put into just your clients and x30 that is what we are dealing with. So if you have 70 sales per month, we are fulfilling between 2100 to 3500 products per month. Luckily at our fulfillment house we are dealing with larger box or pallet sales and a smaller percentage is on the pick and pack fulfillment.
What is the difference between pick and pack and box fulfillment?
When you send us products it comes in a box, usually boxes within a bigger box on a pallet. Well we have employees and they have salaries and if we have to open a box, unpack the box and take out individual items. So naturally if all we had to do was check the box put a shipping label on it is easier than picking individual products and packaging them to repack on a box it costs both more time and money. Example in our services:
Box Fulfillment: $2 per SKU box
Pick and Pack: $5.95 per order
How do you want us to send you orders?
Best question ever…!! Seriously, our orders team thanked us for including this and they have two points.
- If you are not on the online system (shipStation or our members system) send us a PO for the client that you want to send to, please have the address, product sku, and quantity. Best advice, if we have to call you for that information then you might have wasted the entire shipping day.
- If you are using the online system then everything is already set in stone and we will receive all of the information we need.
Basically making sure that we get a complete PO we are able to ship effectively.
When do you bill for services?
Easy, we have every company set up an escrow type fund where we can pull from and ship for you will a detailed invoice at the end of the month. If you do not have that then we send you bill at the end of the month with payment needed. If it is not received by the 7th of the next month then we just do not ship.
So the easiest way is to have the escrow so you never go low and you get an email that asks you to refill your account when you get to a certain level.
Communication?
Email is the best because we an document it, if you do not get a response back in 24 hours then something happened and we didn’t get your information. If that happens then give us a call. The biggest issue for most clients is the hours. We can only ship when the shippers pick up which is two times during the business day for us
USPS: 10:30am EST and 3:30pm EST (on call)
FedEx, UPS, DHL: 11:30am EST and 4:30pm EST
We hope this helps you understand how to work with your fulfillment house and work effectively. Communication is the key if you can send things on time (before the shipping deadlines for the day) then you can get out that day. We are not amazon and do not want to be for that matter. We charge way less than amazon does and btw we don’t take 10% plus shipping and handling just to fulfill your products
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