Order fulfilment is one of the most critical processes in any business, regardless of its size. For small businesses, though, their order fulfilment process must be of a high standard so that the company gets repeat custom. However, ensuring that your order fulfilment process is successful can be more challenging than initially thought, as there are multiple steps and people involved.
Until an order has left the warehouse and is in the customer’s hands, the fulfilment process must be as streamlined as possible. This article outlines several ways small businesses can improve their order fulfilment process to ensure that the customer experience is optimised and operations remain efficient.
Improve Your Picking And Packing Methods
One way that small businesses can improve the efficiency of their order fulfilment process is by adjusting and improving their picking and packing methods. Each moment from when a customer places an order until it’s in their hand costs the business money. The longer it takes for employees to find, pack, and dispatch an order, the more this process will cost the business.
You could reduce the time spent on finding, packing, and shipping orders by automating this process or outsourcing third-party companies like K2 Storage Solutions to assist you with storing and distributing your goods. Visit their website to peruse their extensive range of services and discover how enlisting them would benefit your business’s order fulfilment process.
Organise Your Inventory
Another way that small businesses can improve their order fulfilment process is by managing and organising their stock inventory. Before your business even receives an order, you should ensure that your inventory is well-stocked and prepared to meet the demands of your customers.
To stay on top of this, businesses should know the exact number of products in their supply chain, even those returned by customers, and which products are the most popular to draw correlations between orders and determine how much stock to order.
Failure to do so can lead to insufficient stock, unfulfilled orders, and other complications. All of which can make customers dissatisfied, and worst-case scenario, they might be reluctant to place another order.
Automate Your Order Fulfilment Process
At the heart of every effective business lies automation. Considering the automation of your small businesses order fulfilment process can save your business time money and reduce the scope for human errors. With an automated order fulfilment process, your employees can be informed which packing option to choose, the most time-effective way to pick the order and which delivery courier to use.
Not only does automation promise all the above benefits and many more, but it also reduces the number of time employees spends finding, packing, and dispatching orders as it eliminates the need for employees to carry out repetitive warehouse tasks such as generating invoices etc. Implementing automation can drastically increase the time employees can pick and pack orders which minimises the business operational costs overall and reduces the risk of human errors like the wrong item being picked etc.
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