Customer satisfaction surveys have repeatedly shown that one of the biggest customer gripes is products arriving late. Having to chase a company to find out where their order is puts a lot of people off. Many do not order from that company a second time.
Most firms focus a lot of their effort on getting customers to buy from them. Once the customer buys, they tend to take their eye off the ball. Many fail when it comes to delivering the goods, in other words order fulfillment.
They do so for a range of reasons. Usually it only happens at busy times, when it is difficult to find sufficient capacity to fulfil all orders on time. This is understandable, but unnecessary. Firms who use third party fulfilment centres never have a problem fulfilling all of their customer orders, no matter how busy they get.
Third party fulfillment
Third party fulfilment is extremely easy to set up. It is very flexible, and often cheaper than a company fulfilling the orders using their own logistics team. There is no need to rent warehousing or pay for warehouse and transport staff. That means there is also no need to maintain warehouse equipment and vehicles such as vans and trucks.
It is a solution that is suitable for virtually any product. The best third party order fulfilment firms are geared up to distribute a range of products, including temperature-controlled products. This means that a company can break into a new market without worrying about the logistics of storing and distributing those new products.