'Benefits of outsourcing fulfilment' is a guest post from Ian at UK Fulfilment, a fulfilment house based in Nottingham...

The very fact that you are looking at the StoreFeeder blog, means that you either are or you are considering selling your products on multiple sales channels. The evolution of the ecommerce market has been staggering and without fantastic pieces of multi-channel ecommerce software, like StoreFeeder, to help companies manage their stock and sales activity, time would be a very precious resource in this industry. Time, an interesting concept, who could not do with more time in the day, more time to source new products, or new suppliers for your existing ones, or even (dare I say it) relax away from the business?

The selling of a product is just the start of the journey, it means that you have done the right things so far. You have a product that the customer wants and at a price they are happy to pay. Your sales channel is good and the customer feels a sense of trust to buy from you.

But this really is the start of the journey and this journey is where ‘time’ is often a factor in whether your customer will ultimately be happy with you and their purchase.

Whether you are a start-up company or an established e-seller, the time that it takes to process your orders and get it to your customer is often neglected. Gaining the order is great, but keep a customer waiting after that point and you are not likely to retain them. Gone are the days when “please allow 28 days for delivery” was the acceptable norm, these days if our order is not sat on the doormat the next morning we are not impressed, and getting this part of your service right on your own can be expensive, complicated and time

You have to consider warehousing, rent, rates, insurance, staff, IT systems, carrier contracts, the list goes on. How will you cope when you get a huge spike in orders? Will you be able to get all the orders out on time? What will your staff do when you are in a quiet period? They will still want to pay.

time-consuming Well, the simple answer is, you give -consuming UK Fulfilment a call. We are the sister company of StoreFeeder. If you look in the “Company” section of their website, you will see me, sitting at the bottom of the page with Petros staring at me. I have been working for Meads (the parent company of both UK Fulfilment and StoreFeeder) for nearly 15 years, so I have a great deal of expertise in this industry.UK Fulfilment is perfectly placed to allow you to grab back that precious commodity of time and take the stress and hassle out of your order processing operation. We integrate seamlessly with StoreFeeder (as you would expect) so as soon as your receive an order over any of your sales channels we know about it and then we can put our expertise into practice and get your order out. We store your products for you, receive your orders from eBay, Amazon, your website, in fact wherever you sell them, and then we pick, pack and despatch them to your customers. Because we do this for many companies, we have a slick operation that allows us to process your orders quickly, accurately and efficiently and with the integration and backup of StoreFeeder, you can see this happening on your computer with order statuses, stock levels and POD’s all updating live.

We can process orders safe in the knowledge that stock is available as the StoreFeeder software has ensured live stock levels on all channels, so there have been no double sales across the different sales platforms. This allows for faster processing and gets the order to the warehouse quicker as previously we had to wait for a manual release of orders from our clients own systems to ensure there was no cross-selling before the order was released to be processed.

high-profileOur operation is trusted by some high profile clients, because they know we can deliver what they promise to their customers. We have capability to handle spikes in orders and there are no problems if your sales are low for a period. You only pay for what you use so no fixed costs for rent and staff to worry about during slower periods.The ecommerce market is booming and we are here to help companies make the most of their opportunities by offering a reliable, efficient and cost effective solution that allows you the time to establish and grow your brand, customer base and sales, or maybe, have the time for a break Visit www.ukfulfilment.co.uk for more information, or pick up the phone and give me a call.Ian UK Fulfilment - 0800 0141010 Proud partner of StoreFeeder.com