Order Fulfillment Trends in Retail

The global pandemic has affected the way we sell and shop. Many brick-and-mortar merchants who couldn’t imagine selling online were forced to expedite their progress and transition into ecommerce, all in response to evolving consumer expectations. Of course, the order fulfillment process got affected too.

Speaking of order fulfillment – there has never been a better and more crucial time to think about automation. You can spend countless hours receiving, processing, and fulfilling every order. Or you can even outsource it to fulfillment centers or hire a fulfillment company. This, of course, costs money and doesn’t let you control what’s going on.

• Ecommerce Automation
• Inventory Management: Delivery, Returns and Beyond
• Future of ecommerce: from Retailers, Wholesalers
• Staying Ahead

Ecommerce Automation

Automation can transform the entire salesforce – shipping, labeling, order fulfillment, inventory management, order warehouse, back-office operations, and more. Efficient and profitable order management looks like this: receive, pick, pack, ship, repeat. This scalable operational efficiency is exactly what will help you stand out. Just imagine not having to do those time-consuming tasks anymore!

Your order fulfillment strategy has to incorporate automation – the sooner, the better. Every customer order will take a fraction of the time you used to spend, making both your customers and your teams happy.

Future of Ecommerce: from Retailers, Wholesalers

Front-end is changing rapidly. 80% of online transactions in Asia are happening off brand sites. Some experts project that there will be no retailers in the future, only wholesalers. Facebook, Google, and other big players will own retail. They will also deliver the experience side of ecommerce. The only other businesses that will matter are those B2B sellers that can buy their stock more efficiently than others, and also fulfill it more efficiently. Those will be the winners.

Inventory storage alone can truly make or break your success. Especially with holidays around the corner, you need to be absolutely sure that you have enough stock, but also not too much because that will cause lots of unnecessary costs and can seriously affect your bottom line. 

With the help of automation platforms like Maropost Commerce Cloud, you can minimize your mundane tasks and spend your time growing the business. (In fact, we have a guide focused on just that – order fulfillment. You can download it for free here).

Inventory Management: Delivery, Returns and Beyond

Only when your supply chain is in order and you’re confident in your fulfillment operations, you can start delivering orders according to your customers’ expectations. Cool options like same-day delivery (or even two-hour delivery) are only made possible through careful planning and dedicated systems.

Delivering packages is just one side of the coin though. What about returns processing? It’s easy to upset and lose customers over the complicated return system. Especially with an online retail order, customers have a hard time visualizing the products. Without the confidence that they can easily and quickly return the merchandise and get a refund, they’ll be reluctant to buy in the first place.

Receiving inventory back should be simple for your team too. If every return causes delays with other orders, you might never catch up. So think about it ahead of time and set up your inventory management software to handle any volume of returns.

Staying Ahead

Volumes, demands, and progress will only go up and further. So first of all, focus on making your customers and employees happy. You can only do that with smart and easy-to-use automation tools. More than 10,000 marketers use Maropost to engage with their prospects and customers through emails, SMS, social media and more. We’re here to help you grow your business!