Today’s startups move at breakneck speed and are creating a whole new landscape of language and services to save time and get back to selling. For our industry, this means many new “eCom shipping” requests. This shorthand tells us that your business needs immediate support to help scale fulfillment infrastructure and avoid growing pains.
You’re ready to start tackling those issues. So, here are some outsourcing resources to help you understand and tackle significant fulfillment issues facing small businesses like yours.
Improve the experience: Reliable tracking with automation
Keep customers and service agents in the know with reliable order updates from carriers. Red Stag’s integrations make it easy to stay up to date on orders, fulfillment status, and inventory across our locations.
Your business should be able to manage every aspect of eCommerce shipping within a unified dashboard. That allows your team to restock easily and support customers quickly. Look for a partner that puts business intelligence, not just rows of data, at your fingertips. Outsourced eCom shipping must be a process enhancement that makes it easier to work and reduces the time it takes to resolve customer issues. Better yet, look for an outsourced process that removes your most significant errors and risks.
Save money: Competitive shipping rates from multiple carriers
Partnering with a 3PL like Red Stag Fulfillment can offer instant cost reduction when you use our negotiated rates for national and regional fulfillment. Compare rates and carrier speeds to what you’re able to negotiate directly, and you’ll typically find that 3PLs offer significant savings on nearly every order. For companies like Red Stag that specialize in bulky, large, and heavy items, the potential savings increases because we negotiate based on those order characteristics.
There’s a shopper upside as well. After securing better rates for your business, you can offer shoppers faster or improved shipping options. It’s easier to afford free shipping offers when your rates are lower, and expedited services are more affordable if you pass those costs onto customers. You can offer better shipping options while saving money, improving your order accuracy, and reducing inventory losses.
Want to make shipping offers more affordable? Here are 7 ways to reduce shipping costs.
Be flexible: Fulfill faster but on schedule
One of the major points of eCom shipping confusion is the difference between order processing and shipping. Customers typically won’t understand the difference, which can lead to headaches. Processing speeds cover the time it takes for your company to receive and verify an order, send that order to your warehouse or 3PL, and get the order ready to hand to a carrier. Shipping speeds generally cover the time a carrier takes to pick up the order from your dock and get it to the customer’s door.
While you know the difference, many shoppers only think about that dock-to-door timeline. This misunderstanding can lead to increased complaints and customer service requests when people think it’s taking a bit too long to get their order.
Thankfully, a 3PL can help you address this concern without having to give customers a lengthy explanation of the intricacies of fulfillment. (And your agents won’t need that either.) Red Stag Fulfillment offers multiple fulfillment service options, including a Next Business Day, 3:00 p.m. ET, or 5:00 p.m. ET cutoff. This processing speed ensures that your orders move quickly by guaranteeing that we process 100% of your orders according to your chosen time. By pushing that processing speed faster, there’s less of a delay between processing and shipping, so you’re delighting customers quickly with less chance of disruption.
Learn more about the guarantees that we offer, helping you set positive expectations with customers.
Sell more: Be the brand customers always see
Your business moves fast, and you should get all the credit for the speed and reliability you’ve built. 3PLs are a partner in this, helping you maintain capability while staying invisible to customers. Improve trust by getting orders correct and on time with a fully branded shopping and delivery experience.
Put your logo and branding on everything from receipts and slips to box labels and the tape itself. With Red Stag’s information portal, service agents can log into our dashboard directly to provide customer updates as soon as they contact you. That means no hold music or handoffs, just your professionals managing customers and resolving complaints quickly.
Our goal is for your customers to love the eCom shipping experience without even knowing the Red Stag name.
Partners help your business meet and manage customer expectations in multiple ways.
Expert assistance: Support for packaging and beyond
What’s your biggest fulfillment hurdle, and how do you solve it?
There’s a lot wrapped up in that relatively straightforward question. When running a growing business, time is a premium resource, and few entrepreneurs have enough to devote to mastering fulfillment. Outsourcing eCom shipping operations should be your entrance into an expert class on operations with a mentor ready to support your needs.
With Red Stag Fulfillment, you’re choosing industry-leading fulfillment backed by a team of experts to help you optimize each process. Our professionals are available to consult on the packaging, carrier selection, and cost reductions, and even support inbound goods direct from overseas manufacturers. We’ll handle your U.S. fulfillment properly and offer expert assistance to keep you moving forward. It’s how we’re a fulfillment company that’s so much more.
Seasonal sales: Prep and planning help all year long
Most eCommerce businesses face significant seasonal changes, with more than half of total annual sales coming around the year-end holidays. It can be tough to prepare for that big swing in a few ways, including managing product counts before and ramping up with enough time to meet demand. You also want to avoid holding excess inventory during the rest of the year — why pay to store something you’re not selling?
Inventory management is crucial for success before and during the holiday rush. Plus, there’s carrier management, planning your marketing, predicting this year’s trends, and much more. Fulfillment partners should help take order and inventory tasks off your plate while giving you a plan to keep shipping and sales successful.
No roadmap works for every company. Instead, ask for custom, individualized support from a partner that knows you.
We’re open to those conversations all year long; you’ve just got to tell us a little more about your business.
Easy expansion: Growth that doesn’t get in the way
ECommerce sales in 2020 were good, with most companies having an even better 2021. But scaling operations when self-fulfilling can be difficult. If this year could be your strongest yet, would your current fulfillment get in the way?
Supporting growth is one of the biggest reasons companies like yours outsource fulfillment. That way, you aren’t stuck managing spreadsheets and reordering tape, wearing a million different operations hats. Keep the entrepreneurial spirit alive by focusing on the sales that have gotten you this far while offloading necessary but tedious elements.
You speed up growth. We speed up fulfillment. Customers speed up reordering.
It’s time to consider outsourcing when you notice you have less time to focus on the sales and development you love. Finding warehouse space, building capacity, hiring, and even ordering boxes are more straightforward and less expensive when working with a fulfillment provider. Choose one with multiple locations and carrier partners so that everything gets a little bit simpler to manage and afford.
Hit a snag in your growth? Here’s how to evaluate eCom shipping companies for your SMB.
Focus: Let fulfillment consume less of your day
We appreciate you giving us your time today to read and learn more about fulfillment for a growing operation. But let’s ask an honest question: What would you rather be doing?
You didn’t start your business to live in order management tools and eCom shipping spreadsheets. You want to build an empire that grows large enough to run itself. If you’re here, your next step is identifying those processes to hand off to a partner. Learning about 3PLs and building out a shortlist is the next step to working in your business, instead of on it.
Let’s create a plan to simplify and streamline your fulfillment, so you have time to invest and grow your business.
