Nothing in life is guaranteed. If we don’t know this, life has a way of teaching us, over and over. At Red Stag Fulfillment, we’re not perfect. But we strive for perfection, and we get pretty darn close. On top of that, we offer fulfillment guarantees, so our clients never lose out.
What does eCommerce fulfillment mean at Red Stag?
Red Stag fulfillment takes eCommerce fulfillment seriously. Fulfillment is the link in your supply chain that connects manufacturer to consumer. Fast, accurate fulfillment is the best way to make a personal connection with your customers. Delivering what they ordered, when they expect it, in perfect condition will make your customers happy and keep them coming back for more.
At Red Stag Fulfillment, our definition of eCommerce fulfillment goes beyond the standard order fulfillment processes. Every client is different, so we work with each of our clients to create a fulfillment experience their customers will love.
The steps in the order fulfillment process
Order fulfillment generally follows these steps:
- You ship your products to the fulfillment warehouse.
- Your items are logged into stock and placed on the shelves for storage.
- As orders arrive, pickers pull items from the shelves.
- Packers box and label your orders for shipping.
- The fulfillment warehouse hands off parcels to USPS, UPS, or FedEx to deliver to your customers.
In between these basic steps, a lot can happen. The fulfillment center might combine some of your products into kits or provide assembly. Warehousing staff will work to handle returns, optimize packaging, or figure out how to lower your shipping costs. Our experienced staff can even help you with inventory management.
Fulfillment centers are a hive of activity, with staff on the move all the time, picking and packing orders, helping clients with inventory planning, and looking for solutions to client challenges.
Building excellence into fulfillment services: the Red Stag Fulfillment story
Red Stag Fulfillment is different from most other 3PLs in one important way: it was founded by eCommerce entrepreneurs. Red Stag’s owners know firsthand the damage that substandard fulfillment can do to a business. So they went on a mission to crack the code for excellent fulfillment services.
The beginning: fulfillment done wrong
When the founders were growing their businesses and outsourcing their fulfillment for the first time, Amazon had not yet come to dominate the eCommerce marketplace, but it was rising in prominence. Amazon’s growth was built on fast fulfillment and reliable customer service. Two-day Prime shipping would soon become the industry standard.
The owner of the fulfillment company that Red Stag Fulfillment’s founders used dismissed Amazon as a startup that would soon fade away. To be blunt: they simply didn’t feel compelled to try to match Amazon’s level of service.
That lax approach to fulfillment led to a disastrous Christmas season for our founders. The business was booming, but their orders got backed up and didn’t ship in time for the holiday. Desperate to try to salvage their holiday season, they traveled to the fulfillment center to pick and pack orders themselves.
What they saw when they arrived told them what had gone wrong. The floor was littered with scraps of infill. The staff break room was filthy. The warehouse staff seemed discouraged and unmotivated. It was no wonder their orders had been backed up and shipped wrong.
Building a new type of fulfillment company
Red Stag Fulfillment’s founders knew there had to be a better way to provide eCommerce fulfillment, so they took their entrepreneurial spirits and started their own company. They set out to create a third-party logistics company that would treat its clients’ businesses with care and foster their success.
The founders were the first clients of Red Stag Fulfillment, so, from the beginning, they set out to provide the kind of fulfillment partner they wanted for their own online businesses. They infused the company with an entrepreneurial mindset, so everyone would always strive to do better, innovate, grow, and improve. However, they knew that robust procedures wouldn’t be enough to build a great 3PL. The key to Red Stag’s success would be its staff.
Employees are the foundation on which fulfillment guarantees are built
The heart of every order fulfillment company is not warehouse space, shelving, or forklifts — it’s people. Here are just a few of the things Red Stag Fulfillment does to support a top-notch staff:
- Provide a clean, comfortable, and spacious break area for the fulfillment center employees.
- Give every employee, no matter their position, a forum for sharing ideas with management. Many of the ideas for improving our processes come directly from the people who do that work every day.
- Promote from within wherever possible and make sure everyone in management understands our operations.
- Reward employees for a job well done with a generous bonus structure that incentivizes excellence.
That last component is the key to Red Stag Fulfillment’s accuracy guarantees. If your order is picked and packed correctly, that’s because someone took the care to make sure the job was done right. Employees supply the dedication to make sure every order ships on time, even when the deadline is tight.
Our fulfillment guarantees are so important to us that we give our employees bonuses for accurate order processing. The longer they go without making an error, the higher their bonuses. We’ve had employees who turned down an offer for a management job because they had such a long streak with no mis-picks or mis-packs that they made more money working in the warehouse.
Our dedicated eCommerce fulfillment staff makes us proud every day. They also make us one of the best 3PL companies in the industry.
What are the Red Stag Fulfillment guarantees?
Red Stag Fulfillment provides several specific guarantees. In each case, if we make a mistake, we make it right.
Dock-to-stock in two days
The sooner your inventory gets shelved in the warehouse, the sooner your 3PL can start filling orders. Inbound shipments stranded on the receiving dock are a drain on your business.
We understand the value of speed in every step of the fulfillment process. If we fail to move your products from the inbound dock into inventory within two business days, we pay you $50.
And, sometimes, we skip the shelves altogether. When we receive a shipment of backordered products, we can use cross-docking to get those orders out faster. We can turn a whole container of merchandise from an inbound shipment into outbound orders in a day using this technique.
Zero shrinkage
You can’t recoup your investment in lost, stolen, or damaged items in the warehouse. Yet most 3PL contracts include a shrinkage allowance — a percentage of your stock that your order fulfillment company can destroy before it has to compensate you. You have to eat the loss.
We think you should never lose inventory that’s in our care. As warehousing professionals, we process and store your inventory with the respect it deserves. Video cameras monitor every area of our warehouses 24/7 so, if anything ever does go wrong, we’ll be able to pinpoint what happened.
At Red Stag Fulfillment, we have a zero shrinkage guarantee because we believe that warehousing your products safely is part of our job. If we lose or damage one of your products, we compensate you for the wholesale cost.
Accurate fulfillment guarantees
Your customer receives an order from you with excitement. But if they open the box to find out you shipped the wrong size, color, or item, then instead of the delightful unboxing experience and the fantastic new product they expected, they now have work to do in returning the item. You made your customer grumpy, and that’s no way to grow a business.
That’s why we place such a high value on eCommerce fulfillment accuracy. We know that eCommerce companies need accurate order fulfillment to succeed.
If Red Stag Fulfillment mis-picks, mis-packs, or mis-ships an order, we will correct the mistake and pay you $50.
Same-day shipping vs. same-day delivery
Red Stag Fulfillment offers same-day shipping options with two choices of service level. The service levels have cutoff times of 3:00 pm Eastern time and 5:00 pm Eastern time. If your customer places an order before your chosen cutoff time, we will ship it the same day — even if the order is placed at 2:58 pm EST. If we don’t get it out the same day, we pay you $50.
It’s essential to differentiate same-day shipping from same-day delivery, which Amazon offers in selected markets. Same-day delivery gets orders to customers on the day they placed the order. Same-day fulfillment services ensure that your orders ship the day they come in. Depending on the destination, orders take one to two days to reach most U.S. customers from Red Stag’s warehouse locations.
We’re not in the business of handing out checks
The purpose of our eCommerce fulfillment guarantees is not to butter up our customers with $50 checks. We want to make sure we don’t have to pay up by providing nearly perfect order fulfillment. When we make a mistake, we will make you whole – but that might never happen.
We can promise you that we will meet or exceed your expectations. Once you experience the benefits of accurate eCommerce fulfillment, you’ll never want to switch.
How can Red Stag Fulfillment guarantees help your business grow?
The entrepreneurs who founded Red Stag Fulfillment understood that fast, accurate, and professional warehousing and order processing were crucial to growing their businesses. We pride ourselves on providing order fulfillment to boost our clients’ profitability and grow their customer base.
Are you ready to see what top-notch third-party logistics can do to help you grow your business? Then get in touch with Red Stag and start your free trial.
