Whether you sell online, through direct marketing, by catalog or a combination of the three, your company isn’t going to see much revenue without order management and fulfillment operations that operate at the highest level. The following are ideas that should be relevant to MOST® companies, no matter what their main venue of operation is. So long as you rely on order management and fulfillment, the below article applies. Even if you think you have your operation optimized, keep reading as there may be a tidbit or two worth considering.
Manage Demand
Until you understand the demand you face, you can’t possibly hope to manage your orders or improve fulfillment. This process entails not just calculating the average orders you face at any given time, but also getting a grasp on the type of volatility you encounter from your market too. The more you can turn volatility into something that can be forecasted and predicted, the less likely you’ll be to get caught off guard and unable to fulfill orders at the level you want.
This needs to be done across channels as well. If you’re a company that sells through a website and a catalog, for example, be sure both channels get analyzed even if one is the preferred method by your customers.
Understand Your Fulfillment Timeline
Like so many things about your business, order fulfillment comes down to one thing: pleasing your customer. Obviously, the sooner you can fulfill their order, the happier they’ll be.
However, it’s not necessarily as simple as that, surprisingly enough. You also need to make sure you’re managing their expectations properly. Countless surveys have shown that one of the biggest reasons for customer dissatisfaction is feeling misled. So while fulfilling an order in just three days is great, if you’re telling customers it will only take you one, don’t expect any positive reviews in the near future.
Always work toward improving your order management and fulfillment operations. However, even if you haven’t met your goal yet in terms of a timeline, you need to be sure you’re always being honest with your customers about what they should expect.
Analyze What Customers Buy
This may sound like strange advice, but it’s slightly more complicated than it sounds. Finding out what customers are purchasing from you and in what volume should be simple enough. Obviously, there is plenty you can do with this information as well.
However, you should be using this information to help decrease the amount of time it takes you to fulfill orders. One key method is to examine the combinations with which people order your items. Presumably, they’re not always ordering one item at a time.
For example, if you sell exercise equipment, are people buying just barbells? Or are they pairing that item with a set of weight plates? If you see that happening often enough and can get some analytics behind it, you’ll know how many of those combinations need to be combined in a package at all times to be mailed out the door immediately.
Leverage Software
Everything highlighted above can either be handled or assisted by order management and fulfillment software. So if you’re not currently using some version of it, your company is needlessly suffering.
Whether it’s giving you the analytics you need to find popular product combinations, helping you get a better understanding of volatility or getting an accurate read on your actual timelines, software can do all that and much more. Until you’re using it to do this for you, you’ll always be losing to competitors who do.
Order management and fulfillment are the cornerstones of just about every business that sends their products to customers around the country or globe. Make things easier on yourself by utilizing the above tactics to gain the results you deserve.
Sources:
https://www.supplychain247.com/article/secrets_to_successful_order_fulfillment/packsize
https://www.vitechgroup.com/web/pdf/increase_speed.pdf
