What is FULFILLMENT ?  What Romanian Fulfillment means ?

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For the most part, fulfillment in the ecommerce playfield means a process where the merchant takes steps to deliver an order to the buyer. That is to say, the seller goes an extra mile to streamline their logistics bit of the online business via a smooth order fulfillment process.

Admittedly, nobody wants to see their business hit rock bottom. In order to avoid bad customer reviews and annoying chargebacks, it's prudent to play along with reputable order fulfillment companies.

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So why do you need a third-party service?

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As you may know, order fulfillment comes with so many procedures which are all essential in a bid to make the order reach a customer's doorstep. Practically speaking, a merchant has to deal with the entire order processing activity which is quite tedious and needs a number of resources. And this is where an order fulfillment platform steps in.

It's unquestionably the right way to go for any merchant. In essence, a fulfillment company offers a couple of services which revolve around making your products ready for shipment. To start with, a merchant needs a warehouse to store their inventory.

Unlike drop shipping, where you actually don't need any inventory, a retailer who deals in physical products which have a global demand, needs a storage location close to where most orders come from. Having said that, you must apprehend that drop shipping, just like any other business needs to bring order fulfillment on board.

As a matter of fact, it's in the best practice to incorporate a third-party service which is tried and tested. If you're into the ecommerce field, you can relate to cart abandonment issues. If we go by numbers, reliable sources indicate that the percentage of cart abandonment lies anywhere between 50% to 80%. Well, the figures might look scary at the first instance.

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Most customers shy away from making a purchase if they're skeptical about all delivery options available. Moreover, if a buyer experiences an inconsiderate amount of delay in the order delivery, chances are, they'll not place any other order from the same merchant.

Order Fulfillment Vs Dropshipping

So let's clear the air.

To sharply define the two terms in a clear-cut manner, you ought to bear in mind, the basic fact that both are models used by merchants to reach the products to the end customers. More often than not, retailers might be puzzled by which method, in particular, to incorporate in their businesses.

In actual sense, both order fulfillment and dropshipping, are more or less the same. While fulfilling an order, a merchant can opt to use a third-party service. From this end, it means that they need to store their inventory in another company's warehouse. Alternatively, a merchant can choose to go with dropshipping.

Technically, this is a business model which is quite predominant since it needs a lower startup capital. Here, the products are made and stored by the manufacturer. The process begins once an order is made from the drop shipper's online store. The merchant will later forward the orders to the manufacturer.

The drop shipper purchases all items at a wholesale price and keeps the profit margin. The manufacturer is now left with the task of fulfilling all orders to the customers. From the look of things, it seems like drop shipping is a type of third-party fulfillment. Simply put, it all depends on the retailer's needs. The best part about third-party fulfillment is the fact that you can leverage off their well-established infrastructure.

Here's an illustration

Fulfillment by Amazon(FBA), for instance, has the capacity to help you reach customers globally. In precise terms, Amazon provides fulfillment centers where they pick your products, do custom packaging, and ship the items on your behalf. Keep in mind, customers are always on the hunt for a deal which includes the fastest shipping method.

Do I really need a fulfillment service?

To a greater extent, a 3rd party fulfillment service comes in handy whenever a retailer wants to scale their business. Think of it as an elite strategy to meet the ever-growing customer demand. Most importantly, you ought to take into account all the inventory management operations. You can never go wrong with inventory if you leave it to the experts.

It may be argued that automated fulfillment software helps one optimize your transactions by a significant margin. Let's suppose you depend on 3rd party sales channels such as Shopify, Volusion, 3dcart, or even WooCommerce, it's insightful to use a service which offers flexible integrations.

In point of fact, profound fulfillment services offer quick shopping cart and carrier integrations to nearly all notable companies such as DHL, China Post, UPS, FedEx, just to name a few.

Still adamant?

To advance your fulfillment score, you must be sharp-witted when you deal with SKUs(Stock Keeping Units) and minimize all discrepancies as much as possible. No other way around it. More reason why you need a fulfillment service in place.

Besides that, the retailer needs to professionally handle the order processing part of the business. Literary speaking, you need to go back to the drawing board. If things don't add up, that's a red flag which means you must depend on the fulfillment gurus.

Wait. But why?

With the prevalence of cutting-edge technology, you must realize how automation plays center stage in ecommerce. What's more promising, is the fact that shipment tracking gets easier when you hinge on 3rd party fulfillment services. Not forgetting the inventory updates which are done in real time.

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