What is order fulfilment?

Order fulfilment, or ecommerce fulfilment, refers to the process of receiving goods at a warehouse, picking and packing, and delivering orders to customers. The process sounds extremely simple, however, there is more to efficient order fulfilment than just posting out packages. At the core of a good order fulfilment center is one crucial goal – to give customers the very best experience each and every time they order from you.

That’s where Pointbid’s expertise can really help your business. We provide order fulfilment services to businesses both small and large. This means that you can outsource your order fulfilment process to a team of experts so that you have the time to focus on other aspects of your business.

Want to know more about our order fulfilment process, services and fulfilment prices?

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Why Choose Pointbid’s Order Fulfilment Centre?

We offer much more than just order fulfilment. With us, you get access to a wealth of experience and knowledge in making the fulfilment process work for you and your business. We don’t operate on a templated approach at our order fulfilment centre; we know that different businesses move their stock in different ways and at different times. That’s why we offer a dedicated account manager who takes on your advice, story and way of operating so that we can translate it to the best possible fulfilment experience for you and, most importantly, your valued customers.

Grow Your Commerce Business

By outsourcing your fulfilment to us, you gain back valuable time to focus on growing other aspects of your online business. With fast, worldwide shipping, your reach will expand further than ever and give you access to whole new markets.

Improve Your Customer Experience

We want your customers’ experience and customer service to be flawless. With cost-effective shipping, same-day despatch, appropriate packaging and tracking system, your customers will be returning time and time again.

Stock Management

By utilising Pointbid for your order fulfilment, you gain access to our Portal. With the use of technology, you’ll have complete insight into your orders, inventory management and any other reports you need.

How does order fulfilment work?

The process of fulfilling orders can be broken down into five basic steps, each of which have specific benefits when using outsourced order fulfilment:

  1. Goods in – your products are sent to a fulfilment centre or warehouse
  2. Warehousing – your goods are stored securely in the warehouse where they are easily accessible when orders come in
  3. Pick and Pack – when a customer places an order, the expert team in the warehouse collect all the necessary items and assemble them into a parcel
  4. Shipping – a courier is used to send the parcel to the customer
  5. Returns – when necessary, a product is returned to the warehouse or centre to be processed

Pointbid uses technology and software wherever possible in the fulfilment process. This ensures that the transition is seamless for both you and your customers, at all times.

Goods in

Goods in – or receiving – is the first stage in the order fulfilment process.

This is where we set up your account on our order fulfilment software so that we can integrate with your ecommerce store. We also set up your inventory and products before sending them to our fulfilment centre.

Once the stock is received, our team check each and every delivery to make sure everything is undamaged and ready to be stored. We then add all of the necessary barcodes, measurements and images to our software to ensure the most accurate fulfilment moving forward.

Warehousing

Once all of your inventory is loaded into the system, it’s time to store it all in our fulfilment warehouse. Depending on the size of the item, they will be stored into pick storage for fast and easy accessibility or loaded onto pallets.

All of the information we’ve taken during the Goods In stage ensure that your products are stored in the most efficient way, and that you are only charged for the space they take up.

Thanks to our software portal, you will be able to track how much stock you have and where it is stored.

Pick and Pack

The pick and pack stage of the order fulfilment process arguably has the biggest impact on customer experience. Efficient picking and packing will make sure that the correct products are delivered to your customer, and that the products aren’t damaged.

Our expert team, backed by the use of our in-house technology, ensure that our pick and pack accuracy remains extremely high. You and your customers will have complete transparency for every order.

So that your customers receive the best possible experience, all orders are packaged safely and securely, minimising on-route damage.

Shipping

Once an order has been picked and packed, the next step is for the product to be sent to the customer. We despatch products via our network of established couriers, with same-day processing if the order is placed before the agreed cut-off time.

Each order is allocated to the most efficient courier for both time and cost, with tracking provided to you and your customers.

Our goal is to always provide you with shipping solutions that are fast, cost-effective and offer your customers a fantastic experience each and every time they place an order with you.

Returns

The returns process has a huge impact on customer experience and whether they will come back to you for repeat business. A huge 92% of shoppers say that they would purchase from a business again if the returns process is simple and effective.

Returns are an unfortunate necessity, however at Pointbid we mitigate returns as much as possible due to our careful and accurate fulfilment process. However, when returns do happen, we strive to make the process as easy as possible for your customers, with accurate tracking included.

Once we receive the returned goods, we process them as quickly and efficiently as possible, allowing you to refund your customers and arrange for re-stocking.

How does our Returns process work?

Benefits of Outsourcing the Order Fulfilment process

 

Outsourcing your order fulfilment process to someone else comes with whole range of benefits to your business, including:

  • Lowering your shipping costs
  • Reducing your operating costs
  • Extending your reach
  • Improving your customer service
  • Streamlining your order fulfilment process with technology
  • Giving you more time and energy for growing other aspects of your business