So how do you touch your items less and spend less money? Fulfillment is a different way of looking at the physical process of moving your items and touching them less
Here is a break down of things you do NOT do, but still gets done by someone else.
- Items unloaded from ship, trucked to warehouse near port
- Shipping container stripped out (unloaded) and put on pallets
- Items labeled and shipped to your customers when ordered.
So how do you save money? Most of the money you save is in time. Most online business owners today get sucked into a vortex of time wasting activities, not realizing how much time they give away working “in” their businesses when they should be working “on” their businesses. Here is a sample breakdown of how the fulfillment process can save you money. Substitute your own money amounts into the examples.
- Unloading the truck and moving into warehouse. Most likely a full day’s work plus hiring or employing some help. Generally you can figure 3 people to unload the typical twenty foot container. (the reason you need help is that typical trucking vendors allow you two hours to unload, you cannot unload this all by yourself in two hours)
- You will need a forklift and pallet jack unless you have a loading bay. (most do not)
- Items will have to be stacked in some particular order according to stock numbers to keep the inventory organized. This can take a good chunk of time depending on what you are receiving. Personally we remove all the items from the truck and spread them out before we move them inside. When overseas manufacturers load your containers, they do not do it with any particular order, so things can be mixed and matched to load maximum volume into the container.
- Product may need to be reboxed or combined for final product assembly.
- Product then needs to be “picked” or selected, when the customer orders it. The shipping label, packing invoices are printed and then it somehow makes it way to UPS or Fed Ex for shipping. All of this takes time. If you hire someone or employ someone, this can be many hours of their job functions.
If your are looking for Part 1 of Ecommerce Shipping and Fulfillment
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