Choosing an Outsourced Order Fulfillment Provider
After reading this far you probably have a pretty good idea of what is going to be important to understand when speaking with potential warehouse vendors. That said, this is an easy-to-use guide though so here are some things to consider and questions to ask.
- General business & warehouse
- How long have they been in business?
- How friendly is the sales and support team?
- Is the warehouse also a retailer? Be cautious if they are and look whether they are competitive to you; if so, your feeding a competitor all your sales and customer data.
- Where are their warehouses? Shipwire warehouses are in the U.S. Canada and Europe, complete list of Shipwire warehouses
- How much space do they have available for you to grow into? Shipwire has over 3M square feet of space.
- Tool & Automation
- How user friendly are their online tools? How it works & Free Trial.
- Do they provide reporting and transparency for your orders as they are received?
- Can you submit insurance claims and customer support tickets online and track them? Shipwire offers 1 click claim submission.
- Do they have the means and team to continue to build their platform and give you more and more advanced tools?
- Is there a warehouse API (Application Programming Interface) to connect the warehouse platform to your ecommerce store and inventory tools?
- Do they offer 1 click setup and compatibility to common e-commerce software? You don’t want to spend a fortune on developers integrating your store to the warehouses.
- What type of automation do they offer for your storefront? Order Submission? Inventory levels? Tracking?
- Features and Supplies
- What type of packaging does the service offer?
- How are returns processed?
- How fast will your products go from receiving to being available for shipping?
- How does the warehouse software handle back-orders?
- Does the provider’s packaging reinforce your brand or does the provider put their own brand all over the packaging?
- What parcel carriers and freight options are available in the warehouse?
- Do they offer pick-n-pack and lick-n-stick® services?
- What happens if the warehouse makes a mistake or a package is lost?
- Do they offer inventory insurance within the warehouse?
- Can they accomplish consumer shipments, business-to-business and retail compliance?
- International considerations
- Will the order fulfillment provider ship internationally?
- Does the provider have a network of domestic and international warehouses that you can leverage to expand your business?
- What international carriers will you be able to use?
- Pricing and contracts
- Will they provide you with a quote quickly that they will stand behind? If you want to compare, please see Shipwire’s order fulfillment pricing calculator
- Look for hidden costs. Many third-party logistics company contracts have an insane amount of hidden fees – Charges for Receiving, non-palletized receiving, forklift usage, automated order submission fees, packaging/repackaging fees, pick-pack minimums, minimum storage costs, extra charges to change their packaging, etc.
- Look for minimum contract commitments hidden in the contract
- With Shipwire, we stand behind our online pricing quotes, there are never have contract commitments and no minimums.
- Getting Started
- Do they offer a free trial of any warehouse in their network?
- Can you outsource a portion of your inventory, use one warehouse in their network only and/or stop and start during the year if your going to just use the warehouse seasonally or when your own warehouses is overwhelmed.
Overall, does the provider make you comfortable enough to trust with your inventory and your order fulfillment. Please see our “Set It and Forget It” list for more reasons why Shipwire is the best order fulfillment provider for your business