Order Fulfilment Solutions
Over the last few years, the ecommerce industry has grown greatly. As more people work remotely and as home deliveries have become cheaper and simpler, ecommerce orders are becoming increasingly common. This growth shows little sign of slowing down, with over 6 trillion dollars being spent per year on ecommerce purchases.
This means that more businesses have to make sure that their ecommerce processes are as effective as possible, and the most important process of all is fulfilment.
In order to become an expert in ecommerce order fulfilment, though, you need to anticipate the challenges that come with it, helping you to tackle issues that arise by preparing for them effectively. That’s why we put together this guide to solving the most common ecommerce order fulfilment challenges. Read on to find out more.
Common Order Fulfilment Problems and How to Solve Them
Order fulfilment begins when the customer completes an order placement. From that moment, the customer expects a prompt and effective delivery of their ecommerce order. This order goes to the warehouse, where the right goods are sorted, packed, and labelled. Then, the package is given to a shipping company to be delivered to the customer.
Throughout this process, there are points at which errors can crop up, which can quickly erode trust and reduce brand loyalty. That’s why preemptively targeting common order fulfilment problems is so important, allowing you to prevent them before they appear. Here are the most frequent fulfilment issues, as well as the steps that you can take to solve them:
Inventory Management Issues
Managing your inventory is crucial if you want to have a customer-centric ecommerce business, as there are few things more disappointing as a customer than placing an order for something that is supposedly in stock only to be told that it’s actually unavailable.
Identifying the cause: Overstocking and stockouts
The two main problems in inventory management are opposites. Overstocking is when you have too much stock, while stockouts are when you run out of stock. Regularly overstocking will lose you money; stockouts will lead to you losing customers.
Solution: Implement real-time inventory tracking
To overcome inventory management issues, you must have a clear and accurate picture of your inventory at any given time. Invest in inventory management software to track your inventory, meet customer demand and gain real-time insights into your stock.
This will mean that you can get the most value out of your inventory space, helping to boost profitability and reduce waste. Implementing inventory tracking will greatly reduce the likelihood of stockouts.
Solution: Use demand forecasting tools
While inventory management software is great for seeing how much stock you have at any time, you should also aim to see how much stock you will need in the future. This can be achieved by using predictive analytics to forecast customer demand.
By analysing historical sales data and comparing this to general industry trends, demand forecasting tools will let you see probably customer demand for the future. This will let you buy in the right amount of stock, making overstocking much less likely.
Shipping Delays
When a shipping delay occurs, customer satisfaction can plummet, especially if they’ve made an urgent order. Though this is in part the responsibility of the shipping carrier, you should do everything that you can to reduce the chances of a shipping delay.
Identifying the cause: Carrier issues and warehouse inefficiencies
Start by looking at the causes of shipping delays in previous order fulfilment problems. Diagnose whether they’ve come from issues with the shipping carrier or whether they actually stem from inefficiencies in your warehouse.
Once you’ve identified the cause, you can start to streamline your whole shipping process. Technology is your friend here; look into shipping solutions to help you deal with inefficiencies. For instance, Smart Send can automate large parts of your shipping operations and manage your shipments in one simple location.
Solution: Partner with reliable shipping carriers
Prioritise finding a reliable shipping carrier. Of course, you need to consider the speed of delivery—customers are starting to expect orders to be delivered in no more than a few days.
But you should also consider the reliability of the carrier. Make sure that the companies that you partner with have a good reputation and regularly quality assure their deliveries by monitoring things such as damaged packages.
Solution: Optimise warehouse layout and processes
It’s important to speed up the time it takes to sort and pack items at your warehouse. Cutting down on this time will mean that shipping delays are less significant, as you’ve already saved time.
This means that you should evaluate the current processes and layout that you use and look for any possible time savings during the warehouse workflow; you might want to use space management software to identify and remove any inefficiencies in your warehouse.
Order Processing Errors
Errors that turn up when you’re processing orders are another common issue for ecommerce fulfilment. While these aren’t as simple to diagnose as shipping delays or inventory management issues, they’re relatively straightforward to overcome, meaning that problems such as incorrect shipments will be less likely.
Identifying the cause: Manual errors and system glitches
Despite relying more on technology in order processing, human errors can still happen. When employees have to pack and label hundreds of packages a day, you should expect that manual errors will probably occur. As well as this, system glitches in your order management software can lead to order processing errors.
Solution: Implement order management systems
Both system glitches and manual errors can be reduced by implementing wholesale inventory management software in your organisation. This software automates all your key operational workflows, delivering better control and faster fulfilment.
Solution: Train staff for accurate order processing
Entirely eliminating human errors is unlikely, but you can minimise the chances of manual errors by thoroughly training your staff. This is essential if you introduce a new order management system, helping employees to accurately process orders.
Handling Returns and Exchanges
Although you’d hope that your customers will always love your products, it’s inevitable that you’ll need to deal with returns and exchanges from time to time. Managing returns effectively can be a challenge, potentially leading to lost revenue and dissatisfied customers.
Identifying the cause: Inadequate return policies and poor handling processes
If your return policies are unclear, customers will be confused, and the returns process is likely to be delayed. Another common challenge in dealing with returns is having a poor handling process, leading to needless work for your team.
Solution: Establish clear and easy return policies
Evaluate your policies so that you build a clear return policy that is easily accessible to all customers on your website. This should make details such as return timeframes and instructions as clear as possible.
Solution: Streamline the returns process
You should also simplify and streamline the returns process. A Parcel2Go business account includes parcel tracking, allowing you to monitor the packages that are being returned. You should also create dedicated roles in your team that are responsible for handling returns.
Communication Breakdowns
Customers like to be kept in the loop during the order fulfilment process, so they know where their package is and when they can expect to receive it. Clear communication is also crucial if you want to respond quickly to any issues that arise.
Identifying the cause: Lack of transparency and slow responses
A lack of transparency—such as when customers can’t see when their orders have been shipped—is a clear barrier to communication and can cause a lot of frustration for your customers. Another significant cause of poor communication is when your team is slow to respond to customer inquiries, which can impact the customer experience.
Solution: Provide real-time order tracking for customers
The most important thing that you can do to prevent communication breakdowns is to offer real-time order tracking to customers. This should be integrated into your ecommerce workflow, which will give customers regular updates about their orders from processing to delivery.
Solution: Enhance customer support channels
If slow responses to customer issues are a problem with your order fulfilment process, you should look at your overall approach to customer support.
Make sure that you have multiple channels which customers can use to contact support, such as live chat, email, and phone. This can be boosted by using customer support software. You should also make sure that you have a well-trained customer support team.
Final Thoughts
As ecommerce orders become a more important part of customer spending, it’s crucial that you’re able to optimise your order fulfilment process. This means that you should be able to overcome some of the common issues that are problems for ecommerce companies across the world, giving you a vital competitive edge.
In this practical guide, we’ve explained exactly that—how you can overcome some common challenges in ecommerce order fulfilment, such as shipping delays and order processing errors.
Ultimately, making the most out of order fulfilment software is a critical step that you can take today to improve your order processing and shipping. Alongside our other tips in this article, you’ll soon be able to have a great ecommerce order fulfilment process.