If your company provides products (rather
than services), you have likely considered at some point whether it is worth
hiring a business to pick, pack and ship items to your customers for you. Here
are useful tips for whether outsourcing the process is right for you.
What
is Pick, Pack and Ship?
“Pick, pack and ship” is a process that is often
used in the retail industry, for a large or small amount of stock. The products
are selected from your inventory, put into boxes or other casing and shipped to
customers based on order demands.
The process can be handled internally by
your business, or you can outsource the tasks to capable providers such as IMD Fulfilment.
When
to Hire a Business to Pick, Pack and Ship
In deciding whether to handle the tasks
yourself or hire a company to provide the services for you, consider:
·
Are you able to efficiently find items as they are ordered by
customers, making sure that inventory is always on hand? If not, you can put this task into the hands of the qualified fulfilment
business you hire. Staff at the hired company get trained to organise products well and often use an electronic system to
quickly access items. The fast operation means items get packed quickly to get
to your customer within a reasonable time frame.
·
Can you and your staff professionally pack items and ensure all
items ordered are included? If you have noticed more
than a few of your customers saying that they didn’t receive all of the
products they ordered, your company may not be as good at fulfilling orders as
you had thought. Don’t worry as IMD has an excellent reputation for its packing
services and uses a modern, digital system that checks what gets packed against
what has been ordered to provide superior accuracy.
·
Are there shipping issues? If your
customers tell you that they aren’t getting their items in a timely manner or
aren’t receiving them at all, that tells you that your current fulfilment system may not be an efficient one. When you choose a provider to manage the
shipping process, ensure they deliver nationally or internationally, depending
on where your customer base resides.
