How to make fulfilment less stressful
02/01/2019 | Share:
When you get your picking, packing and shipping system running smoothly, you’ll find your business becomes instantly more efficient and most importantly, less stressful to manage.
Any great leader will tell you your business starts from the bottom up. If all your staff are aware of the newest and most efficient procedures, your business is sure to change for the better.
The first step to succeeding in fulfilment is to ensure your warehouse picking staff are geared up with the information they need for efficiency. One way to think about this is to think about visiting a supermarket that you’ve never been to before to complete a full shopping list. When wandering up and down various aisles, how easy would you find it to pick all of the items on your list? How long would this take in comparison to a supermarket you have visited before, where perhaps you’ve learnt where your favourite and most needed items are kept? When applying this to a warehouse fulfilment system it is vital to provide picking staff members with a pick list including exactly where every product is to be found; even down the aisle, shelf, row, bin. You might have an inventory management solution system that will be able to pull all your items across channels and generate a pick list for you.
Luckily, we the world moves forward with a slicker digitalised route, you may have already stopped your paper pick slips. With this digital route, you’ll enjoy using perks such as intelligent suggested picking routes, providing your staff with the shortest, most efficient routes around their sections.
In line with this, you’ll want to make sure your best selling products are in easy reach places so these orders can be completed quickly. There will be some best selling items that sell together, and it would ideal to keep these together in storage. If the items are always sold together, some businesses find combining them under a new SKU may be easier.
If you are a smaller size business operating out of a home office, you may have been used to handwriting your items ready to be shipped out. You should be prepared to invest in a digital shipping integration which will mean no more inked fingers and cramped hands – an automatic, printed shipping labeller is clearer to read and less time-consuming. It’s also less easy to make mistakes and you also won’t have to wait in a line a post office or shipping centre once your business grows as you’ll be able to arrange a pickup courier.
Another key importance to digitalising this process is that you’ll have a paper trail of costs of shipping and taxation. You’ll also be able to keep a track of missing packages or customer queries, which is essential to good customer service.
Luckily, here at Ogden Fulfillment, we already have these processes in place. All you need is a great product to get selling! We can even help you with shipping directly and because we have a large warehouse you’ll be able to buy your products in bulk. Why not contact us today and see how we can make your fulfilment easier.
