What is fulfillment and its importance in your e-commerce

What is Fulfillment?

It is an English term used to describe the process of fulfillment or satisfaction of orders in ecommerce.

An order goes through different stages from when the purchase is made until the final product reaches the hands of the buyer. If we think about the operation of a online commerce, we are going to find different procedures that must be carried out since an order is received, such as:

Stock check available > In the first instance, it must be verified that all purchased products are in stock (except for pre-sale cases).
Payment confirmation > It will depend on the means of payment chosen by the client and the crediting times of the same. Payments through cards usually have immediate confirmation or a maximum of 72 business hours. If it was by transfer or deposit, you must wait for the accreditation in the account. Once the payment is confirmed, you can proceed with the shipment (except in cases of cash payment).
Picking or collection of products > This is the assembly of the package that will be shipped with all the ordered products. The physical characteristics of each product that is marketed and the organization and/or distribution in the storage location, be it a store or a warehouse, will have a direct impact on assembly times.
Preparation of the package for home delivery or pick-up > Once the package is assembled, it will be dispatched through a logistics operator, or it will be left ready for collection in the store or show room.
Delivery of the order > It is the moment when the order finally reaches the customer.

Order management is a key process and is largely responsible for ensuring a great shopping experience..

It is necessary to coordinate all these tasks so that the client receives his order satisfactorily.

Fulfillment is, then, the set of procedures involved in order management and is directly related to storage and distribution logistics.. In that sense, the It is essential to build customer loyalty.

4 good practices in the Fulfillment process

According to online sales model that you have chosen for your business ()the fulfillment It will have variants, but broadly speaking it comprises four good practices that are key in any online sales strategy:

1. Selection of suitable personnel

The selection of personnel who will be in charge of planning, verifying, preparing and coordinating orders will be essential. These tasks can be carried out with your own team or delegated to third parties, as we will tell you later.

2. Process development for order management

I know are directly related to the , product storage and distribution.

There will be differences according to the stage of the business or the item since, for example, the processes involved in putting together an order for clothing will not be the same as construction materials or lighting. However, there should always be procedures that:

Learn more about.

3. Execution of planned tasks

As we mentioned, order management comprises several steps and the coordination of different tasks from the moment the order is received. Therefore, it is important to continuously monitor these tasks and monitor some indicators to measure their efficiency (we will see them later).

Although there are different ways to accomplish this type of task, many businesses today understand that management tools are essential to carry out the operation in an orderly manner. Especially in cases where an online store is integrated with a physical store and stock management is multi-deposit.

Some of the most used solutions that can be easily integrated with Tiendanube are:

4. Troubleshooting

There will always be situations where something does not go as planned and it will be necessary to take action to resolve them. Although it is expected that they will arise, it is crucial to be able to anticipate to know how to act before them.

Typical cases may be to define in advance how changes or returns will be made or how to proceed with an order that arrives damaged or cannot be delivered due to errors in the delivery address.

What indicators to take into account to measure the efficiency of the logistics process?

If the shopping experience is rewarding for the customer, they will surely buy again through the online store and, of course, they will also recommend it. That is why it is important to perform monitoring of some indicators that ensure a successful shopping experience and that are directly related to the logistics process.

According to him last to do the Argentine Chamber of Electronic Commerce (CACE)In 2019, an increasingly sophisticated buyer was already in sight, demanding faster shipments. This year, in the context of the quarantine and the great growth that electronic commerce has had, this trend has been further enhanced.

The agility of the entire purchase process and the time invested became key factors for the consumer to make the decision to buyeven more than the price.

On the other hand, the more efficient the process, the more profitable the operation. Some of the indicators that you should take into account are:

Time from when the order is placed until it is delivered: It is the time of the complete process, from the customer placing the order in the store until he receives his order. This general measure is used to know in broad strokes how logistics management is working. It will have its variants according to the delivery areas, if it were only for CABA and GBA it will be a few times and for the rest of the country, others.
Order preparation time: It is the time that is consumed since an order enters, is prepared, is packaged and is available for its picking or pickup.
Time in transit: it is about dthe time that the package is in transit from when it leaves the warehouse (own or third party) until it arrives at the customer’s address. It will depend on the logistics operator you work with and the dynamics of shipments.
Percentage of error in order preparation: Here you have to analyze the orders that had an error in their preparation process. For example, if it is an online store that sells shoes and the customer receives a different number than the one she had requested, that is an incident. It will then be necessary to define a maximum tolerance percentage for this indicator, which is usually always close to 1%.
Percentage of error in the delivery of the order: As we already told you, the errors in this case can be varied – the wrong delivery address, loss or breakage of a package or other circumstances -. Therefore, we recommend that you establish a tolerable percentage of incidents for your online business. For example, if out of 100 orders delivered in 1 month, 2 had errors, your percentage of incidents will be 2%.
Reverse logistics of returns: It is a metric that will allow you to know the percentage of orders that were returned (for different reasons). This metric may vary depending on the type of product (it will not be the same for the textile or footwear industry as for companies in the decoration sector).

logistics partners

The tasks included in the fulfillment can be carried out with your own equipment or through partners () logistics that are incorporated in the different stages of the process.

There are companies that provide comprehensive solutions. The complete service is called e-fulfillment and includes sales, logistics order management and home delivery.

Other companies offer services that are integrated into only some of the logistics processes (storage in their own warehouses, order preparation, pickingdistribution and delivery, for example).

Some companies that provide these services in Argentina and that can be integrated with are:

is an online platform that allows you to manage shipments and connect with all logistics operators in the country, without the need to integrate your Tiendanube with each of them.
: It has a multi-operator logistics platform that, through intelligent algorithms, helps you select the best shipping alternative, optimizing cost, service level and delivery time. It also offers the service of fulfillment complete.
provides a comprehensive logistics solution where they are responsible for controlling and managing inventory, storing products, processing orders, packaging them and shipping them to customers.
allows you to organize delivery routes and notify customers about the arrival of the order, with greater precision.

Other companies, like Goose Y Argentine Mail, are integrated only in the last link of the chain and they are the ones in charge of making the shipments. Here we tell you everything you need to know about .

Choosing one type of solution or another will depend on the characteristics of your business, the products you market and, fundamentally, the need to delegate the physical storage space to third parties.

conclusion

It is important to bear in mind that, in order to organize the operation of an e-commerce successfully and guide it towards the business objectives, each business will choose a different management model, which is why the process of fulfillment It will also have its variants. However, in all scenarios the main focus will remain the .