For a strong start in its operations, a new business needs to accomplish plenty of customer orders. But it can be a challenge for smaller startups like yours, as the sheer volume of purchases can be too much for your team. Here, outsourcing order fulfillment can help you significantly. Let’s take a look at how you can do it right with Virtua’s help.
How Outsourcing Order Fulfillment Can Give You A Strong Start
Considering how essential order fulfillment is to your business, you might be curious as to whether you would send it over to a third party. As it is, there are some great benefits to the move. When done right, these benefits can bring a big boost in profits.
Reduce Your Operating Costs
Fulfilling orders requires a significant amount of resources, both human and technical. For one, you need to have a team of agents ready to handle incoming orders. And as that volume of orders grows, you will need to expand that team. Hiring and training new fulfillment staff might take too long, not to mention being expensive.
Image from Shift4Shop.
On the technical side, you will need to secure facilities where your customer orders will be processed. This is particularly the case with companies selling physical products. The prices of renting these facilities can be significantly higher even if you use only a fraction of them.
With outsourcing, you can cut your operating costs significantly on both fronts. First off, you can get quick access to expert order fulfillment agents at a lower cost than direct hires. Meanwhile, outsourced fulfillment facilities charge you only for the actual volume of orders that go through them.
Extending Your Reach
The above cost savings also lends to the next benefit that you bet from outsourcing your order fulfillment needs. At some point, you would want to extend your reach to more customers. This expansion will require you to set up a whole new order fulfillment pipeline for that.
Through outsourcing, you can quickly establish that pipeline. These firms already have the framework for order processing. All you need is to specify how this framework wi8ll match your process. You can then scale up or down the outsourced operations depending on your needs.
Where Virtua Solutions Outsourcing Fits In
At this point, you might wonder where Virtua Solutions fits into your fulfillment process. We primarily provide additional personnel to support your order fulfillment team. There are two particular areas where you can count on us.
Sales
We primarily handle the initial stages of your sales cycle, including discovering potential customer leads who would want to buy from you. From there, we also help you with developing these leads into actual sales.
Aside from this, our agents can assist in the actual order fulfillment process through our virtual assistance service. In particular, our agents can handle the data entry of order details into your database. These details are the ones transferred to your main sales department for processing and delivery. Additionally, we can take care of database updates to ensure that you can quickly process orders from return customers.
Customer Support
The other area where we can lend a hand to your order fulfillment process is through customer support. Here, we can address questions about the ordering process and assist customers in accomplishing their order requests. With that, Virtua can give you a strong start in getting these orders into the processing queue.
Additionally, our agents can handle the after-sales support. This includes attending to questions about faulty products. We also take care of return and exchange, as well as refund requests. Combining this with our marketing services, we can help you better capture those returning customers.
Getting Off To A Strong Start With The Outsourcing Strategy
To get the most out of outsourced order fulfillment providers like ours, you should do it right. The first thing that you should know is when the right time would be to start sending out your order fulfillment tasks. Some of the signs indicating that you might need to switch to a third-party fulfillment service are:
- Slipping delivery standards: You can potentially lose about 17% of your customers due to failure to fulfill orders on time.
- Low seller ratings: A low seller rating can do more than just detract buyers. It will also affect your visibility on marketplaces and people’s recommendations.
- Qualifying for fast shipping programs: These programs require you have a certain level of fulfillment capacity to get their perks.
- Streamlining your fulfillment process: In some cases, your fulfillment process might involve separate points. This can slow down your process significantly.
Go through your sales and customer data to better understand where you are concerning these points. Note that you should have a clear threshold for these to know where outsourcing can help you exactly. Additionally, you need to have historical data on how much your business has grown to better plot how outsourcing will support your fulfillment targets
Getting The Right Sized Fulfillment Provider
Whether you are looking for additional staff to handle the order processing or the firm that will handle packaging and shipment, size matters in your choice of the outsourcing provider. For this, go back to the above indicators to see how much capability you need to meet your fulfillment targets.
Image from Smart Turn.
You would also want a provider that is small enough to offer a more personalized service to you. This is vital, as it will help you sustain a more consistent fulfillment operation. As mentioned earlier, Virtua Outsourcing gives you the flexibility to tailor our services to suit your needs. And we can readily expand as your fulfillment needs grow.
Doing Your Onboarding Right
Once you have chosen the providers that will handle each stage of your fulfillment process, you need to bring them all together. Depending on the complexity of your process, the onboarding might take anywhere from a week to around three months. The skill of your providers will also affect how fast the process will be.
During this time, make sure that you iron out everything to the smallest detail. Each provider should be well aware of their role in the process. Before fully implementing the transition, do a test run of small order batches. This will help you get a better grasp of what to improve before full implementation.
We Are Here To Help You Get A Strong Start Completing More Orders
Order fulfillment outsourcing requires a lot of care and attention. But with the right providers by your side, you can be sure to do it right. We at Virtua Outsourcing are always ready to be one of those partners. Contact us today and let’s do MORE in keeping your customers happy together.