Tag: order fulfillment

Suggestions on Controlling Fulfillment Warehouse Loss Rate

What is the utilization rate of the warehouse to prove the strength of an e-commerce order fulfillment center? In a sense, it covers the control of loss rate, the lower the loss rate is, the better the utilization rate will be. Nevertheless, the turnover rate of goods in the e-commerce warehouse is quite high, and there will be losses in the process of turnover and movement. What’s worse, it is difficult to predict where these losses will occur, how many losses will occur, whether they will be registered timely, what causes it, and the most important question is how to effectively control the rate of loss of inventory.

The following aspects will tell you how ChinaDivision carry out this work:

  • List Loss Points

All warehouse staff will participate in the discussion, starting with the process of e-commerce warehouse management, studying which operations are easy to cause the loss of goods, and recording these possible problems timely. Second, we need to count historical data, classify according to the cause of loss, and see how much loss is caused by each loss point. To determine the percentage of each loss that accounts for the overall loss of the e-commerce warehousing.

  • Set the Standard for Los

According to the data, ChinaDivision will calculate the loss value and percentage of the loss point to determine the loss standard and determine how much the loss standard should be kept. Zero loss is always just an idealized number. In reality, there is no such zero loss situation. 3pl fulfilment It is better to work out a more reasonable control target at a time and gradually improve it. Besides, the loss prevention standards mainly  referred to  two aspects, one is the target value, and the other is the loss prevention operation standard, which is used to regulate the staff in the e-commerce cloud storage in order to control within the target loss value operational requirements.

  • Record Data Timely

It is not for the operator to clarify the target value of the loss to be controlled, to receive training to understand how to prevent loss, and the loss will naturally fall below the target. It is necessary to record and account for the loss of the operation. In some places where management is not standardized, there are certain hidden rules, such as underreporting of losses, concealment, or staring at target values. These actions will affect the timely search for the cause of the loss, and then take effective measures to reduce subsequent occurrences. We have formulated the rules for accurate accounting. The loss is classified according to the reason for loss and scrap in the finance. When the reason is more general, the specific loss point is written in the remarks, which is convenient for the next round of combing and reducing the entire warehouse management. There must be a mechanism for inspection, supervision, and assessment, and actions that are not properly accounted for should be dealt with and punished in a timely manner.

Only by sorting out these loss issues, determining specific loss standards, and confirming the data in time, can the loss be controlled within the target range, so both the drop shippers and their customers can benefit a lot.

What will Happen to Drop Shipping in the Future?

Over the past decade, many Chinese drop shipping agents had embraced incredible success on account of lower shipping costs and better capability. Unfortunately, COVID-19 had a ripple effect on drop shipping agent and cross-border e-commerce companies, which caused a heated discussion about what will happen to the drop shipping business in the future.

Back to 2018, American President Trump announced that the United States was pulling out of the intergovernmental body called the Universal Postal Union after claiming that China has been taking advantage of the US. One year later, UPU announced that it reached a deal with the US and it approved President Trump’s request to collect higher fees on packages from international destinations. The agreement will go into effect on July 1, 2020 and American sellers can expect significantly hiked prices on their products. Basically, ePacket, a shipping option offered by Chinese and Hongkong merchants when shopping on popular Chinese marketplaces like Aliexpress, will no longer be price competitive and many American independent sellers will, if not go out of business, dramatically lose revenue.

But it is a fact that China is the world’s largest manufacturing country and a titan in the global exporting industry. According to statistics, China had assisted over 18 countries in the work of epidemic (South Korea, Italy, Japan, Iran, Pakistan, etc). Apart from sending medical teams, China also donated $20 million to the WHO, as well as masks, medicines, protective suits and other epidemic prevention materials to relevant countries. From the data, we can figure out the capability of Chinese Government, and so do the drop shippers. The local quarantine agency said Chinese outbreak appeared to be well contained, so there will be adequate staff in the order fulfillment center to achieve fast warehousing, packing and shipping.

In brief, Chinese drop shipping is the trend of e-commerce in the future, your business can be booming with the help of drop shipping agency.

Three Reasons of Fulfillment Centers Start a Business in Shenzhen

As a cross-border e-commerce entrepreneur, you will be surrounded by many choices when finding the warehouse address. However, you will take many detours on the way to your cheapest fulfillment service. What’s worse, some Amazon sellers have been very confused about global ecommerce fulfillment owing to the Amazon warehouse fire and COVID-19.

To tell you the truth, Shenzhen warehouse plays an inportant role in the international orfer fulfillment. A latest study concerning Chinese warehouse location indicated that 75% warehouses come from Shenzhen. Here we have summarized three reasons as shown below:

As you can check in Google Maps, Shenzhen is near the international parcel processing centre——Hongkong, which provides more convenience for picking, packing and shipping. Take Amazon ePacket tracking as an example, Shenzhen warehouse can sent the items directly if your customer has ordered successfully from your webstore. That is to say, you don’t need to manage your own warehouse or distribution center.

Shenzhen is the birthplace of China’s reform and opening up, where many foreign trade enterprises and drop-shippers had been created. So they have more experience in the field of warehousing and shipping for e-commerce, and it is hard to find disorderly shipping and wrong delivery. In this way, you can reduce business risk and increase customer satisfacton.

During COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of e-commerce sellers want continuous selling on AliExpress, eBay and Amazon. Therefore, it is essential to reduce the chance of infection with COVID-19, whether it is warehouse or transportation staff. The number of people diagnosed in Shenzhen is cleared on May 21. Additionally, the government insists on strict pandemic prevention work, requiring everyone in Shenzhen to measure body temperature every day, especially warehouses and catering staff, mask wearing and hand washing are indispensable work.

All in all, you can get a fully automated with less money and time if you choose the most suitable order fulfillment center, and Shenzhen is a competitive choice.

How to Choose Effective Keyword for Search Engines

Search engine users find what they are looking for by searching for specific keywords or keyword phrases and choosing the most relevant result. You want your site to have as many opportunities to be included in those search results as possible. In other words, you should try to use every keyword phrase that you think someone might search for in order to find your site.

It is best to use simple, everyday language that searchers are likely to type in. As a general rule, you should include multiple uses of each keyword phrase, enough to be prominent on the page without forcing your keywords into your content. You want it to mention each keyword a couple of times while making sure that it still sounds natural. Additionally, you should avoid using only general phrases; be sure to include detailed descriptive words as well. If your keywords are too general, they are likely to be up against too much competition from others targeting the same keywords. However, if your keywords are too specific, fewer people search for those terms, resulting in fewer potential visitors. It’s a balancing act, and the rules aren’t hard and fast. You need to find the right mix for your site by finding the keywords that bring traffic that actually converts — in other words, you want to put out the bait that brings in the right catch.

When putting keywords in the content of your site, make sure the words surrounding them are also good, searchable keywords. For example, if your business dealt with product from China, you might use keyword phrases like this:

best product from China

information for best product

service, price, and shipment for classic China’s products

China’s best products

Find Out the Right Order Fulfillment Automation Solution

For a growing number of merchant companies, automated systems have become a way to address the issue of increased throughput, order accuracy and returns. In addition to accuracy, often the biggest driver of automation decisions, the ability to achieve higher throughput per headcount, increasing efficiency while keeping down labor costs, is also paramount.

Since picking and packing usually account for more than 50% of labor costs, identify all non-automated ways to streamline the labor involved in those operations.

  • Conduct an objective analysis of operational pain points and costs. Take a methodical approach to defining all opportunities and potential solutions, and involve warehouse staff. Frontline personnel know the issues and can often contribute valuable ideas.
  • Get a thorough understanding of existing productivity and costs by department, unit and line, as well as per order and per package shipped. Be selective and methodical about identifying and assessing areas and applications most likely to yield cost-justifiable benefits.
  • Assess every conceivable area where automation might help will simply result in confusion, paralysis and a lot of wasted time and effort. Focus on assessing just those areas that are most likely to deliver business benefits
  • For each area, estimate the savings in labor reduction, the ability to track inventory through the center, reduction in errors and throughput of customer orders, using an 18-month payback as the guideline. This will provide a solid read on the level of automation that can be cost-justified based on your operation and cost structure.
  • Make sure the solution you’re considering is sufficiently flexible and scalable to accommodate changes like product assortment or increased volume that would affect layout needs or the fulfillment model.

If you’re running out of floor space or know you’ll be there soon, automating your storage and picking process can greatly improve storage capacity and allow room for growth. Systems like a vertical lift module or another goods-to-person system can improve storage capacity by 40%–60% or more. You also need to weigh the cost of investment in your overall facility vs. automation equipment. Typically, the time, effort and cost of retrofitting your building far outweigh the cost of an order fulfillment automation system.

Why is Order Fulfillment Important

The road to fulfillment can take on very different forms depending on the type of business you run. If you are selling a physical product, the way to bring about fulfilling that customer’s needs is going to be very different from a less tangible service, such as a consultation.

But often so many moving parts mean that careful planning and organization is necessary. Having a well outlined and smooth order fulfillment process will help your business continue to draw customers and satisfy them with your products.

Order fulfillment will look a little different for various business types. Here are a few different examples:

1. Make-to-Stock or Built-to-Forecast

This model builds a product against a sales forecast, and sells to the customer from the finished goods stock. This is most common among grocers and retailers.

2. Assemble-to-Order

The product is built to customer specifications from a stock of existing components. So while the item is built to suit the customer, the parts created are the same.

3. Make-to-Order

This model allows customers to purchase products that are customized to their specification. The manufacturer only creates the product once the customer places the order.

While how you go about fulfillment will vary based on your business needs and the type of product you sell, it is probably one of the most important ways you can keep your customers happy and coming back for more. And happy customers mean business growth.

ChinaDivision: How to Increase Supply Chain Visibility

In our “now” economy, consumers demand real-time visibility, along with the near-immediate delivery of goods. This has created a great deal of supply chain disruption, causing businesses to reevaluate the way they operate. ChinaDivision, a professional and experienced order fulfillment giant, provides tips on how to achieve end-to-end visibility, and ultimately ensure a more efficient supply chain.

1. Start with the experience. Begin by defining what visibility means to your end users/customers, what kind of experience you want them to have, and what you want to gain from increased visibility.（order fulfillment ）

2. Select a platform for connectivity. Your digital platform should connect key players. This means ensuring the platform is technologically agnostic and all intended parties can easily access it.

3. Attract the right talent. New technology enables both new processes and new talent. Recruit people who are analytically inclined and highly skilled at interpreting data.

4. Manage and standardize data. Having a clear data strategy is imperative. Cleansing and defining consistent data models allows you to consistently utilize and translate the data into meaningful information.

5. Trust the information. It’s critical to believe the data. You must trust the information, its security, and the entities you exchange information with. Find ways to confirm confidentiality and ensure security around the financial exchange of information.

6. Interpret and leverage figures. You can’t find ways to improve until you know what problems to solve. Data allows you to proactively manage exceptions before they occur, saving your business time and money while keeping customers happy.

7. Drive efficient decision-making. Once you discover opportunities for improvement, you have to respond to those needs. Now that you know where everything is across your supply chain, you can execute solutions.

8. Focus on real-time transparency. The frequency and size of data exchange is dramatically increasing at an accelerated rate. Being able to leverage this data in real time is imperative. The key enablers consist of understanding what data is most critical to solving key business problems, what it means, and what to do when exceptions occur.（order fulfillment）

9. Opt for a neutral integration platform. The ability to flex up or down, quickly adjust, and accelerate the development of new capabilities requires an Enterprise Integration Platform. This allows companies to easily integrate, regardless of the execution systems in play.

10. Develop an extended ecosystem. Assuming you can develop and own all these capabilities offers a false sense of security. Today’s new digital environment requires a collaborative approach to managing your supply chain. Developing an extended ecosystem that brings the best of all your partners’ capabilities into a single environment is vital.

Key eCommerce Takeaways From 2018

With 2018 recently passing, it’s a good time to look back at the past year and the ways ecommerce order fulfillment and shipping has changed. There is no doubt the online retail space is evolving fast as the pressure for faster and cheaper delivery continues to shape the industry. Online retailers and carriers alike are working hard to adjust to the demands of this new, dynamic marketplace and the sky-high customer expectations that are part of retail today.

With the ever present pressure to cut costs from the supply chain, many retailers are focusing on better inventory management. Gone are the days of bloated inventories and allowing large amounts of capital to be tied up in unsold goods. Retailers have figured out the importance of staying lean as not just a way to lower overall costs, but the best way to keep inventory turning in their store.

Another thinking is, online retailers and other shippers have become much more open to considering alternative carriers and types of shipping solutions which has made them less beholden to any specific provider. Many shippers are willing to rate shop carriers with the attitude that service will always be about the same. In other words, price trumps concerns over service. This is in large part a response to the pressure many feel to offer free or low cost shipping on customer orders.

Last but not least thing is, now that dimensional pricing has been in place for some time, the effect has been digested by the marketplace allowing shippers to better understand and react to its impact. Most have felt it on their bottom line and are figuring out ways to respond. The first thing many are doing is looking for ways to minimize packaging and take every opportunity to trim size and weight as a way to maximize the utilization of space.

 

 

 

 

 

How to Plan Your Order Fulfillment Before Holiday Season

There are many reasons to outsource order fulfillment during the holidays. Waiting too long to look for a cost-effective order fulfillment solution is a dicey proposition. The best option is to seek out a company that can meet or exceed your expectations rather than waiting and potentially incurring penalties later on. You’ll be thankful you planned ahead—and the gains your business makes will be even sweeter.

Here are six reasons why you should plan your holiday fulfillment now.

To Manage Inventory

The first big hurdle around seasonality is the volatility of managing inventory. The combination of a massive influx of customers, hot items and huge sales can deplete stock very quickly, so even when factoring in the lead time needed for replenishment, being able to fulfill your inventory needs well in advance is critical. This goes for e-commerce as well as for brick-and-mortar stores.

To Manage Customer Expectation

A customer who can’t find that special item they’re looking for will simply visit your competitors next door. Aside from causing them disappointment, you may be losing future business from them, which you may never win back.

To Maintain Customer

Loyalty If you don’t manage your customer expectations, it could also lead to lost sales. Out-of-stocks, overstocks and returns are costing retailers over $1.75 trillion according to a study by the IHL group.

To Acquire New Customers

The holidays also bring a rapid influx of new customers. If they have a great experience with your brand, there’s a huge chance that they will return, thus increasing your market share.

To Reduce Fulfillment Errors

What about “Murphy’s Law”? A greater volume of merchandise moving between stores means dealing with a whole lot more moving parts. If there are errors in fulfillment, this places an additional cost on you that can be multiplied many times over during the ultra-busy Holiday sales period.

To Keep Things Running Smoothly

The ultimate purpose of beginning planning for holiday order fulfillment right now is to keep everything running smoothly as possible, thus providing a seamless experience for customers.

3 Strategies to Speed Up Your Order Fulfillment Process

When it comes to speeding up order fulfillment, there are some steps you can take to make a big impact. Start by looking at some of the “quick wins” that don’t require a massive investment, but will make a quick difference, such as classifying your inventory and ensuring that it is stored as logically as possible. The next step is to make sure that you are making the most of the systems you already have in place. Many companies have the pieces in place that are needed to improve their order fulfillment processes, but are unable to get the most from these systems.  Finally, you can also look at making new investments in automation to speed up your order handling times.

 

  1. Classify your inventory to ensure rapid handling: Grouping your inventory from fastest moving to slowest moving helps to ensure that you always have the right stock levels on your most important items. Put the most popular items in a centrally located area of your warehouse to ensure that they can be picked, packed and delivered to the shipping dock in a minimal amount of time. Slower moving items can be stored in a separate area. This more logical arrangement can really cut down on the time it takes to process and fulfill orders.
  2. Integrate systems for more visibility into all aspects of order fulfillment: In order to quickly fulfill an order, you need visibility into several areas––demand forecasting, sales, inventory, and logistics just to name a few. At a minimum, this requires some level of integration between the sales order management system where the order is placed, and the ERP system that maintains financial data, as well as the inventory and logistics systems that that handle the processes for picking, packing and shipping.
  3. Automate processes: After your systems are able to provide more visibility into all aspects of the process, you should also look at how the processes themselves can be sped up. Automation doesn’t necessarily mean investing in robotics or conveyors, it can be as simple as investing in scanners to more easily enter inventory into the system as it arrives in your warehouse, or scanning it out as it leaves. And for smaller businesses, the investment doesn’t have to be huge. There are even applications that can be downloaded to a smart phone or tablet to automate this process inexpensively.