{"id":13592,"date":"2022-06-30T08:12:14","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T08:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.whichwarehouse.com\/blog\/?p=13592"},"modified":"2022-07-06T16:05:10","modified_gmt":"2022-07-06T16:05:10","slug":"challenges-e-commerce-fulfilment-overcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.whichwarehouse.com\/blog\/news\/challenges-e-commerce-fulfilment-overcome\/","title":{"rendered":"Three challenges to e-commerce fulfilment and how to overcome them"},"content":{"rendered":"

What are the biggest challenges to successful e-commerce fulfilment? Well, there are many and we can\u2019t do justice to them in a single article so we\u2019ve picked out three that are going to be presenting real issues to the e-commerce sector through the rest of this year and well into 2023. First on our list, the perennial challenge of finding the right location.<\/p>\n

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Location for your fulfilment centre<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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Simply put, the nearer your fulfilment centres are to the customers, the shorter the distance purchases have to travel, the cheaper and quicker your logistics and the happier your customers will be. Sounds simple doesn\u2019t it? But for e-commerce that simple equation becomes quadratic – there are many more things to solve!\u00a0 First, should you opt for one big fulfilment centre on the former Amazon model or go for multiple fulfilment locations? Then should you choose pick and pack specialism (eg one fulfilment centre for electronics, another for garments etc) or work geographically? Third, how important is location if your marketplace is entirely ecommerce and therefore your customer base is global?<\/p>\n

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  1. Let\u2019s unpick the problems to solve the challenge. First, the UK is experiencing several logistics challenges at present: post-Brexit, post-COVID, supply chain issues resulting from the Ukraine war etc. This means that centralising your e-commerce fulfilment in one mega-warehouse can be risky \u2026 staffing problems could derail your activity, and re-routing products to avoid problems can be easier if you have a selection of warehouses you can re-route to, making you a more nimble organisation.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"ecommerce<\/a><\/p>\n

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    1. Second, the question of specialisation in fulfilment is an increasingly complex one. Pick and pack has become a focus of many time and motion studies to explore how much efficiency gain there is from having \u2018expert\u2019 pickers and limited product ranges in dedicated warehouse spaces; sometimes called \u2018shopify\u2019 picking. The answer seems to be that it makes limited difference – what\u2019s more significant is the way that automation and computerised stock control can help keep warehouse stock up to date to ensure fulfilment is possible, whether centralised or multi-unit.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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      1. Finally, most e-commerce organisations havea global customer base which means that unless they have in-house expertise, they need a fulfilment parter that can handle international shipping in a cost effective fashion. A third-party logistics provider (3PL) allows organisations to out-source their logistics provision<\/a> – which can range from something as simple as handing over international shipping to a specialist, all the way up to outsourcing the entire management of both procurement and fulfilment.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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        Handling\u00a0fulfilment returns\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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        In 2019, before the COVID surge, 7.4% of parcels delivered in the UK were damaged on arrival, and a further 12% did not arrive at all. That\u2019s millions of pounds of lost and damaged goods and an incalculable amount of repetitional harm. Add in the personnel cost of managing returns and refunds and companies are looking at a major cost centre with no upside. Let\u2019s break down all the potential revenue drains that result from orders damaged in transit:<\/p>\n

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