When a customer places an order, he/she expects the product to be delivered following the standard delivery cycle i.e., 3 to 7 business days. What if it gets delayed? Certainly, you may experience customer dissatisfaction. This is where the order fulfillment system takes place.
To generate customer loyalty, faster delivery and product tracking with a 360-degree view is crucial. Moreover, hassle-free return and replacement are the must-have deals that modern customer anticipates.
That's the reason why product-based businesses adapt order fulfillment software to streamline the end-to-end order fulfillment process. These products assist businesses with simplified order processing from receiving in the warehouse to storing on the shelves to pick pack ship and final customer delivery.
To justify this statement, Business Research Insights revealed that the order fulfillment market was projected at USD 2.85 billion in the year 2023. Again, it is expected to reach USD 6.87 billion by 2032 at a CAGR of 10.2% for the period.
In this blog, we will unfold key steps involved in the order fulfillment process and strategies to be imbibed. So, let's first understand what order fulfillment is.
What is Order Fulfillment?
Order fulfillment is a process from receiving the product in the warehouse to ensuring seamless distribution to the customers' doorstep. This process involves several key steps including storing on the shelves to picking, packing, and shipping through reliable carriers.
Ensuring accurate and timely order fulfillment requires seamless coordination, an inventory management approach, and product tracking/tracing from receiving in the warehouse to final customer delivery/customer returns.
Key Steps of Order Fulfillment
Receiving
The very first step of the order fulfillment process is receiving the goods in the warehouse or in the fulfillment center. Often, the inventory is initially kept in the putaway location in the warehouse wherein product inventory count and quality are checked. Further, these items are stored in the aisles, racks, and bins.
Picking
Once the order is placed on your eCommerce store, your warehousing workforce gets that information including SKUs, item number, color, size, etc., to pick up the item to be processed for packing.
Here having the right Pick and Pack software can help bring efficiency in your picking process. Using the LionO360 ERP your warehouse executives can know the exact location of the stored product, ensuring smoother and faster product pick-up.
Packing
Once the picking process is done, the next step is to pack the item using the required packing materials. To ensure seamless and transparent customer delivery, automation in the process is required. With LionO360’s Pick and Pack Software, you can automate your pick-pack process and ensure efficient shipping.
Shipping
After packing, it’s time to ship the order. This involves weighing the product, calculating the shipping costs, and affixing shipping labels. Performing this manually could be a time-consuming and complex process.
Thus, having the right pick, pack, and ship system can help you streamline the overall pick-pack ship flow. Here, LionOBytes offers seamless order fulfillment software that helps simplify your end-to-end order processing and distribution.
Order Returns
Once the order is delivered to the customer, there is a possibility that the customer will want to return the order. Here, enabling your customers to ship the ordered items back requires warehouse management software facilitated with order return management, order restocking in the warehouse, processing refunds, etc.
Key Strategies to Imbibe
Inventory optimization
When you receive an order, but the product is out of stock in your warehouse, it can lead to customer dissatisfaction. When your customers experience such, they may never buy products from you.
Thus, tracking and tracing the product count, product flow during fulfillment, and post-customer delivery is crucial. Here, having the right warehouse management software can enable you to stay updated with the available inventory count in your warehouse, in the fulfillment process, delivered to the customers, in the return process, etc.
This can help you manage out-of-stock or low-stock situations, and your customers get what they order. With LionO360 ERP software, you can track the product life cycle from receiving in the warehouse to placing in the shelves, ensuring efficient pick pack ship to customer delivery and order returns/refunds.
Yes, features like Serial Number Management, Lot Number, and Barcode Scanning facilitation make it possible. You can even manage backorders and post-sales support. Eventually, it can empower you to level up your customer experience.
Automation in order fulfillment
When processes like order picking and packing are automated, it can help improve your warehouse team’s efficiency and reduce costs. Moreover, automation eliminates errors and brings accuracy ensuring that your customer receives the right order with timely delivery.
Again, by leveraging the LionO360 ERP system, you can effectively automate your order fulfillment which in turn leads to faster order delivery to the customers' doorstep.
Build relationships with shippers
Building a stronger relationship with your shippers can help you customize the schedules, which in turn can help you speed up your customer deliveries. This can also help you provide better services to customers during order fulfillment or when the customer seeks post-sales support.
Here, having an order fulfillment system with built-in shipping solutions can help you easily streamline order processing and fulfillment. At LionOBytes, we offer a system that comes with built-in shipping solutions and equips you with seamless shipping. All you need to configure with available shipping partners such as UPS, FedEx, etc.
Ensure transparency with customers
Enabling your customers to track their ordered product, notifying them of order status, or updating them with potential order delays helps generate customer trust. To ensure such transparency with your customers, having the right system in place is imperative.
Certainly, with the LionO360 ERP system we equip businesses with such functional capability to maintain customer transparency and generate customer trust and loyalty.
Leverage data for decision-making
Utilizing data-driven decision-making can help you improve your order fulfillment process. Analyzing the data can enable decision-makers in your organization to predict sales, forecast demand, and maintain the right stock level across your warehouses without compromising customer demands.
With LionO360 ERP software, you don't need to worry about this concern as well. Our system equips you with sales predictions, demand forecasting, and other key insights that help you make informed decisions and maintain a healthy flow of inventories.
In case you need to manage and track the inventory levels in multiple warehouses, our system facilitates you to effectively optimize the inventory levels. You can even ensure seamless inventory transfer and inventory adjustment across your warehouses.
Improve Order Fulfillment with LionO360 ERP
It's time to improve your order fulfillment to drive customers, streamline the process, and ensure growth. Connect with industry experts at LionOBytes to understand how LionO360 ERP can help you improve your order fulfillment.
You can also schedule a free ERP Demo or can start with a free trial.
For more information call us at +1 609-281-5272
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it mean when an order is in the fulfillment process?
When an order is considered in fulfillment, it means that it’s in process for customer delivery. The inventory items are picked and packed from the warehouse to be shipped to the customers' location.
To know more about order fulfillment, ask experts at LionOBytes.
What is the order fulfillment process?
The order fulfillment process involves receiving goods in the warehouse from the supplier or vendors, then processing the order for fulfillment, shipping the order to the customer location for customer delivery, and processing returns/refunds.
How to choose the right order fulfillment software?
Choosing the right order fulfillment software is vital for customer success and business growth. Make sure that the order fulfillment software you choose should comprise the functional capability of process automation, aisle rack bin management, pick pack ship, multi-warehousing, customer return management, integration with shipping partners, serial number tracking/tracing, barcode scanning, workflow automation, AI insights, and more.
In the LionO360 ERP system, we offer all the above-mentioned order fulfillment functional capabilities. To know how it can help you improve your customer experience, minimize costs, and stimulate growth, contact experts at LionOBytes today.
