Synopsis: When you are running a business which receives online orders, you will naturally want to get them out the door for delivery as swiftly as possible. However making it efficient, so that staff aren’t sitting around for part of the day is a challenge, and is the reason many firms are utilising the services of third party logistics firms.
One of the major challenges for a small company who receives orders by phone or online, which need to be shipped to the customer, is getting it organised, processed and packed, and delivered to the customer swiftly and efficiently.
There may be times when orders come flooding in, and you do not have enough staff to get everything done and a backlog starts to build up, or times when orders are slow, and you now have too many staff members, all costing you money by the hour. Then you have to ask yourself if you are using the right logistics company to do your deliveries. Do they have the right last mile connections to get your parcel there when it should be and are you paying them too much? Equally critical of course, if not more so, is the amount of time it takes up, of key people within the company, whose time could be far more profitably spent, doing something more productive for the company, such as marketing.
Third Party Logistics
Third-party logistics providers provide a specialised and integrated operation, warehousing and transportation service, scalable to customers’ demands, offering a delivery service for their products and materials. It allows a company to completely outsource all of their warehousing, freeing up lots of space at the business premises, and utilise the services of a logistics and delivery organisation that is streamlined far better than they could ever hope to be in-house.
Pick and Pack
Picking and packing is an aspect used by outsourced logistics companies, in the distribution of goods. It involves processing orders of multiple, individual items, picking the correct number of each item, packaging it with an address label and invoice, and subsequently organising it to be sent directly to the customer’s door, as swiftly as possible. Many companies, such as TIFS pick packing, will generally have the product out for delivery inside 24 hours, and often on the same day as the order comes in, providing a speedier and more efficient service, than the company they are delivering on behalf of. It is a service offered by many supply chain management solutions companies, which provide significant benefits to all concerned.
Benefits
Unless you are a very large-sized firm, outsourcing your product packaging and delivery makes a lot of sense. Large distribution companies can get significantly better rates on shipping, because of their high volume of business. Because of this, the cost of transporting a package to the customer is lower. Large warehouses also have professional customer service teams, who ensure that orders are professionally packaged, something your customer will note when it arrives and gives you the benefit of a level of shipping and security typically found in a large company. Using sophisticated inventory management software, keeping track of how much stock you have of various products becomes much more straightforward, than trying to manage it yourself. It will mean you need fewer staff members on shipping, saving you money, and it will allow you to focus purely on running and growing your business.
The whole company runs much more professionally, your customers will be impressed with the service, and it will cost significantly less too, so it’s a winning situation all around.
