In this booming globalization trend, the role of logistics and warehouse services has grown many folds proportionally to the increased sales and consumerism across the globe. Especially in this world of door-to-door deliveries, more and more e-commerce platforms are coming to life since digital way of doing business is vital to survive in the business race. From food to textiles to books to automobiles, everything is being manufactured in abundance which gives rise to more storage space required by these industries, thus the demand for warehousing and third party logistics is on height.
Logistics are a part of online shopping where complexities can arise and this is why online retailers need third party logistic providers. Also, an e-commerce merchant who may not have a physical store; but wants his physical goods need to be stored at some location. A 3PL takes care of your warehousing requirements in such a case as well. It invests in the space and technology required to efficiently run a warehouse.
The emergence of e-commerce and shopping for just about anything being only a click away makes it important to have a well-oiled supply chain management system. Warehousing and 3PL are huge contributors in Supply Chain Management. With endless product lines and delivery times that are faster than ever, online retailers have become the one stop shops for many. In order to ensure timely deliveries, e-commerce stores need to handle issues of inventory, packaging, warehousing, shipping, and tracking which they prefer outsourcing to enterprises that provide supply chain management services.
Benefits of outsourcing e-commerce warehousing and third party logistics –
- EASY INTEGRATION: Easy integration stands for As soon as an order is placed on your online store, the details are passed on to a 3PL’s warehouse, then, the order is picked, packed, and shipped to the customer from the warehouse.
- SHIP ON MARKET PLACES: With multiple modes of transportation like airways, roadways, waterways or railways, shipping has become more feasible and accessibility to global products has increased. International e-commerce platforms, like Amazon is a great example of a well-managed e-commerce platform with proper warehousing management system. If you sell on Amazon, you can automatically sync your orders and inventory. This is especially useful if you sell on multiple platforms — store, manage, and track your inventory all through one provider and software.
- ORDER TRACKING: Your 3PL service provider makes sure that your customer is able to track their order from manufacturer’s end to warehouse till their doorstep.
- INVENTORY MANAGEMENT: Since 3PL and warehousing providers store and ship your products for you, they take inventory management off your plate. On your behalf, they take care of tracking inventory levels, ordering and restocking inventory, and forecasting future demand. Many 3PLs offer built-in inventory management software to streamline and automate the process since good inventory management software allows you to prepare for various levels of demand and sales by monitoring trends and historical patterns.
- FASTER ORDER FULFILLMENT: Customers expect their orders delivered fast and free wherever they shop online. If you’re shipping from home or a rural fulfilment centre, fast shipping can be expensive. Either you have to engulf that cost or choose to pass them onto your customers. It’s kind of a lose-lose.
- CONSOLIDATION SERVICE: Also known as freight consolidation or cargo consolidation, a service provider sending several small packages as one large package is referred to as a consolidation service. This is to make the whole lesser than the sum of the parts, for example, E-commerce merchants often send many small goods to the same location, i.e., if we consolidate all the small goods into one shipment, the shipping charges could be substantially lowered.
As we conclude. We can say that good inventory and warehouse management can help you save money and time while meeting customer expectations. So, if you’re running a small-scale e-commerce business or if you’ve just started your e-commerce, it is highly suggested to opt for 3rd party logistics and outsourced warehousing. Because setting up one’s own logistics division may require too significant of a fixed expense. A third-party logistics provider could give you the flexibility of starting small, yet scaling up when needed.
Like all other domains of business, logistics is ever-evolving. Hardware, software, and equipment keep upgrading all the time. A good third third-party provider would keep up with the times, as logistics is their core business. Be certain of this when choosing your 3PL service provider. An experienced 3PL puts all processes in place and has the resources and expertise to guide your start up or existing e-commerce. AAJ Enterprises is one of the 3PL industries in India serving the best to their potential warehousing and 3PL services to varied industries like publishing, FMCG, pharmaceuticals, energy, retail, E-commerce since 2006.
Aaj Enterprises
