As an online retailer, you are naturally striving for an excellent buying experience for your customer.
Once your consumer clicks ‘buy’ it is over to your e-fulfilment house to make the rest happen. Most 3PL’s have a niche and finding out what this is, is essential to a good partnership.
For example, for us at Jigsaw Fulfilment, we enjoy start-up fledgling brands.
It’s exciting to see brands come along, launch with us and grow!
Our heritage in multi-component direct mail print production lends itself well to subscription kit fulfilment too.
Ensuring a good delivery experience from checkout to doorstep is all part of the buying process. There are a few ‘key’ things you should look for when choosing an ecommerce third-party provider, what we like to call the three “R’s”…
Your ecommerce third-party provider must be…
Reliability is essential
Check what WMS (Warehouse Management System) platform they use – it is fundamental to the reliability and accuracy you will see on your orders.
At Jigsaw Fulfilment, we use the WMS system by Mintsoft. A good WMS is a tell-tale way to know that the fulfilment house will have immediate access to couriers, rather than having a few ‘favourites’ they use.
A good WMS also means that a fulfilment house can let you choose preferable couriers, and their system will automatically assign your orders to those couriers.
Use an ecommerce third-party to maintain reputation
Slips in reliability are usually the biggest hurdle that prevents customers from repurchasing from your ecommerce store.
Don’t let an agreement between you as the business/business owner prevent your growth or future success.
At Jigsaw Fulfilment, we do prepare and supply contracts; however, there is always a 3-month clause so that either party can exit. We believe that a happy and good partnership is essential.
Partnering with a 3PL that holds you to a long contract term and ultimately, to ransom is not the way to go. Plus, if that said WMS is not performing and causing your business reputational damage – you need to be able to get out!
An ecommerce third-party will help you build a positive relationship
Repeat custom is essential in an ecommerce environment.
So, if your consumer delivery experience does not match your website’s experience, then all the hard work put into your ecommerce channels is suddenly wasted.
When competition is fierce, you cannot afford to lose custom because of your provider’s mistakes.
Do not let choosing third-party ecommerce partner be an afterthought; it is just as important as your online presence. Ensure your relationship is stable and keep communications simplified through software.
If you’d like to talk to us about our ecommerce third-party services, please get in touch today and we can offer you the solutions so you can confidently achieve thise 3 “R’s”.
Drop us an email at hello@jigsawfulfilment.co.uk, call us on 0113 210 0055 or complete our ‘get a quote’ form.
We’d love to help.