Order fulfillment is a crucial part of an e-commerce business and its inventory management process. It involves the receiving, processing, and delivery of products to your consumers. If you get this wrong, then your business can suffer from dire consequences. On the other hand, see how your customer base and revenues grow if you get it right! Therefore, it is crucial to have a seamless order fulfillment process. Here are some ways how fulfillment errors can hurt your business.
Lost Inventory
Sending wrong items to your customer will mean that you’ll have to resend the correct items. Now there is a chance that your customer might not return the wrong item, meaning that you’d need to bear the cost of that product. If such errors happen frequently, then costs will pile up, and it will eat away your hard-earned profits. Optimizing your fulfillment process will ensure correct products are sent to customers.
Increased Shipping Costs
As a small business or an online store, you need to save every penny to be profitable. However, if you send the wrong product to your customer, then you’d need to bear the cost of shipping that item. Such costs can be significant if you used an expensive courier service or used expedited delivery. Furthermore, you’d need to cover the shipping cost of the incorrect item, which the customer will return.
More Labor
If you’re already stretching your budget on labor costs, order fulfillment errors will only add to your expenses. When the customer returns a wrong item, it would need to be checked for damages. After an extensive check, it would need to be repacked and restocked to the inventory. All these tasks will require additional labor hours, which will add to your business expenses.
Reputation
You can’t count the impact of order fulfillment errors on the reputation of your business. Customers heavily rely on reviews before making any purchase decisions, and frequent fulfillment errors will invite a host of negative reviews for your business. Online retail and e-commerce are highly competitive, and customers are spoiled for choice. They want businesses to exceed expectations and provide quality products that are delivered on time. Order fulfillment errors are a hammer blow to a business’s reputation and hugely impact customer retention.
If you’re looking for an order fulfillment software that can help you streamline your supply-chain process and optimize your inventory management, then check out AltheaSuite. Their state-of-the-art technology has modern POS software, barcode inventory management software, and batch tracking inventory management. Furthermore, their inventory management software offers integration with major e-commerce platforms and payment gateways. You can contact them today to book a demo!
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