Fulfillment Strategies
Fulfillment strategies have evolved over time driven by customer demand for goods and the desire of retailers to create a superb customer experience which in turn created customer loyalty and eventually increased sales. Anybody who is in the distribution or retail business knows that a customer wants its purchased product that they paid for now. No excuses that you are out of stock or that the product is not available at one location or another. If the product is not available, they need to know now not after that have paid for it. This understanding lead to the evolution of fulfillment strategies.
Fulfillment Strategies
1- Straight or Simple Order Fulfillment Strategy
It is a strategy used to complete an order from one specific location without paying attention to if the product can be secured or procured through different means. For Example, an order (Online Order) comes into the order desk is filled always from one location. It is already known and predetermined where that order is going to ship from. It could ship from the company’s warehouse or the 3Pl Company warehouse. The product is available only in one location. It is the simplest and oldest of fulfillment strategies This method is usually used by manufacturers.
2- Multichannel order Fulfillment
Very widely used among distributors, wholesalers and even regional retailers. It is an unintegrated way to approach customers and inventory stock levels. Sales Channels are not integrated, rather they work in parallel. As an example, a Retailer or Distributor would have inventory held a different locations, sometimes at the manufacturer’s location. If an order comes in for an item that is out of stock and the fulfillment strategy if to ship from a predefined location, the customer will not get his product even if the product is available through other channels unless a manual process is in place to oversee and check inventory in other locations or from other sources. This is a manual process and not very efficient not to mention the high cost of carrying the inventory that does not turn very fast.
3- Omni channel Order Fulfillment
This fulfillment strategy is different from the traditional methods of straight and multichannel. It is Order Fulfillment completed across many possible channels through the use of technology and advanced software. This makes this method the choice of many national retailers. It focuses on customer satisfaction. It requires integrating multiple channels, that way the boundaries between multiple channels tend to vanish.
When an online order is placed, the fulfillment software will decide which is the fastest and least costly method to fulfill the order so if the item required is available at a location near you, you have the option of picking it up the same day. This flexibility is not available with the other strategies
Resources:
Order Fulfillment companies in Miami
