Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I own a customer service and order fulfillment company, which supports small on-line retailers who would not necessarily have the time or money to staff their own ordering and/or order fulfillment departments.  We have been doing the customer service aspect for a while, but have just recently added the shipment aspect of the business.  Our services are geared to allow business owners more time to go out and promote their businesses and spend time with their families rather than having to be addressing customers questions and shipping product.

So here is my question.  I am almost done with my advertising piece for the shipping portion, but I am trying to apply time saving numbers into it.  For any of you that currently ship your own products, can you please look at the following questions and provide your feedback. 

1. How much time do you spend ordering your shipping supplies?

2. How much time do you spend doing inventory?

3. How long does it take you to actually package the products(s)?

4. If you bring the packages to the post office or UPS, how much time is spent doing this?

5. Do you set a certain time of day aside to handle any of these processes?

6. Can you perform these tasks uninterupted?

7. Do you ship your products the same day that they are received? If not, what is your turn around time?

8. Do you use the same shipping method for all of your items or do you determine the most economical rate based on distance?

 

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Janene
Founder & President
Trending Solutions
614-939-4133
http://www.trendingsolutions.com

Hey there Janene!!  So good to "see" you here!!  You know I`m not there yet, so I can`t really help with your question, but I just wanted to stop by and say Hello and WELCOME!!!  I`ll be needing ya soon though....

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Leslie
Founder and President
Charmed Life Products LLC
Grill Charms™… The MUST HAVE grilling accessory that is revolutionizing the American Cook-out AND The perfect gift for any occasion!
Grill Charms
                                                                                                    

Hi Janene,

I`ll see if I can answer some of your questions for you regarding how we handle website orders.

1. Not much time ordering  shipping supplies, we get them free from the USPS.

2. Inventory is done once a week on Monday mornings.

3. How much time it takes to package the products, depends on how many orders we have.

4.  A trip a day, not much time, the post office  is close. :)

5.  We process orders every morning

6. I make sure these tasks are uninterupted

7. We usually ship within two days..

8. We pretty much use USPS flat rate always.

I know I made it sound easy, but I think what you`re doing is a great service.  In fact I`ve thought of the same type of service myself, because I`m so good at it. :)

Good luck, I`m sure a lot of businesses will appreciate your service!

Janie 

 

 

 

Thank you, Janie.  I appreciate your feedback. 

So far we have received very positive feedback.  One of the benefits of our service is that we are also able to take the phone orders and then turn around and ship them.  That is a win-win for both my customer and theirs.

Thank you again and have a great evening

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Janene
Founder & President
Trending Solutions
614-939-4133
http://www.trendingsolutions.com

Janene,

I did want to add though, that we don`t have anything heavy, fragile, or difficult to package either, which I`m sure many other companies would.

Janie 

 

1. minutes; packaging tape and labels from an office supply store about once a month (see below about shipping containers).

2. we do a physical inventory once a month as everything is databased and we only have 2 sku (soon to be 3) and zero breakage/shrinkage so far so we have a good handle on what`s on-hand.

3. We use a jig to make 2 standard sized shipping "boxes" from old cardboard boxes that we get from local clients ... like a bale; it takes less than a minute to make a box and we do them in chunks about once a week.  once they are done it takes about a minute to place, seal and label the shipment.

4. We use daily pickup and drop boxes, or make a run for the airport if something is missed (not often or fun as that`s 30 fast minutes!)

5. We use 3pm as the last time to order/fulfill for same day shipping.

6. We do ... shiping usually takes about an hour.

7. Same day for all orders in by 3 and next day for anything after?

8. I`m thinking about putting in clippership to handle the various methods and account numbers required by our "affiliates" but for the most part we use UPS and it`s integrated into our system.

All in all shipping sucks so we make it as easy as possible with as minimal time and materials as we can use and still make people smile.  We`re trying out the Fulfilled By Amazon (and Amazon itself) for a month or so, and we might look at other options like what you`re building (our only phone orders are retailers/distributors) because we want to be making tacos and not shipping them!

I think your service will be a real winner for the right companies as the alternatives are not realistic imho.

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Chris Miller, a simple taco maker:
The Tiger Taco home in the U.S.A.
Tiger Tacos in Australia
Tiger Tacos in the United Kingdom

That was very helpful.  Thank you so much.  Also, we do offer shipping even if someone doesn`t use our phone services.  We just got the idea of adding shipping as part of our services because we noticed we were getting a lot of order status calls because our customers weren`t shipping their products fast enough after we took the phone order.  This way, by having us ship and guarantee shipment the same day (if the order is entered by 4:00 PM EST), the number of order status calls should be greatly reduced and the customer satisfaction level raised.

BTW, you product is very cool.

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Janene
Founder & President
Trending Solutions
614-939-4133
http://www.trendingsolutions.com

Great thread.  I can`t believe that tiger taco makes his own boxes...that is amazing to me.  I may have to order a few of those for the next time I move.

We see a lot of customers coming to our service with similar concerns and issues.  I would also add that reducing shipping costs is a major driver.  Many merchants want to plug into our warehouse network to move inventory closer to the end merchant.  Moving inventory in bulk closer to the customer means the parcel delivery costs can be reduced.  Parcel delivery is way more expensive on a per item basis than bulk freight.

Plugging their online store into the warehouse is also a concern.  One of the reasons that we offer a software platform with pre-integrations to many popular online shopping carts.

International fulfillment, freight and customs tends to rank high on the list of concerns as well.  Hence our additional Canadian warehouses, freight desk and help moving inventory over borders.


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