What is a Fulfillment Company?

June 14th, 2010 by admin

The goal of a fulfillment company is to make less work for you and your company or business. They typically handle a wide variety of fulfillment, and their purpose is to make less work for you, so that you can focus more on running your company than on the logistics of fulfilment.

The basic role of fulfilment company is to fulfill customer orders of your product. The company will typically store and inventory your product, then pull and ship your product as customers order it. Some companies will also take care of things like customer service, including billing and handling returns, while others will even go so far as to setup and maintain a website for you, including online shopping carts and secure credit card processing. Many will allow you to keep track of your inventory and business remotely through the Internet. Others will take care of marketing via direct mail, or mailing catalogs. Unfortunately, fulfillment companies typically will not take full responsibility for lost or stolen items, so while researching which company will best fit your needs, make sure you look over their policy regarding this.

In addition to removing the stress of fulfilling customer orders, and storing inventory, a fulfillment company will often ship your items at a discounted rate for you, if you are mailing a lot of items. They will frequently recieve a discount through a shipment company for their bulk shipping, and in turn may pass some of that savings on to you. Additionally, a few companies will run their own shipping lines, instead of outsourcing, thus removing the involvement of another party.

Although a fulfillment company can provide a great benefit to your business, many companies will only do business with very large companies. Some may even require that you ship at least 5000 pieces a month before even considering doing business with you. However, this is a concept that is changing, as many companies are starting to include small businesses as their customers. A few companies are dedicated to serving only small businesses, allowing a much smaller minimum shipment, while some of the other larger companies are beginning to include options for small business customers.

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