How to Make Your E-commerce Business Benefits from Fulfillment Apps

How to Make Your E-commerce Business Benefits from Fulfillment Apps 

Fulfillment apps can integrate an e-commerce business and help the e-commerce sellers enjoy e-commerce order fulfillment service more seamlessly. A lot of tech oriented order fulfillment companies have developed fulfillment integration for most of the widely-used e-commerce platforms, such as Shopify fulfillment apps, OpenCart fulfillment extensions, Magento fulfillment plug-ins and so on. To integrate an e-commerce business with the fulfillment integration, you need 3 steps.

Step 1. Choose the most suitable e-commerce platform.

The first decision to make before opening an e-commerce store is to choose a suitable platform. Consider these before choosing one e-commerce platform.

– Who are your target consumers?

– How much is your budget?

– What kind of online store do you want?

– Do you own a development team?

Then get to know the advantages & disadvantages of some widely-used e-commerce platforms. There are a lot of articles online are talking about the pros and cons, I’ll just give you a general overview here.

After considering your own conditions and comparing the existing e-commerce platforms, you will feel easier to choose the most suitable one.

Step 2. Partner with the right order fulfillment company.

The basic function of the fulfillment integration, such as OpenCart fulfillment extensions and Shopify fulfillment apps, is data synchronization. The fulfillment plug-ins can auto sync the order/inventory/shipping information between e-commerce store and the fulfillment system. But reducing manually operations doesn’t just mean hassle-free, it also means improving the quality requirement to the e-commerce fulfillment service. The order fulfillment company which is capable to develop fulfillment integration usually has a better tech strength, and can provide a better e-commerce fulfillment service. Other than that, the location is also very important. In order to reduce the logistics cost, the e-commerce sellers had better to choose the fulfillment center near source or near customer.

Near source fulfillment center: If the supplier is in China, partner with the order fulfillment company in China.

Near customer fulfillment center: If the buyers are mainly in the North America, choose the US based fulfillment company. The warehousing fee maybe higher in the USA, so the seller have to adjust the strategy and control the budget.

Step 3. Install the fulfillment app/extension and use it wisely.

The fulfillment app/extension can integrate the e-commerce by synchronizing data between the fulfillment system and the store. After installing the fulfillment extension, the order, inventory and shipping information will no longer be transferred manually. In this case, both the e-commerce seller and fulfillment service provider had better to keep an eye on the data changes in order to keep things in control.

Fulfill the orders in batches. Since the fulfillment app will persistently generate orders to the order fulfillment company’s system, it may cause chaos if the orders are fulfilled immediately. The experienced order fulfillment companies are well aware of this situation and will recommend you to fulfill the orders in batches. The frequency is up to you. You can adjust the fulfillment frequency to every 24 hours or every 200 orders according to your sales and other needs.

Keep in touch with the fulfillment service provider. One of the advantages to use third-party fulfillment is you can have multiple vendors and enjoy more personalized services. The fulfillment apps can sync a variety kinds of data, such as order status, inventory, tracking number, etc, no matter which of the data shows abnormal condition, remember to connect the fulfillment service provider. For example, the Shopify apps will sync tracking number back to your store after the packages are shipped out (some of the apps or extensions will also send e-mails to the buyers automatically), if the tracking number shows the shipping data hasn’t been updated for several days, contact the fulfillment service provider, they will check the tracking number or communicate with the express courier for you.