How to Speed Up 3PL E-commerce Fulfillment

Two-thirds of global shopperssay they expect their online deliveries to arrive within 24 hours, while four in ten expect their delivery in under two hours. Making sure fulfillment is fast and efficient is essential for winning and keeping your clients. Below, we cover the best strategies for speeding up ecommerce fulfillment.

1. Inventory organisation

Inventory organisation is one of the most important aspects of fast order fulfillment. Arrange stock in your warehouse according to popularity to make sure your warehouse team has fast access to the inventory they need to process the most frequently.  

Make sure you have clear lines of communication with both suppliers and clients and know exactly when more goods are required (such as due to seasonal shifts or promotions) and when they are due to arrive at the warehouse. 

Another key part of inventory organisation is enabling full visibility into your inventory. Make use of inventory tracking with a warehouse management system to make sure you have appropriate levels of stock and can fulfill orders quickly. 

2. Kitting and pre-assembly 

Kitting is when warehouse workers group together complementary items and prepackage them ready for shipment. For example, many products typically come with additional packs or accessory packs.  

By putting together orders ahead of time, warehouse workers don’t need to spend time picking and packing multiple SKUs after an order comes in. Orders can be shipped straight away, dramatically cutting down on processing time.  

On the downside, if retailers switch up their stock or customer demand for a particular kit drops then workers will need to disassemble the kits, which can be time consuming.  

3. Product bundles

Many retailers create money-saving bundles to help boost sales, especially during the seasonal sale season. To help ensure quick delivery, be proactive and ask retailers if they’re planning to create any bundles and save time by preparing packaged bundles for quicker fulfillment. 

4. Warehouse layout

One of the best ways to ensure orders can be fulfilled quickly and efficiently, and to prevent any bottlenecks, is to audit and make improvements to your warehouse layout. Start by auditing your current layout and take a look at any potential issues or areas in which operations are slowed down.  

After pinpointing and addressing any issues, implement best practices:  

1. Place the most popular products the shortest distance from packing stations 
2. Situate picking areas close to storage areas 
3. Clearly label locations 
4. Make use of vertical, automated storage space 
5. Leave plenty of space between different sections of the warehouse (including unloading, picking, packing, or shipping) to avoid disrupting the flow of the warehouse  

5. Optimised picking processes

One of the best ways to optimise your picking processes is to implement picking in batches. Batch picking is when warehouse workers process multiple orders at once by picking items based on similar SKUs. This approach saves time as workers don’t need to go back and forth to collect more inventory.  

In addition, picking mistakes can slow down workers. Barcode validation can help cut back on human errors as workers can scan items before they pack them to validate which items are being packaged.  

6. Streamline order processing

Automation can dramatically help streamline and speed up order processing. The first step is to auto-import your orders rather than manually checking their sales channels. You can also automate order validation for full delivery details, using automation to correct any missing fields or mistakes and saving time on having to manually check every order. 

In addition, you can use shipping integrations to save time on raising your shipments manually by automating the process — including label creation and sending orders to shipping providers.  

7. Reduce time spent answering client queries

The average response time to client enquiries is twelve hours, yet 46% of clients expect a response in four hours or less.  

The administrative burden required to juggle multiple clients and their queries can take a lot of time. Proactively address potential client questions and problems by providing as much transparency as possible on things like order progress and inventory levels as well as KPI performance. You can do this by setting up client portals where clients can access their data and request information.  

8. Invest in technology

Technology tools such as dedicated 3PL warehouse management system can speed up many of the processes we’ve covered in this article, from managing your client communications to shipping. A 3PL WMS offers features such as: 

1. Shipping and shopping integrations: integrate your platform with your couriers and online shopping platforms and save time on manually transferring order information.  
2. Client portals: allow clients to import manual orders, view inventory levels, and raise queries.  
3. Client data management: easily manage client data, rates, and inventory from one place, saving you time on juggling multiple platforms in which client data is stored.  
4. Client billing: raise invoices based on in-app activities, from storage to fulfillment.