Automating Fulfillment with Your 3PL Warehouse
As online sales continue to grow at a rapid rate, many eCommerce sellers and manufacturers are evaluating the advantages of using a Third-Party Logistics (3PL) warehouse company to manage their online order fulfillment. There are many benefits to using a 3PL as you evaluate your 3PL approach.
3PL Benefits
- Lower Start-up Costs
There are significant capital expenditures to managing your own warehouse. The cost to build out or add warehouse space needs to be evaluated against the overall goal to increase profit by growing sales. Will managing your own warehouse help you grow your sales? Finding a good 3PL partner will certainly lower your start-up costs significantly. - Lower Total Fulfillment Costs
As you determine what your own fulfillment costs are, remember to consider all factors including warehouse employees, management, insurance, rent, taxes, technology, and HR, to name a few. Also consider the opportunity costs for spending budget on increasing sales verses managing your own warehouse. Focusing on your core competencies to grow sales is a priority for any company, but especially for a young eCommerce company. - Focus on Growth
A good 3PL partner will allow you to focus on growing your sales rather than managing a warehouse and fulfillment. Unless you are a large company that has the capital to build out your own warehousing network, it makes the most economic sense for sellers to focus on their core competencies and spend their energy and budget to grow their overall sales.
3PL Technology Considerations
- Eliminate Manual Order Submission
As you consider your 3PL options, you may find a great 3PL partner but discover they cannot manage specific sales channels without manual submission of orders. When you use InfiPlex, you can ensure all your sales channels are covered while you focus on the fulfillment capabilities of your favorite 3PL. - Geo Routing Lowers Shipping Costs
Being able to route orders to the closest warehouse helps lower shipping costs significantly. Sometimes the warehouse WMS cannot do this for you, but a sales channel connector like InfiPlex can route orders based on the ship to location. InfiPlex allows you to focus on finding the best 3PL partners, giving you the flexibility to partner with a group of smaller 3PL’s that may be able to give you specialized service or pricing. - Dynamic Bundling
Many eCommerce sellers create bundled products to grow sales. This can also increase costs with a 3PL to create or manage bundles on the warehouse side. Using a connector like InfiPlex will allow you to create dynamic bundles that automatically adds the bundle’s actual SKUs to the order before it gets sent to the 3PL warehouse. With this approach, there is no need for the 3PL to pre-assemble bundles. The bundled SKU just appears as separate pick lines for the 3PL warehouse. - Marketing Inserts, Custom Boxes, and more
Brand awareness, marketing, and cross promotion are important aspects of growing your sales. Leverage these abilities by increasing your brand awareness with custom boxes and shipping flyer inserts. InfiPlex can be set-up to add specific flyer SKUs to orders based on the actual product SKUs ordered from the marketplace. This allows the 3PL to easily pick the custom box or marketing insert on specific orders.
The proper technology approach will enable you to develop long-term, successful relationships with your 3PL partners. Invest in InfiPlex to control your sales channels so your 3PL’s can focus on what they do best – pick, pack, and ship.
InfiPlex is a market leader in connecting eCommerce sellers with their 3PL warehouses.
Looking for a 3PL Partner?
If you are looking for a cost-effective and reliable 3PL Partner or if you are interested in discussing your 3PL strategy, please fill out our 3PL Connector Inquiry form.
