Fulfilling Experiences: What Is a Fulfillment Center and Why Is It Important?

The internet has revolutionized retail.

Not long ago, you had to get dressed and drive to the local mall to do your shopping. These days, you can stay tucked up in bed, pick up your phone, and start scrolling. A few clicks and a short wait later, and the product’s on your doorstep!

Shopping in actual brick-and-mortar stores is expected to become a rarity in due course. By 2040, experts predict that 95% of purchases will be made online.

Are you thinking of capitalizing on this trend with your own eCommerce store? Well, having a fulfillment center will be a mighty help in the endeavor.

Never heard of them? Never fear! We can help.

Keep reading to learn all about fulfillment centers and why they’re so advantageous for online businesses.

What Is a Fulfillment Center?

Imagine a warehouse in which you rent space to hold your business’ inventory. Now imagine that this warehouse also employs staff to handle the packing and delivery of the products you sell!

That, in a nutshell, is a fulfillment center (otherwise known as a third-party logistics provider, or a 3PL for short).

They’re professional services set up to help online businesses outsource product storage and fulfillment. You send your products to the warehouse, where they’re kept on your behalf. Then, as sales come in (through your own website), the employees find (aka ‘pick’) the product in question, pack it up, and ship it by courier to your customer.

Whether you’re working B2C or B2B, the fulfillment centers handle the whole shebang. You sit at home and watch the sales roll in, without having to touch a single product. You pay a fixed monthly fee each month for the privilege.

Read on to discover more of the benefits involved.

Why Are They Important?

Here are the main reasons that a fulfillment center can make a difference in your online business.

You Don’t Hold Onto Any Inventory

The storage of inventory is one of the main challenges of owning an online business.

Indeed, many people run the operation from their home! As you can imagine, trying to store hundreds of products in your bedroom is far from ideal.

An alternative solution would be to pay for standard warehousing (or another form of storage solution). However, this can get expensive and involves the added logistic challenge of dealing with orders yourself. You might need to hire employees, invest in specialized computer software, and handle the packing and delivery of products.

Fulfillment centers solve the problem of storage and simplify the entire process. More on this next.

It’s a Hands-Off Solution

The beauty of online businesses is that they have the potential to earn passive income.

In other words, you can earn money in your sleep! You have systems in place that generate money without having to swap your time for it.

Fulfillment centers allow you to do exactly that with your eCommerce store. After all, they deal with everything- storage, picking, packing, and shipping. Why not ask the manufacturer/supplier to send the product(s) straight to the center?

That way, you don’t even have to touch a product with your own hands. Assuming you can guarantee quality standards, you can be making sales and earning money from a distance with no cause for concern.

Customers Enjoy Better Service

You went into business to sell products- not fulfill them!

Why not leave it to the experts? Fulfillment centers were literally set up for this purpose. They have the tools, manpower, systems, and expertise to do the job at the highest standard.

That’s good news for your customers. They enjoy a quality service, which you might not be able to deliver alone. More importantly, fulfillment centers often provide their own customer service teams to handle inquiries and complaints.

That removes the hassle of handling the occasional angry customer or dealing with returns. They take the responsibility of doing it, which is, once again, one less thing for you to worry about.

Shipping Costs Are Reduced

Fulfillment centers are usually large-scale operations.

They might work with hundreds of sellers and hold tens of thousands of different products. In other words, they operate at scale.

And, as always, that leads to numerous benefits in terms of their costs.

For instance, many fulfillment centers negotiate discounted rates with their couriers. They’re sending so many products that the courier is happy to offer lower prices on delivery. Those discounted rates then trickle down to you, which boosts your margins.

People doing their own fulfillment are unlikely to enjoy the same reductions on their shipping costs.

Easy Expansion of Your Business

Every business owner wants their operation to grow and succeed.

The irony is that rapid expansion can end up backfiring. The demand for products can soon outstrip the infrastructure you have in place to handle it.

For example, you might be unable to make the products fast enough or lack the storage capacity required. Your website might fail under the level of traffic you’re getting, or you may struggle to ship as quickly as you ought to.

There’s nothing worse than your systems buckling under demand. You leave money on the table and hinder your ability to grow.

Fulfillment centers, like the one you’ll find at https://www.fulfilltopia.com/, remove many of those issues. They’re flexible services and have the capacity to grow with your operation. They have the storage space and hands-on deck to fulfill any and all of the sales you make.

Enjoy These Perks of Fulfillment Centers

The newfound popularity of internet shopping has created amazing opportunities for online businesses.

With the right approach, you can set up an eCommerce store and start making sales in record time! Even better, you can do it without having to lay hands (or eyes) on the inventory you’re selling.

Hopefully, this post has revealed the purpose and advantages of using a fulfillment center to help. Want to read more articles like this one? Search ‘eCommerce’ on the website now.