E-commerce is one of the largest sales methods for retail businesses. With the success of Internet sales, more start-up companies are focused solely on creating an online store as opposed to a brick and mortar location. The startup costs are cheaper, marketing seems simpler, and you may have more creative control. However, e-commerce startups are at the same risk of failing as new brick and mortar stores, maybe even more. Online competition is fierce, and if you find a niche product that takes off, you could end up with more orders than you do products to fulfill those orders. So what do you do to make sure you don’t end up an online retail failure?
One solution is to outsource warehousing and distribution services for your products. Many people, especially those who invent and design their own products, think that storing things in their garage or a local storage facility will be enough to keep up with demand. But if your product takes off, you may find you don’t have the space for the inventory, which means you can’t fulfill orders. Once a customer is unable to order your product, it’s unlikely that customer will return to your website. Eventually, you’re struggling to keep the business afloat.
Outsource Storage for Available Inventory
When you rely on retail for profit, you must have the products people want. You can use warehousing and distribution services to store your excess inventory and always ensure that you have enough product for your customers. This works out great if you know that your product will be in high demand during the holiday season. You can spend the slower months creating product and filling the warehouse with merchandise. When shopping season hits, you can either have the storage company fulfill your orders directly, or you can request pallets of merchandise shipped to your store so you can ship items directly from your business.
Services Other Than Storage
Many warehousing and distribution services provide their customers with more than just storage solutions. You can use your warehouse to index your inventory, pack it into separate shipping boxes, and deliver it to your preferred carrier. Taking advantage of these services allows you to focus on the development and manufacturing of your product and leaves the order fulfillment to the warehouse.
