Warehousing is the backbone of supply chain management. Without a proper warehousing system, the whole supply chain will be disorganized, leading to some unsatisfied and unhappy customers. A warehouse is where the majority of the order fulfilment takes place. Over a couple of years, more and more people prefer to shop online and will continue to do so in the future. With this ever-growing surge of online shopping, there will be an increased demand for Third-party warehousing.
What is Third-Party Warehousing?
Third-Party Warehousing is a storage facility owned and operated by a commercial provider that is not part of the business, i.e., it is outsourced. With the rise of online shoppers, there has been an equal increase in the demand for third-party warehousing. As a result, businesses consider partnering with third-party warehousing and distribution as it helps them eliminate the construction capital and do away with the rental expenses.
But before zeroing down on the Third-party Warehousing and distribution center, businesses should consider whether it fulfils the following.
It should Decrease the Overhead Expenses.
The Third-party warehousing and distribution center should aid in decreasing the cost of storing the goods and fulfilling the orders. Third-party warehousing does this by providing the business with real-time data about the stock levels and the activities concerned with the demands of the goods. In addition, they should have a robust inventory management system that will ensure to maintain the standards for minimum and maximum levels of stocks and has a system that will alert the supervisor when the level has reached the limit.
Accuracy in Picking and Packing
Businesses use the warehouse to deliver the product that the customers order. And the customers are quite unforgiving if their product gets misplaced or they get the wrong ones. On account of this, it is imperative to know the picking and packing system of the third-party warehouse before choosing. Therefore, one should thoroughly check the third-party warehousing and distribution centers about picking the goods, packaging labelling, and subsequent delivery systems. In addition, one should also understand how the warehouses track, trace and authenticate any given product and monitor the product throughout the delivery cycle.
The Order Fulfilment capability of the Warehouse
Before choosing the warehouse and distribution centers, businesses should look into their order fulfilment capability. Order fulfilment becomes challenging if things are not in order, especially during the peak season. To be efficient, warehouses resort to kitting in warehouse, wherein the warehouse bundles all those stock keeping units generally ordered together and forms a new stock unit. Doing this makes it easy and efficient for the warehouse to quickly locate the items as a single bundle and promptly send it to the customers. Thereby, kitting in warehousing is a vital process businesses should check out before choosing a third-party warehousing and distribution center.
Helps in Enhancing Customer Experience
Today, with the growing competition, customers choose the services they want due to the numerous options available to them. If one doesn’t provide them with good service, they will promptly change them without blinking. The third-party warehousing and distribution centers should help in enhancing the customer experience. How well they respond to the queries, giving the customers timely updates on their shipments. How they build the relationship of trust with the customer is an important point to consider when choosing the third-party warehousing and distribution center for the business.
Third-party warehousing and distribution centers will help the businesses by offering their expertise, streamlining the supply chain, and saving them time and money. Hence, these are a few vital points that would help the business choose the right warehousing partner.
