Do you want to outsource your fulfilment? How do you want to be spending your time in your business? Fulfilling each and every order, or growing the business through thought-out marketing processes? Your time is precious, and you should spend it doing the things that will help your business grow, not on the day-to-day tasks that others could be doing for you. Here are four signs that indicate you need to consider outsourcing your order fulfilment:
Outsource to save time
You spend hours waiting for couriers, Royal Mail, or in queues at the Post Office. When you first start, it might be normal for you to be packing up the odd item and taking it to the post office. If it’s not taking up too much time, then what’s the harm? Before you know it, you’ll be spending all the hours of the day picking, packing, and queueing at the post office – or worse, waiting around for couriers to pick things up from you.
The time you’re spending on these things could be the time you spend on marketing your business. Whilst both are necessary functions for your business to survive, only one is going to help it grow. If you get submerged in the day-to-day drudgery of order fulfilment, where is the marketing for your business coming from? Take a moment to step back, assess what your daily tasks are, and whether they are things you should be doing, or if you can get them outsourced. And if you’re not convinced, think about all the other things you could be doing with the time you have when you’re not waiting around for the postie!
Work-life balance
Your evenings are taken up carrying out stock checks. Your average business day is bound to be busy; with phones ringing, emails pinging in, and having to deal with the daily frustrations that crop up in any business, sometimes it’s hard to get everything done within working hours. When it comes to a stock check, you might think that the best time to do it is after hours.
After all, you need to make sure it’s as accurate as possible, and having phone calls interrupting your progress is no way to ensure accuracy. But if you’re spending your evenings carrying out stock checks, this is a major red flag that you should be outsourcing your order fulfilment. A work-life balance is still necessary, even as a business owner, and spending your evenings doing a stock check – whilst a much-needed task – is not the way to find this. Consider outsourcing in order to make sure you get everything done within your working hours.
Inaccurate stock check
You are running out of products to enable you to fulfil your orders the reason an accurate stock check is so important is twofold. The first is that you don’t want cash sitting on your shelves which could be invested into your business. But the second is that running out of stock is probably the worst position you could put yourself in.
If you have customers who are screaming out for your products, but you can’t supply them, it doesn’t matter how well your marketing is done, or how brilliant your sales process is. You’re going to lose customers if you can’t deliver. Running out of stock is a sure sign you need to outsource your order fulfilment – or risk losing customers!
Can’t differentiate your warehouse from your home?
Your house or garage is overflowing with cartons, tape, and bubble wrap! Has your house been taken over by packing materials? Sure, there are savings by stocking packaging products yourself, but these are short-term savings – and you end up using a lot of storage space in your own home. If you look around and see a warehouse rather than a home, you definitely need to consider a fulfilment house.
Outsourcing this means you can often get reduced rates from couriers on postage – savings which could cover the cost of getting somebody else to do your order fulfilment. See, we’ve thought this through!
It All Comes Back To Spending Your Time Wisely…
At the end of the day, choosing to outsource is how you value your time. It’s making a commitment to spending your time in ways that are going to help grow the business, not simply help it chug along. As much fun as bubble wrap can be, you shouldn’t be spending your time wrapped up in it. You’ve set up your business, you’ve got a good product, so don’t let it down by not investing your time in the necessary marketing. Outsourcing is a great way to free up your time for the more important things.
OFEX are the Order Fulfilment Experts. We provide an efficient, transparent service in order to take the stress of order fulfilment out of your hands. After all, the more time you have, the more opportunity you have to grow your business. If you’re interested in the order fulfilment opportunities OFEX can offer your business, contact us today. If you’re still not quite sure about making the move to outsource your fulfilment, OFEX are offering a free trial, so you can experience the benefits for free, risk-free.
You can also check out our Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and Youtube account for more updates.