Imagine a scenario where a customer orders a dress online, opts to pick up in store and then returns it online to the retailers 3pl or warehouse. How do you keep track? With the rising popularity of omnichannel consumer shopping patterns, retailers must be able to keep up with shopper demands. Buy online- pick up in store, ship from store, and one-hour pickup fulfillment are all expectations customers have for their experience with a retailer.
Fulfill from store (FFS) is a reoccurring challenge we are hearing from retailers who want to utilize their brick and mortar locations as alternate fulfillment centers to ship faster and have their stores become engrained within the omnichannel experience.
Key characteristics of this challenge are:
- Inventory visibility and accuracy issues.
- Siloed systems.
- A lack of smart decision-making capabilities within the software.
Inventory Visibility
How can you allocate inventory to the best possible order scenario if you do not first know what you have and where? Full visibility into inventory levels in all locations is vital to achieving FFS successfully. By having the ability to designate in-store inventory to an online order, one can save tremendous amounts in shipping costs and increase customer satisfaction.
In 2017, the average cost to fulfill an online order for a retailer comprised of 70% of the average order value. FFS and more efficient fulfillment across operations can reduce this number drastically. Just ask our customers.
Deposco customers experience an:
- Average reduction of 33% in order fulfillment cost.
- Order fulfillment in under 1 hour.
- 100% inventory visibility.
Ranked in Gartner’s magic quadrant as a top system for WMS and OMS operations, we take pride in our customers having inventory visibility not only inside the warehouse but during all phases of the fulfillment cycle.
Siloed Systems
Take a moment to think about how your operations currently communicate? Is there a disconnect similar to someone trying to call a pager from an Alexa? Having systems that can efficiently and clearly communicate is not only very important in FFS, but your entire operation. You don’t want to consistently be in a situation where you sold inventory you don’t have; creating a delay or out of stock notice aka a bad customer experience.
Deposco integrates with over 70 various ERPs, CRMs, and marketplaces, streamlining and connecting all your systems for clear communication. Deposco even connects to most homegrown systems.
Smart Software
What inventory goes where? Which location do you ship from for each specific customer? How do you create a custom experience? All these questions go back to the software you use. When looking to FFS, it is important to have an OMS system that can calculate and direct which shipping location is most cost-effective for you and efficient for the customer. Think of a time when a package you were expecting arrived early. Did you feel empowered, excited, satisfied?
Customers who had a very good experience are 3.5x more likely to repurchase and 5x more likely to recommend the company to friends and relatives than those that had a very poor experience.
Customer experience is the driver behind FFS and ultimately stepping up one’s supply chain operations.
The customer experience is omnichannel so why aren’t your fulfillment operations?
Discover if Deposco is the right fit for your business. Talk to a team member or download a customer case study to learn more!