When expanding your business, managing your logistics in-house becomes difficult. Sometimes, you get caught up with core business activities and need more time to focus on the order fulfillment process. However, if your orders are not delivered on time, it can lead to a bad customer experience. Or worse, it can harm your reputation in the market. Therefore, you must have an optimized order fulfillment process.
3PL(Third-party logistics) can help elevate your supply chain process with their professional and cost-effective services, including third party warehouses, order processing, inventory management, packaging, and order fulfillment, enabling you to focus on your core business.
What is 3PL Warehousing?
Third-party logistics warehousing or 3PL is the outsourcing of eCommerce logistics services to a third-party business who is responsible for managing all aspects of the business’s shipping operations. With their vast exposure and expertise, 3PLs simplify all the logistics processes for sellers. They have complete authority over the warehouse, operations and inventory within the 3PL warehouse.
A 3PL company offers eCommerce order fulfillment solutions, including warehousing, order processing, order fulfillment, and inventory management. Some 3PL companies also offer cold-warehousing solutions, allowing you to store perishable and temperature-controlled goods.
Benefits of 3PL Providers
Let us take a look at how 3PL providers can be beneficial for your eCommerce business.
Cost-Effective Services
3PL providers have connections with courier companies and can negotiate better shipping rates. Also, since they have many customers, they can get better discounts and additional advantages. 3PL can save you a significant amount on shipping costs.
Also, when you store your inventory in their fulfillment centers, you save yourself a big chunk of expenses. First, you need to hire a space to meet your warehousing needs. Second, warehousing has several costs, like operational costs, maintenance, staff salary, etc. Alternatively, when you partner with a 3PL provider, you only pay for the storage space you are using.
Flexibility
Every business witnesses demand fluctuation. A 3PL provider helps cope with this uncertainty in the market. A 3PL alleviates your risk as you only have to pay for the space you occupy. As mentioned above, you don’t have to invest anything in the warehousing space or other related expenses. Thus, you never pay anything extra for the services you are not using.
Delightful Customer Experience
With the increasing trend of same-day and next-day delivery, your shipping speed needs to be super-fast to provide a superior customer experience. A 3PL provider has a vast distribution network that you can leverage to offer the fastest order delivery to your customers in every corner of the country.
Additional Services
Apart from storing and managing inventory and fulfilling orders, a 3PL provider offers various other services. For instance, they also manage your return orders. A 3PL also helps with documentation and customs duties if you ship orders internationally. You can also opt to secure your high-value shipments in case of shipment damage or loss in transit.
Latest Trends in the 3PL Industry
The advancement in the technological sector has helped many businesses grow faster. Therefore, it is crucial that the 3PL industry also takes advantage of the technology and develops better and more efficient services for its clients. Here are some latest and ongoing trends in the 3PL industry:
Robotics
Many 3PL providers use mobile robots in the warehousing unit to make the processes faster and more efficient. Though many 3PL service providers were using robotics for their operations earlier also, the adoption of robotics accelerated in 2020 during COVID-19, when the eCommerce industry accelerated.
Internet of Things
An IoT community helps in enhancing the visibility of the products in transit. They help in locating their position and keeping track. Many 3PLs trace goods using tagging chips that help identify and find them. But, by using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags, the physical limitation is eliminated.
Analytics
The shippers can make data-driven and informed decisions with insightful and concrete data. This helps in fulfilling orders on time. It also leads to complete visibility of the order and delivery. With data, the 3PL companies will also be able to track all the supply chain processes efficiently. For instance, with Shiprocket Engage, online sellers get access to data that helps them identify high-RTO addresses before shipping an order. This helps in reducing RTO considerably and delivering orders on time.
Cross-Border Shipping
Sellers are quickly going global now, serving people in all parts of the world resulting in an increase in cross-border shipping. There are a few challenges in terms of documentation that many sellers need help with. However, many 3PLs are also helping sellers with documentation, custom duty, and all other requirements to help in cross-border freight, which leads to delivering orders on time and increasing profit margins.
Why is Shiprocket Fulfillment the Best 3PL Partner for Your eCommerce Business?
Shiprocket Fulfillment has 45+ state-of-the-art fulfillment centers across all major locations in India. Our quick onboarding process allows you to partner with us quickly and helps scale your business faster. You can store your inventory close to your buyers in our technology-enabled fulfillment centers and save up to 20% on shipping costs. Also, provide your customers with a superior customer experience by offering them one day/two days order delivery and decreasing your RTO by 60%.
