For many businesses of all sizes, outsourcing logistics to a 3PL (third-party logistics) provider makes a lot of sense. 3PLs offer a simple solution for the complexities of warehousing and staffing, inventory management, picking and packing, transportation, order fulfillment, and tracking.
The right fulfillment partner can fill gaps in the supply chain and improve key measurements to greatly enhance customer satisfaction. A good 3PL can also help you extend your customer base, move into new markets, and improve your bottom line to give you a greater competitive advantage.
Here are just five of the benefits third-party logistics may be able to offer you and your business:
1) Cost Savings
Warehousing, labor, postage, packaging, and more are all costs that can creep up until they turn your business upside down. A quality 3PL partner can help decrease infrastructure costs (such as warehouse space, staff, IT, etc.), negotiate better rates, get volume discounts, and ultimately decrease overhead costs. These cost savings mean you have more to invest in growing your business!
2) Expertise
You can’t be an expert in everything you do – especially in the complex eCommerce market. Experienced 3PL partners have vast knowledge and expertise on all matters in logistics, such as streamlining warehousing, supporting staff, ensuring compliance, tracking, and more. That enables you to focus on what you do best and improve on your core competencies, so you can grow your business without weighing down internal resources.
3) Greater Flexibility
Business goes up and down throughout the year depending on seasonality, promotions, sales, supply chain disruptions, and more. A 3PL relationship allows you to quickly scale up or down based on your needs by leveraging the synergies of a public warehouse. This allows you to benefit from shared space, labor, capital, and more.
Additionally, using a 3PL that operates in multiple geographies allows you to expand when your business grows. By doing so, you can improve how quickly your consumers receive their goods and reduce your overall transportation spend.
4) Customer Support
Ensuring products are delivered when expected is key to customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, it’s often easier said than done. Managing orders and required inventory to meet the end-client demand is a balancing act. You may often encounter situations where you don’t have the correct amount of inventory to meet order requirements.
QuickBox has assembled a dedicated Client Services Team that can jump in and help by prioritizing required inbound inventory or assist in setting up advanced technology rules that can automatically substitute an item on an order, cancel the item that is short inventory and hold the backorder, cancel the backorder in full, or direct the order to another QuickBox warehouse if you are in more than one location.
At QuickBox, our entire team acts as an extension of your business. We will host regularly scheduled meetings to understand what pain points, trends, and demands you are seeing from your vendors/clients, and we will work with you to collaborate on how to best prepare the operation to meet and exceed expectations. Additionally, forecasting, planning, and ever-changing compliance adherence are critical to success. QuickBox is ready and able to participate in designing solutions to meet your needs as they continue to evolve.
5) Improved Transparency
Tech-enabled 3PLs like QuickBox deliver improved visibility into your business, with data that empowers you to make informed decisions and understand your customers’ habits. At QuickBox, our clients benefit from a fully transparent dashboard that runs on our iQ technology and provides a real-time view of what’s happening in your order and logistics operations.
In addition, you always have access to a real person on our client services team. At QuickBox, you get answers when you need them, instead of trying to figure everything out on your own.
Ready to learn more about QuickBox’s fulfillment services and how our third-party logistics can help your business grow? Contact us today.
COMMENTS