A fulfillment center refers to a third-party service provider that ships or processes products your customers have ordered. It takes care of the logistics part, such as packaging, labeling, and shipping required to deliver an order to your customer’s doorstep.
How does a fulfillment center work?
- The fulfillment center receives the products you intend to sell
- You integrate your online stores with the fulfillment center’s systems
- The fulfillment center gets order information
- The fulfillment center packs, labels, and ships the fulfilled orders
Features of a good fulfillment center:
- Ability to integrate with every platform on which you sell
- Strong IT department
- Minimal downtime
- Knowledgeable and responsive support team to help solve your issues quickly
Fulfillment centers are important for the eCommerce brands as they eliminate the need to maintain a physical location for processing the orders. Additionally, they help businesses in:
- Offering a wide range of products
- Shipping their orders fast
- Reducing staffing costs significantly
- Scaling fast
There are many companies in the market that offer fulfillment services, such as Fulfillment by Amazon services, FedEx Fulfillment, Floship, and James and James Fulfillment.