Tips to Improve Shopify Order Fulfillment Process

1. Tips to Improve Shopify Order Fulfillment Process Whether you have been running an online business for a while or planning to start one, you must have thought about warehousing, shipping, and fulfillment. Undoubtedly, making sales is the most exciting part of the business. However, what happens once the order is placed? Unless your products reach the customer’s address, the order is considered complete. With increasing competition in online business, you have to make sure you stay ahead of the league to grow your business. Improving the Shopify order fulfillment process is the key to ensure the timely delivery of products. The margins for errors for order fulfillment are razor-thin in the present times. Listed below are some ways to improve Shopify order fulfillment. Set a Delay Time in Order Processing Setting a delay period of two to four hours between when orders are placed and when they are prepared followed by the shipping is one of the easiest ways of reducing chargebacks and fraudulent orders. Most online businesses that outsource their order fulfillment default to shipping orders immediately after they are placed because such online firms want to improve the overall customer experience. However, delaying orders to even two hours is worth a decision to make sure they are legitimate. Many warehousing and fulfilment centers have found that a two to four hours delay in processing orders prevented them from shipping a fraudulent order. Even a small change like this can help you in saving money on operational costs. Delay in order by two hours lets you know if the order is legitimate.

2. Implement Zone Skipping It is the method of distributing inventory to various warehouse locations to lower costs and speed shipping times making it an indispensable part of free shipping strategies. For instance, if your warehouses are spread across the USA and a customer for California places an order, you would ship the products from a San Francisco warehouse, instead of a warehouse in New York. Zone skipping can help in saving on shipping costs. Zone Skipping is all about being strategic where you store your products. It costs more upfront to spend money on fulfillment and storage in several locations, though it helps in saving money in the coming years by minimizing shipping costs. Some companies experience demand once or a few times a year and thus find that operating and managing several fulfilment centers is expensive. Such online companies can use popup fulfilment centers for achieving zone skipping demand when the demand is high. Provide the customer with options of self-service Once the order is placed, customers want to know where their order has reached. Tracking the order is a curiosity among customers. On average, customers look at their ordered package page 3.5 times per order. If online businesses do not provide self-service tracking to customers, they email or call the customer service team for constant updates, this clogging the flow of your team. Providing customers with self-service package tracking can cut out all the work for the Shopify order fulfillment team leaving them with time to focus on preparing and shipping the order. To sum-up, Optimizing the Shopify order fulfillment process is an on-going procedure for even the most renowned and biggest warehouses in the world. Following the above- mentioned tips can make a difference in your bottom line giving your business a much- needed boost. So, they are a great place to begin.