There's only 2 kinds of people in insane asylums: the folks who tried to single-handedly do their e-commerce store's fulfillment, and everyone else.
If you’re still DIY-ing your order fulfillment, you might be wondering if you need a fulfillment center. Well, let’s save you the suspense: yeah, you probably do.
Maybe you enjoy spending your days knee-deep in packing peanuts and using your car as an impromptu delivery van. Maybe you wake up in the morning excited to play a masochistic version of Tetris with boxes that barely fit. If that’s your idea of a good time, who are we to judge? (note: doesn't change the fact that you're a disgusting sicko though).
But if you’re regularly sending out more than a couple hundred orders a month and actually have plans for your business beyond "I just send out orders, that is the purpose for my existence", then this post is for you.
Here's why you should consider partnering with a fulfillment center for your e-commerce business.
1. You’ll Finally Get Your Space (and Sanity) Back
You've got a gun to your head and 10 seconds to answer: is this a picture of a studio apartment or a warehouse? Better say your goodbyes.
Reality: Using your home as a warehouse was cute for a while, but now the novelty has worn off... especially since the fancy old ladies have stopped chuckling and commenting "how quaint" when you tell them about it at tea parties.
It's important to separate work from home if you want to keep what's left of your sanity, and it's hard to do that when your home is literally your place of business. Plus, having boxes of inventory stacked in your hallway makes it hard for your children to throw sick house parties when you're out of town, and denying them that is just bad parenting.
2. It’s Faster Than You’ll Ever Be
If you're even a day late on shipping, this is how customers will want to see you.
Reality: Customers expect Amazon Prime shipping speeds, and if they don't get them they will publicly shame you. Or just... not buy from your store again. A good fulfillment center can process and ship customer orders each day, if not multiple times per day, and will have orders out so fast it'll give your customers whiplash.
Also, like taking vacations? If you're handling your business's order fulfillment by yourself you better -as they say in the mobster movies- "fuhgeddaboudit". Customers want their orders now goddamit, and that's not happening if you're trying to handle shipping on your own while also enjoying the sun on a beach somewhere.
3. It’ll Save You From Shipping Nightmares
Generic Logistics stock images are a staple of generic fulfillment centers.
Reality: You know what’s more stressful than trying to figure out shipping costs? Trying to explain to your customer why their package is lost somewhere over the Pacific, and then fighting the mail courier (sometimes physically but usually metaphorically) over whether you deserve a refund for that.
Fulfillment centers deal with logistics all day, erry day (that wasn't a spelling error --we like to occasionally use "street lingo" in order to stay cool). Fulfillment centers handle all the routing, rates, and deal with the courier companies when things go wrong; so you can skip the headaches and focus on what you do best.
4. You Won’t Have to Become a Warehouse Expert
"Don't touch anything! As you can see, I keep my store's inventory very well organized."
Reality: Shelving units, inventory management, temperature control… unless you've got a degree in "Shelf-ology" (which is a very real and super serious major... just like Accounting), you'll have to learn how to handle these and become an expert in them.
That's time you could have instead wasted spacing out while a Youtube video endlessly loops in the background. Or even better, that's time you could have invested into other aspects of your business.
5. You Can Scale Without Losing Your Mind
That amazing feeling when you reach the top of the mountain and find more mountain waiting for you. Why is it amazing? Because there's a fulfillment center there too.
Reality: Growth is exciting until you’re buried under a ton of orders and customer support messages, and the only way out starts to look a lot like a thick rope hanging from the ceiling (not from the fan though, that would be silly).
A fulfillment center can scale with your business, seamlessly handling any overflow. More orders? No problem. In fact, they'll probably be salivating to partner with you, if your business even hints at steady growth.
Fulfillment centers generally have the capacity to handle your business scaling, which means you won’t have to panic every time you start to make more sales. You will have to keep panicking every time a customer support message arrives, but at least you're not multi-tasking your trauma!
6. You’ll Actually Save Money in the Long Run
The numbers don't lie. Not only do they spell "disaster" for Samoan Joe at Sacrifice, but they also show you're saving money!
Reality: Sure, you’re paying for fulfillment services, but you’re also cutting down significantly on shipping costs, reducing errors, and freeing up time to bring in new business. Time is money, and money is money, and you can finally stop throwing both away on a process that could be handled by specialists. Use your hard-earned savings for mobile game gacha instead.
In addition to writing informative and sarcastic blogposts, we also run Mix-Mix Mail --a fulfillment center for e-commerce stores! Does that make us biased? Probably. Does it make any of what we wrote untrue? Nope. If you're looking for a fulfillment center that specializes in e-commerce and international shipping, look no further. Or, uh, no further than the rest of our website.