Cloud-Based Order Fulfillment Software

Check the quantity of goods against the initial purchase order
Inspect the inventory for any damage to the products
Enter the SKUs into their inventory management system, warehouse management system or 3PL Software system to ensure visibility over the products
Apply barcodes or SKUs if the manufacturer hasn’t already provided them
Directed putaway through smart and flexible putaway algorithms and rules.

In some warehouses, a product’s SKU determines where it’s stored in the warehouse. All products with that SKU may sit in one bin. This way, workers know exactly which location stores a specific category of items.

Other warehouses with more sophisticated systems take an “organized chaos” approach to inventory storage. Instead of assigning designated locations for products, every shelf or bin has a barcode and workers place items on any shelf during the putaway process. When a worker places the item on a shelf, they scan both the item and the shelf. This way, when it’s time to pick the item, the worker can find it again. This approach has two key advantages:

The putaway process is faster since workers don’t have to travel to a specific area to put an item.
The picking process is faster since a worker can travel to the nearest shelf for the item they need.

This model is more suited to a B2C order fulfillment or D2C e-commerce fulfillment operation with hundreds of different products. These businesses are shipping smaller orders to a higher volume of customers, so it’s better to spread items throughout the warehouse.

An “organized chaos” model isn’t the best approach for B2B order fulfillment. Since these businesses manage bulk orders to a smaller number of customers on a regular schedule, an organized, segmented distribution center is a better approach.

A segmented warehouse is also important for businesses managing food, chemicals, or other products with special or regulated handling requirements.

Best Layout for Order Fulfillment

Your layout is another factor that determines how you approach your fulfillment process. If you choose a segmented layout, you can assign workers to put away items in specific areas of the warehouse. This limits the area workers have to cover and speeds up your putaway process. After all, the faster items are stored, the faster they can be picked for incoming orders.

If you choose the organized chaos method, you can use directed putaway plans or algorithms to determine the routes workers take when picking items. With both methods, the ultimate goal is to get items on the shelves as quickly as possible while ensuring their locations are properly recorded in the order fulfillment system.

Getting items entered into inventory and on the shelf quickly helps prevent stockouts. When there’s a stockout, customers quickly look elsewhere for the product they want. In the highly competitive online shopping industry, an efficient e-commerce fulfillment strategy that maintains healthy inventory levels is essential.

Another way to ensure the health of your e-commerce fulfillment strategy is to integrate your online sales channels (your catalogs) with your order fulfillment software.

Once the order comes in, it should be pushed to the order management system (OMS), which creates a pick order. The longer it takes for the order to move from the sales channel to the warehouse, the longer the order fulfillment process takes.

Warehouse Integration for Better Order Fulfillment

Businesses can introduce significant efficiencies by integrating their various sales channels with their order management software.

Logiwa with multi-warehouse functionality also supports this effort. Large operations can link their sales channels to their entire network of warehouses. This way, if they’re out of stock at the default location, the order will be instantly pushed to another warehouse so a sale is never lost.

If you have a coveted membership to Amazon’s Seller Fulfilled Prime, efficiency and integration are particularly important. Seller Fulfilled Prime has high standards that participants must meet to remain in the program. For example, sellers must ship their products on time 99 percent of the time. Integrating the Amazon Prime sales channel with an order fulfillment software helps brands cut down on processing times and meet the required performance metrics.

Ecommerce Order Fulfillment

As an ecommerce retailer, your company may sell your products on more than one marketplace. As a result, inventory management can be a struggle. Your customers don’t care about that. They care that they ordered a product you told them was in stock, but it's actually on back order. How do you fight these problems? By implementing a order fulfillment system with advanced integration capabilities. Especially if you offer kits and bundles to your customers.

Once the order comes in, it should be pushed to the order management system (OMS), which creates a pick order. The longer it takes for the order to move from the sales channel to the warehouse, the longer the order fulfillment process takes.

Integration for Better Order Fulfillment

Businesses can introduce significant efficiencies by integrating their various sales channels with their order management software.

Logiwa with multi-warehouse functionality also supports this effort. Large operations can link their sales channels to their entire network of warehouses. This way, if they’re out of stock at the default location, the order will be instantly pushed to another location so a sale is never lost.

If you have a coveted membership to Amazon’s Seller Fulfilled Prime, efficiency and integration are particularly important. Seller Fulfilled Prime has high standards that participants must meet to remain in the program. For example, sellers must ship their products on time 99 percent of the time. Integrating the Amazon Prime sales channel with an order fulfillment software helps brands cut down on processing times and meet the required performance metrics.

Ecommerce Order Fulfillment

As an ecommerce retailer, your company may sell your products on more than one marketplace. As a result, inventory management can be a struggle. Your customers don’t care about that. They care that they ordered a product you told them was in stock, but it's actually on back order. How do you fight these problems? By implementing a order fulfillment system with advanced integration capabilities. Especially if you offer kits and bundles to your customers.

Oftentimes, workers will pick an oversized box to quickly get the order shipped. Since these boxes are more expensive than smaller boxes, they become an unnecessary expense. Moreover, carriers like UPS and FedEx have adopted dimensional weight pricing to account for the amount of space these massive, lightweight packages take up in their trucks.

Prevent Unnecessary Packing Costs

The first strategy is to improve their layout. In an organized packing area, all boxes should be in one section, allowing workers to quickly find the box they need.

The second strategy is to use 3D packing software. This automation software is especially helpful for multi-item orders. Instead of figuring out which box to use through trial and error, workers look at a monitor which shows them in a 3D image which box to use and how to position products inside the box.

With a multi-warehouse system, your order management system can push orders to the location closest to the recipient’s address. Not only does this shorten order fulfillment times, it decreases your warehouse’s transportation costs as well.

This human resources optimization can be accomplished at two keys stages of order fulfillment:

Receiving

During the receiving stage, warehouses can use their workers more efficiently by embracing cross-docking. When applied correctly, cross-docking reduces waste, uses workers more efficiently, and frees up capital that’s typically tied up in inventory management (i.e., carrying costs).

The standard workflow operates like this: Goods arrive on incoming trucks; workers inspect the inventory, enter the SKUs into the system, and put away the items on the shelves.

With the cross-docking method, items are never entered into inventory. Workers receive items at the dock and inspect them. Once the delivery is accepted, orders are moved straight from the inbound dock to the outbound dock for shipment to customers. The putaway and picking processes are completely bypassed.

This is useful for businesses that ship out a high volume of the same type of orders. Since they know orders for specific products are always coming in, it’s more efficient to simply ship items out the moment they arrive. This practice speeds up their overall order fulfillment time.

Keep in mind: cross-docking is not something warehouses should do manually. A manual cross-docking operation lengthens, rather than shortens, order fulfillment times. This method requires sophisticated warehouse management software to keep tabs on which items should be cross-docked and which items should be entered into inventory.

Logiwa also handles the scheduling complexity that comes with cross-docking. Since it requires workers to spend more time at the docks, managers must ensure docks are free for use to avoid bottlenecks. In addition, they must schedule the right number of people at the right time of day to account for incoming shipments.

Processing

Order picking methods also impact how streamlined the processing stage is. Once items are entered into inventory, there must be an efficient method for retrieving them after an order comes in. There are several strategies a manager can employ, including batch picking, zone picking, and wave picking. Perhaps the most popular method for busy warehouses is wave picking.

With wave picking, managers schedule “picks” in waves. They look at the incoming orders, assign orders a priority (based on their delivery due dates), and then group them into waves. Each wave is tied to the schedule of an outbound truck. For instance, all the picks from the first wave of the day would end up on the 1:00 P.M. fleet of outbound trucks.

This method ties the order fulfillment process to customer satisfaction. Workers manage orders not in order of receipt, but in order of priority.

Like cross-docking, wave picking relies on a sophisticated WMS Software to manage the intricacies of delivery times, transportation schedules, and more. Once implemented, the right picking method can dramatically improve your order processing times.

While dropshipping a potentially lucrative revenue stream for order fulfillment companies, there is the risk of biting off more than you can chew. There’s a reason owners work with retailers--they have experience offering a satisfactory customer experience.

If warehouses want to do the same, they need to put processes in place to ensure timely order fulfillment. This includes:

A smooth receiving process, including cross-docking when appropriate
Using effective order picking methods like wave picking to make the best use of workers
3D packing software to quickly package goods for shipment
Integrating enterprise systems for easy data sharing (e.g., integrating sales channels with your warehouse)

Cloud Based All-In-One
Order Fulfillment Software

Order fulfillment describes the steps that brands take to get their products to their customers. A good order fulfillment strategy ensures cost-effectiveness while also protecting the customer experience and leveraging various channels and tools for fulfillment support

State-Of-The-Art Order Fufillment Software Packed For B2C

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Why You Need Order Fulfillment Software

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Logiwa ensures accurate and real-time inventory management across all your sales channels and warehouses. At the same time, our software allows you to execute advanced fulfillment strategies like wave-planning, cluster picking and cross-docking.

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What Is The Receiving Stage of Order Fulfillment?