Outsourcing order fulfillment versus employing staff in house

[luckyg]

Having this dilemna at the moment. Trying to decide which route to take

It is so difficult to cost up the in house solution.

Has anyone done this previously and how did you get on.

[nekoinu]

It depend on the situation, if your making a bunch of the same product you can outsource. If your making say computers and might get custom orders then you might as well do it in house. Fulfillment costs vary depending on weight and size of the items.

I wouldn't worry about the costs, my rule is if the business makes money then the costs of doing business aren't that important. You can't spend all day figuring out the estimated costs as it's not going to be a correct figure anyway. Focus on the business and everything else will come together as it's needed.

[jaspey]

I wouldn't worry about the costs, my rule is if the business makes money then the costs of doing business aren't that important.
I presume with an attitude like that your not very successful then?
Costs are extremely important regardless of what business you run.

[nekoinu]

I presume with an attitude like that your not very successful then?
Costs are extremely important regardless of what business you run.

If you call being 23, living a 4 bedroom house that is completely paid off, and driving around in Porsche's unsuccessful then you got a point. Granted the majority of my funds came from investing in stocks at an early age.

As for the costs, I never said it was not important at all... just don't get caught up in it. I know people who complain about things like a phone bill being $70 when another company gives them the same thing for $60... but it's not worth the time it takes to switch, they still do it anyway and then find out that yes, you normally do get what you pay for and the new service doesn't work for them.

[jaspey]

Nice come back but in all fairness what exactly is your point? your advising somebody that business running costs are not important! I saved my company over £2k in operating costs last year by switching providers and boxing clever, every single penny of overhead counts, so if you can viably reduce it then why the heck not? $10 is $10, its better in my pocket! heck you never know, you might actually be able to afford to put fuel in that porsche of yours :/

[nekoinu]

Saved your company 2k? Unless it's a one man business that's pocket change. Saving $10 is fine but if it took more than 5 minutes to save the $10 then it wasn't worth it.

And again, I did NOT say that it wasn't important at all. You obviously can't spend more on operating than you make. But there's no reason to try and save a buck when the end result is taking longer to do things. Time is money, you got to be efficient. If being efficient costs a bit more thats fine as you'll get more volume.

Edit: I can also afford my fuel just fine, thank you for being concerned about my well being though.

[Christiane]

Back to the OP question :rolleyes:

I think it also depends on what you sell. It wouldn't work for what I sell.

If you get part time staff, keep them within the minimum weekly allowance below NI and Tax. I think that's where it'll become harder to calculate when you have to add NI and Tax which can add up to a few £100s a month.
Would you have to rent a unit, etc? What have you included in your in-house calculations? Payroll, electricity/water, business rates, packaging, etc?

[EH7]

If you call being 23, living a 4 bedroom house that is completely paid off, and driving around in Porsche's unsuccessful then you got a point. Granted the majority of my funds came from investing in stocks at an early age.

As for the costs, I never said it was not important at all... just don't get caught up in it. I know people who complain about things like a phone bill being $70 when another company gives them the same thing for $60... but it's not worth the time it takes to switch, they still do it anyway and then find out that yes, you normally do get what you pay for and the new service doesn't work for them.

"Majority" being code for all of, therefore having no experience in running a business. If you have an attitude like you have, you won't run a succesful business, and a 2k saving is important to any business any size. Congratulations you either got lucky on stocks or inherited some money, don't go giving people advice on something you know nothing about.

[SIX1]

Having this dilemna at the moment. Trying to decide which route to take

It is so difficult to cost up the in house solution.

Has anyone done this previously and how did you get on.

If you're finishing or creating the items yourself, custom building etc then it's porbably best to keep that bit yourself.

But if you're selling a set of defined products that it would seem obvious that a company that just does nothing but send orders out will always be cheaper - they can invest in better equipment, get better scales of economy with couriers and have the staff to cope with peaks.

More over they are generally better at it, though I started by own fulfilment company because I couldn't find one that could give really good data over the web - we use this for running automated emailers and email campaigns and it has really helped to get the second, third purchase and keep up customer retention. The data feed needs to be real time though to be of use.

Have a look at our site sixworks.co.uk, which will explain a bit more about customer marketing. Probably useful even if you decide to do it yourself.

James

[luckyg]

As the one who started this thread, I originally did a lot of research into all providers in the UK. I went with one back in march and am extremely happy with them. I think i have definitely found the best of the lot!

If anyone wants a recommendation please pm me.

[TheProducers]

We offer a full range of fulfilment and related services take a look around our website site and give us a call
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