fulfilment Centres

[lavster]

My partner and I have recently aquifer a self storage unit. We are also contemplating setting up a fulfilment business to pick / pack and post for other businesses. It’s been a few years since I ran my own business and I know FBA has taken over the world even more so since then, so wondering what people’s thoughts are on this? I’ve found an out of the box solution that would allow customers to have access to their own portal and allow us to do everything we’d need to accurately fulfil their orders.

 

[chappers27]

Ecommerce Fulfilment is a growing market, definitely. James and James in Northampton are evidence of this. They built their own software so I'd consider the software you want to use as a matter of priority. Research the competition - pfsweb, james and james, huboo, Fulfillable, ShipBob, Cloud Fulfilment

 

[Ivanzyt]

One of my businesses is a 3PL provider. It is a competitive but growing market. But there is plenty of room for new players. I think the key is to focus on what makes you different. For us it's all about our people and how we foster really close working relationships with our customers. But there are many other ways to differentiate.

Broadly speaking you have three strategies open

Operational excellence - focus on super slick integrations, processes, and software. This is how you become supper efficient and so can offer great pricing.

Product/service leadership - offer additional service above and beyond the rest of the market.

Customer intimacy - offer bespoke and tailored services with very close working relationships.

Now all three are important so no one can ignore any of these areas, especially not operational excellence, any 3PL needs to be good in this due to the nature of the business. But it does not have to be the main differentiator that will give you your USP. For us, it's actually the customer intimacy bit that gives us our edge, for you it might be something different depending on your setup. But I think to succeed you will be some differentiator as it is a competitive field.

The out-of-the-box software we use is MintSoft which is pretty good and allows portal access for customers like you describe. There are others on the market that are good as far as I know.

 

[AmazonGeek]

If you want to compete with FBA you will need to look into meeting the Selller-Fulfilled Prime standards. This allows sellers to get the Prime badge on their products when using a 3PL instead of FBA. Not easy though as the standards are very high and one small mistake and the Prime badge can be lost...

Seller Fulfilled Prime - Features & Benefits | Amazon UK

Sell products with the Prime badge directly from your warehouse with Amazon Seller Fulfilled Prime. Know the features and benefits of seller fulfilled prime.

sell.amazon.co.uk