How do you do it?

[sglobal]

Hello everyone, I'd love to learn from experiences of fellow e-commerce sellers. I've a small home-based online selling business (selling on eBay and Amazon). I get few orders from both on daily basis. But I'm somewhat struggling with few things at the moment.
My biggest problem right now is I can't figure out how to manage my orders better. Right now I get orders, I paste the addresses in a word document and print out all the addresses on labels and then post the orders. Then if I get inquired about the order etc.. few days/weeks later because customer hasn't received it, I don't know if and when I posted it and then I troll through all the word documents.
I'd like to know how you guys better manage your whole dispatch cycle. So from the moment you get order to packaging to labelling to posting it.
I really hope someone would be able to help me and I'll be able to learn from your expertise. Thanks.

 

[Stanton22]

We use Linnworks to manage our stock, and if you have under 200 different items you can use it for free. There is free stock management software out there but you'll have to do a Google search for them.
Most software will read the address from the marketplace and print it as you like onto a label for you (although this may take some tinkering).

Get a Drop & Go account with your local post office and you print off your own manifest (which they stamp as your proof of postage for multiple items), this way you can see what you posted and when on a daily basis, and not having hundreds of post office receipts.

 

[GraemeL]

Same for us. We use Linnworks to create our delivery notes and invoices. It is integrated with Parcelforce so we can print the bar coded delivery label and have a tracking number.

Linnworks holds the records of every order. Parcelforce can give POD as necessary, so all of the process from receipt of order to customer delivery is traceable.

Our products are relatively high value though, so getting a POD for every one is important and is economically viable.

Have you checked the cost of a 'signed for' delivery to the amount/time you spend on rectifications and the less tangible customer satisfaction?

G

 

[Chris34]

For Ebay, just download the CSV file of your sales from Ebay and open it up in Excel. Delete the columns you don't need and then print it off. That is your order list with the addresses and item names. Then as you pack each item cross it off the list. If need be you can make a note of the date of posting on your order list and by what method. Then once you have done all the days orders file the list away. You will only need that list again if somebody queries an order that has been despatched.

Don't forget to mark your orders as despatched in Ebay one you have downloaded and printed off the CSV file.

For Amazon, ask someone else as I don't sell on there


Chris.

 

[Tech4Homes]

I use Opencart & Kash Flow to manage mine.

When I receive an order I set the dispatch status etc via Opencart. If I have to post it myself then when I set the status to dispatched I'll put the tracking number in, easy to find it then.

When I receive an order that I drop ship this is all managed in Kash Flow (accounts software) as when you raise a purchase order you can email it and it logs it. I'll then return to Opencart to change the status. If an order goes missing you can cross reference it and find it fairly easy based on dates etc. May get difficult if you have more than 20 orders a day admittedly but adding a Kash Flow purchase number to your open cart status will resolve that.

For eBay, I've not been successful on ebay yet so haven't had many orders but my Opencart imports the orders so it is handled in exactly the same way.

 

[JJWinst]

Hello everyone, I'd love to learn from experiences of fellow e-commerce sellers. I've a small home-based online selling business (selling on eBay and Amazon). I get few orders from both on daily basis. But I'm somewhat struggling with few things at the moment.
My biggest problem right now is I can't figure out how to manage my orders better. Right now I get orders, I paste the addresses in a word document and print out all the addresses on labels and then post the orders. Then if I get inquired about the order etc.. few days/weeks later because customer hasn't received it, I don't know if and when I posted it and then I troll through all the word documents.
I'd like to know how you guys better manage your whole dispatch cycle. So from the moment you get order to packaging to labelling to posting it.
I really hope someone would be able to help me and I'll be able to learn from your expertise. Thanks.

The easiest thing to do for eBay sales is to use their "Print Postage Label" service which is linked in with RM. You pay for it through eBay and they give you a label to print off and stick on to your package. Put them all in a sack and drop off at the PO.

With Amazon, set up an account with RM and do it the same way..enter the delivery address into RM and print off the label and stick to the package.

 

[Pish_Pash]

sglobal ...as others have said, get yourself Linnworks - I too was in your position & getting in a bit of a mess with tracking all my orders & inventory (not to mention looking a bit unprofessional!).

Since getting Linnworks, this is all a breeze...also my packing errors are now nil (I always used to seem to make packaing errors for shipments destined for the farthest places...eg Oz - terrible to correct...time wise & expense wise!).

After I've packed all my orders I cross check them with the notification emails I originally received from either Opencart, Amazon or Ebay (just to make sure all orders are packed & accounted for). Linnworks can notify all your customers that their order has been dispacthed, but I don't use this method (I'd rather control notification myself...therefore I use Ebay's selling manager pro, which has a template set up, so that when I click on 'dispatched' myebay customers get an email, with Opencart ..i just manually update to the order to 'shipped' with 'notify customer' ticked & amazon auto notify when I mark as dispatched)

 

[Alan]

Regarding labels, I found the small 'documents enclosed' stick on window things (C5?) great. Then I'd print the invoice or despatch note and fold it so the delivery address shows and slip it in the packet. No copying & pasting to labels.

 

[JamieM]

Then if I get inquired about the order etc.. few days/weeks later because customer hasn't received it, I don't know if and when I posted it and then I troll through all the word documents.

Are you not marking as dispatched on the eBay and Amazon systems?

 

[AndyP]

As others have said, take a look at Linnworks... it will do exactly what you want. As you are selling on two platforms you really need these to be integrated, plus of course, by using Linn you will be able to spread your inventory so that your entire stock will be for sale on both platforms and as individual items sell Linn will adjust stock for you across all platforms.

 

[antropy]

+1 for Linnworks!

But also look at the latest version of www.opencart.com which can manage you stock levels, automatically list products, and import orders from eBay/Amazon.

 

[sglobal]

Wow, I'm honestly overwhelmed by the response! Thanks everyone for sharing your personal daily experience with me.
I downloaded Linnworks few weeks ago but didn't really use it seriously. But last night after reading few messages, I've been following the video tutorials on Youtube and I'm going to start using it properly now.
I'll also look into Opencart.

 

[Fairway Fulfilment]

Hi there, I just came across your post and wondered if you have thought about outsourcing this work to a professional logistics/fulfilment company. Fulfilment companies carry out this work for their customers with ease as they have systems in place to receive the orders, pick and pack them and distribute them on time. You may be surprised at how cost effective it works out as the time and stress it saves you, frees up your time to market your products and gain more sales. Just a thought!

 

[monaghan]

I've been working with a fulfilment company and their internal system has an API making it relatively easy to pull order details from a shopping cart and push this to the fulfilment company and then pull the order tracking data back into the cart once the order has been dispatched.

I'm working on this in an integration capacity rather than as a shop owner, but the whole process runs a treat at a technical level, customer places an order, the cart collects payment, squirts data over the Internet to the fulfilment house who ship the order, the tracking number is sent back to the cart and applied to the order, the cart notifies the shipment status and tracking number, everyone happy.