Multi channel Fulfilment

[Leesalad]

We are on online retailer that sells sports & leisurewear. We currently trade on ebay, Amazon and are shortly looking to establish a website.
We currently fulfil about 200 orders a day with about 30% of orders going to International customers outside of the EU predominately to the US and Australia.
We are looking to outsource our order fulfilment. I have approached a couple of fulfilment companies for quotes. The best rates appear to be those provided by Amazon’s multi channel fulfilment. The big advantage they seem to have over other fulfilment companies is that they include recorded post /shipping in the price. However Amazon have informed me that they could fulfil my multichannel UK and EU orders but not international orders (non EU).
Can anyone confirm that Amazon do not do multichannel international fulfilment?
· I would appreciate your thoughts on how we could organise our customer order fulfilment, Using a combination of Amazon fulfilment for UK/EU orders and either fulfilling international orders ourselves or using another fulfilment company.
· Using an alternative fulfilment company to fulfil all orders, however we would need them to compete on price with Amazon (Amazon have quoted me £1.40 to fulfil a UK customer order for a T shirt. (This would include store, pick, pack and dispatch by recorded post)
If a tall possible we want to have one fulfilment provider rather than splitting our stock between several providers
Any ideas you have would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
Lee

 

[spamalot]

The Amazon costs quoted are for orders obtained through Amazon, these rates are heaving discounted due to Amazon huge buying power as well as being subsidised by the commissions you pay them. They won't be beaten through a 3rd party service. I'd say double that is much more realistic.

 

[IanDade]

As a 3rd party fulfilment centre, i can confirm, there is no way that we can compete with Amazon sales that are fulfilled by FBA, they discount the cost so much because of the other fees that you are charged. £1.40 would barely cover the cost of the postage (depending on the size of the parcel)

However, FBA costs for orders placed on eBay, Play, websites etc are a different matter. This is where 3rd party fulfilment centres like ours can compete as it is a level playing field. And because it matters not to us which sales channel your order came from, we also offer a more personal service than FBA (or so we have been told!)

A number of our clients split their stock between FBA and us, but a few are now bringing FBA stock and order processing back to us as well, although we may be a % higher in costs some people prefer the contactabilty and personal touch as opposed to the corporate system of FBA. (Again, so we have been told, this is not an FBA rant from a smaller competitor!!!)

 

[ProjectOcto]

So why are you looking to outsource - to reduce costs? Would therefore presume you are trying to compare external costs v staff costs?

 

[Leesalad]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

I have calculated the approx cost below for Amazon fulfilling a multi-channel order for example on on ebay or our own website.

To store, pick, pack and dispatch a 200 gram order (large letter) to a UK address by recorded 2/3 days. Amazon fee £2.00

The same as above but for a 500 gram packet £3.10

The same as above but for a 800 gram packet £3.55

These rates compare very favourably with our current pick, pack and dispatch overheads.

Would you be able to match or better these rates?

Thanks

Lee