eCommerce 3PL: Difference Between The Pros And The Posers

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3PLs are everywhere these days, but what makes one good and another bad? The answer is simple: it’s all about the pros.

3PL stands for third party logistics provider, which basically means a company that ships your products to your customers on your behalf. These providers can be everything from small family-owned companies to large corporations with warehouses across the country.

When you sign up for this service, do you want someone who will just take care of things or someone who knows how to handle eCommerce businesses like yours? Here are some tips on what separates the pros from the posers in 3PL services.

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Difference Between The Pros And The Posers

Fulfilling Orders

One of the essential services offered by the eCommerce 3PL is fulfilling orders. The posers try to fit the services of the retailers into the solutions they offer. They tend to force their answers on the retailers. Their primary focus is on quantity instead of quality. 

Posers tend to set up systems that best fit their operations. However, this is just the reverse in the case of the real pros. The pros focus on fulfilling orders in the best possible way to benefit the eCommerce businesses. They customize their processes and systems to meet the specific requirements of the business clients.

The pro eCommerce 3PLs enable the retailers to provide the customers with optimum convenience. In addition to effective home deliveries, they offer a wide range of fulfillment efforts like curbside pickup and BOPIS (buy online pickup in-store). 

To meet the demands of retailers during the peak seasons, the real pros can scale up. However, while focusing on the increased quantity, they make sure not to compromise on quality in any manner. As your eCommerce business grows with time, the real 3PLs quickly scale up to enhance their product storage capacity and staff to meet your order fulfillment demands. 

On the other hand, posers also commit to fulfilling orders during the peak seasons. However, most of the time, they fail owing to the absence of the ability to scale up. 

When fulfilling orders, the true pros ensure delivering customized experiences through custom packaging, product engraving, and other personalization services. 

Focus on Quality 

Without any doubt, every eCommerce business would want to deliver quality services to its customers. However, during the peak demand, most retailers are likely to focus on the volume of order handling. 

The posers focus more on the volume of transactions that they are capable of handling. All the promises and commitments made by them revolve around quantity and not quality. They even overlook the customer experiences.

On the other hand, the real pros of eCommerce 3PL prioritize quality over quantity. They consider every minute detail while delivering their services. Irrespective of the number of orders, they put their best efforts into providing the best experience to the customers.

The pros provide end-to-end support services right from fulfillment to customer service, payment processing, and more. They tend to supplement the capabilities of the retailers and offer comprehensive solutions to the customers. The thorough approach of the pros helps make the whole process more efficient and enhances the retailers' reputation. 

Prioritize Customers

Like any other business, customers are at the center of the eCommerce business. The pros always prioritize the customers of the eCommerce businesses. On the other hand, the posers focus more on their benefits and business operations than the customers.

Posers tend to manage potential fraud by making commitments to the retailers to eliminate all fraud. However, their approach to fraud management is often aggressive, resulting in the loss of loyal customers. On the other hand, the pros try to manage fraud by intelligently understanding the shoppers and their buying patterns.

Returns are also an area where the pros prioritize the customers of the eCommerce business. They ensure speeding up the returns process and making it as painless as possible for the customers. While doing so, they also ensure meeting the specific requirements of the business. Posers make returns quite tricky and time taking for the customers.

The posers consider customer disputes as adversarial engagement. However, the highly trained agents of the pro eCommerce 3PL take time to investigate the whole issue and come up with solutions that benefit everyone but, most importantly, the customers. 

Conclusion

While eCommerce businesses are nearing the peak seasons, there are high chances that they may come across several eCommerce 3PL. Among them, some are the pros, and others are the posers. The retailers need to be able to distinguish between the pros and the posers. Knowing the difference can help them make the right choices and ensure optimum success.

At simpl fulfillment, our customer success team works alongside our operations team inside our warehouse, so you're always in the loop. Get in touch today and let us help you grow.

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