Is Your E-commerce Business Experiencing Growing Pains? The Right 3PL Can Help.

Growing a thriving e-commerce business from an idea to a profitable venture is an amazing accomplishment. As the business owner, you’ve invested your time, funds, and energy into creating your brand and building a loyal customer base. While growth can be a thrilling ride, expanding a business can also bring growing pains. For mid-sized e-commerce businesses, that can look like outgrowing your current storage space or struggling to meet customer demands with your current third-party logistics provider (3PL). However, these growing pains are also a positive sign because they mean your business is expanding. The good news is that the right 3PL can help you tackle these challenges by streamlining your processes, allowing you to focus on scaling and maximizing profits.

The Growing Pains of Scaling Your E-commerce Business

Once an e-commerce business passes a certain size, logistics challenges inevitably grow. Entrepreneurs can end up spending more time dealing with inventory, customer service issues, and retail order fulfillment than they spend on sales and growth. Challenges include:

1. Effective Inventory Management

2. Seamless Shipping and Order Fulfillment

3. Providing Customer Service

4. Inadequate Customer Service from current 3PL

4. Inefficient Returns Process

5. High Costs to Expand

6. Lack of Critical Support

5. Hidden and Expensive Shipping Costs

Choosing the Right 3PL to Support Your Growth

The wrong 3PL will only bring more headaches and prevent your business from growing. Picking the right 3PL can help e-commerce sellers avoid these issues and set their businesses up for success.

1. Inaccurate Tracking and Inventory Control Issues

Misplaced and delayed inventory tracking can cause stockouts or overselling, as well as delayed shipping. When inventory data isn’t updated in “real-time”, customers may experience delays, which can damage a seller’s reputation. The better your inventory management system is at keeping track of your inventory, the less likely you are to have issues like this. Choose a 3PL with a proven inventory management system.

2. Hidden Fees and Lack of Transparency

When a 3PL is not transparent about its fees, costs can add up quickly. Administrative fees, storage costs, and other hidden expenses can strain your budget and create a frustrating situation. Choose a dependable retail fulfillment provider that will provide a clear breakdown of costs upfront so you can predict future expenses without any surprises.

3. Poor Customer Service

Trying to get in contact with your 3PL and having to open support tickets and wait for responses is frustrating. Choosing a wholesale fulfillment partner that provides dedicated customer support (ideally one that offers direct communication,like G10 Fulfillment offers, rather than using ticketing systems) will allow you to troubleshoot issues with your business sooner, rather than later.

4. Slow Shipping Times

With customers having high expectations of two-day (or even same-day) delivery, slow shipping can mean lost customers. The 3PL you choose should offer a scalable retail fulfillment process that grows alongside your business to ensure your deliveries remain reliable.

5. Lack of Scalability

As your business expands, you’ll need a 3PL capable of scaling with you. A 3PL with experience in inventory sellers solutions can help you grow without compromising the quality of service or speed of delivery.

6. Data Security Concerns

E-commerce businesses handle large amounts of customer data, so it is important to work with a trustworthy 3PL that can protect this data with rigorous security measures. Look for a 3PL with secure systems and protocols to safeguard your customers’ sensitive information.

7. Complex Reconciliation and Returns Processes

An inadequate reconciliation process makes it hard to manage finances accurately. In addition, a poor returns management system will leave customers dissatisfied and result in lost revenue. Make sure your fulfillment partner has a simple, seamless way to process returns and reconcile accounts so your business runs smoothly and your customers are happy.

Why G10 Fulfillment Is the Partner You Need to Expand Your Business

If your e-commerce business is booming and you are finding yourself growing out of your current space and frustrated with your third-party logistics provider, G10 Fulfillment can take logistics off your plate so you can concentrate on growing your brand and expanding product lines. Our experienced team and advanced technology create seamless integrations with popular e-commerce platforms, including Amazon, Shopify, and Walmart. We enhance your supply chain efficiency with ChannelPoint™, G10’s proprietary technology that automates inventory management, feeding inventory information back to you in real-time, across all your platforms.

G10 acts as a reliable middleman for Amazon sellers, allowing you to ship products directly from the manufacturer to our warehouses, where items are stored until Amazon requests inventory for FBA storage. This efficient retail fulfillment process reduces the hassle of managing complex logistics, saving you time and resources.

To support your growing needs, G10 Fulfillment assigns a dedicated customer account executive, giving you direct access to someone who understands your business and its unique demands. Our customer service team is also available by phone or email, so you can quickly get the assistance you need without creating impersonal support tickets.

If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, improve efficiency, and focus on scaling your business, G10 Fulfillment is here to help with reliable wholesale and retail fulfillment. We offer scalable ecommerce wholesale solutions that meet your current needs and grow with you. With G10 Fulfillment, you gain a partner committed to helping you succeed in today’s competitive e-commerce market so you can concentrate on business growth. Learn more about G10 Fulfillment and how we can help at https://geneva10.com/.