What are Warehousing Services?

Warehousing is keeping inventory or goods in a warehouse until they are distributed or sold. Warehousing services help businesses in controlling the delivery of goods to customers. However, warehousing involves more than just keeping interests in storage space.

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What is a Warehouse?

A warehouse is a large structure used to store goods for distribution, production, import, export, or other commercial purposes. Warehouses contain storage infrastructure like racks and forklifts as well as staff and systems to track inventory.

Goods flow in and out of warehouses on their way between suppliers, production facilities, retailers, and customers. Warehouses may be private, public, bonded, distribution centers, or fulfillment centers depending on their purpose and access policies.

Types of Warehouses

Private Warehouse

A private warehouse is owned and operated by a single company to store their own goods. Private warehouses often have security systems and restricted access.

Public Warehouse

A public warehouse stores goods from many companies. They offer open storage space for rent. Public warehouses have flexible access, longer hours, and lower costs than private warehouses.

Bonded Warehouse

Imported goods are stored in bonded warehouses under customs supervision until cleared for release. Bonded warehouses hold imported items like clothes, electronics, and food.

Distribution Warehouse

Distribution warehouses aggregate products from multiple vendors into wholesale shipments for retail companies. They serve as supply chain checkpoints.

Fulfillment Warehouse

A fulfillment warehouse focuses on storage, order processing, and shipping services for ecommerce companies. They handle receiving inventory, packing orders, and shipping.

Comparing Warehouses and Fulfillment Centers

While warehouses emphasize longer-term storage, fulfillment centers optimize for faster order processing and turnover. Fulfillment centers receive, pack, and ship orders rather than storing inventory. They offer more services to support ecommerce order delivery.

Fulfillment Warehouse Services

Fulfillment warehouses provide an array of services like storage, inventory management, kitting and assembly, cross-docking, and shipping. The exact services offered depend on the provider.

Common Fulfillment Warehouse Services

Storage and Warehousing

Fulfillment warehouses store inventory with options for climate controlled space. This provides the foundation for other order processing services.

Inventory Management

Warehouses track stock quantities and locations in their facility to enable fast order processing and prevent out of stocks. This relies on their warehouse management system.

Order Fulfillment

Fulfillment centers process and ship customer orders by picking, packing, and shipping items from inventory.

Pick and Pack

Picking involves selecting items for specific orders. Packing prepares those items for shipping. Pick and pack combines these steps to optimize the workflow.

Shipping

Warehouses coordinate outbound shipping across multiple carriers. This includes generating labels, confirming rates and delivery times, and scheduling carrier pickups.

Returns Processing

Some warehouses handle returned items by receiving, inspecting, and restocking inventory. This completes the reverse logistics process.

Kitting and Assembly

Warehouses can combine items from inventory into kits or assemble final products per order requirements.

Cross-Docking

Cross-docking shifts incoming inventory directly into outbound shipments without storage in between. This accelerates order fulfillment.

Inventory Planning

Warehouses forecast demand to ensure optimal inventory levels that avoid overstocks and shortages.

How Fulfillment Services Benefit Ecommerce

Fulfillment services help ecommerce businesses scale faster by optimizing logistics. Outsourcing order processing and shipping eliminates those operational burdens.

Streamline Operations

Warehouses handle logistics functions so ecommerce companies can focus on sales, marketing, and product development.

Increase Speed and Accuracy

Specialization improves how fast and correctly warehouses process orders compared to internal fulfillment.

Reduce Operational Costs

Fixed warehousing rates improve cost predictability. Value-added services further reduce expenses.

Improve Customer Satisfaction

Faster shipping and fewer errors increase customer satisfaction and loyalty from on-time, accurate deliveries.

Save on Shipping Costs

Warehouses negotiate better shipping rates and optimize deliveries to reduce freight expenses.

Partner with Simple Fulfillment

Simple Fulfillment provides full-service warehousing tailored to your business needs. Our expertise in warehouse management and shipping helps ecommerce companies scale efficiently. Contact us to learn more!

Conclusion

Warehousing and fulfillment services are critical for ecommerce operations. Outsourcing logistics to a specialized provider simplifies operations so you can focus on your core business. Partnering with the right warehouse for your needs enables business growth.

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Recommended: 4 Ways to Improve Customer Retention with Third-Party eCommerce Order Fulfillment