What Is a Fulfillment Center & Why It’s Important
Fulfillment centers are one of the most important things that help electronic stores to use external sources for shipping and storage operations, and this has a great impact on reducing the space needed to store all products, as the merchant sends his goods to Fulfillment centers and they store them and then ship them to customers on their behalf, and thus The storage issue that might be experienced by a large number of e-store merchants is being solved and in this article we will talk about Fulfillment centers and their importance.
What is a fulfillment center?
Fulfillment centers are physical locations where merchants can send their goods to be stored and shipped to clients on their behalf. They are third-party logistics (3PL) providers.
Thus fulfillment centers receive orders on behalf of e-commerce retailers and prepare and ship orders to customers, saving time and effort for e-commerce businesses.
How do fulfillment centers work?
Fulfillment centers fulfill the requests of customers of a particular store on behalf of that store; they are key links in the company’s supply chain,
So fulfillment centers help e-commerce companies in controlling local inventory as well as receiving and shipping orders to customers on time.
These fulfillment centers receive the products of the e-commerce companies and place them in the storage centers that they own to fulfill the customers’ requests.
Once the customer completes the purchase process, the fulfillment center identifies those items and prepares them for shipment to the customer.
Fulfillment centers can process orders from company to company (B2B) as well as process company-to-customer (B2C) orders.
What is a fulfillment warehouse?
A fulfillment warehouse is defined as a fulfillment center, but the most prominent difference between warehouses and the fulfillment center is that a warehouse is a place for storing products and items inside only, but fulfillment include a large number of operations besides the process of storing products.
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What are the differences between warehousing and fulfillment centers?
You may think that fulfillment and warehouses are the same and there is no difference between them, but you are wrong. There is a big difference between warehouses and fulfillment. Here are a number of points that illustrate the most prominent differences between them:
1. Warehouse specializes in storing products and items, but fulfillment also store products and fulfill customer orders more efficiently and effectively than in
2. Warehouses are more stable, but fulfillment are constantly moving, as it performs a large number of functions besides the function of storage, where:
- Receiving the inventory
- Prepare picking lists for items and products
- Processing of product packing boxes.
- Preparing shipping orders.
- Returns management.
3. Warehouses may not have relationships with multiple shipping companies, unlike fulfillment, which have many relationships with a large number of shipping companies, and therefore can deliver products faster to customers and also at a lower delivery cost because they find the best offer.
4. Warehouses can offer long-term storage options, while fulfillment relies heavily on short-term warehousing, as they focus on rapid inventory turnover, thus storing products for a company in the short term only.
5. Also, the longer the period of storing products, the greater the cost to the retailer, but storing his products in his own warehouse will not cost him all of those costs.
Eliminate storing inventory and packing boxes
And storing has many benefits, and perhaps the most important and prominent benefit is Eliminate storing inventory and packing boxes,
especially since there are a large number of retailers who do not prefer to take over the task of packing and sending products to customers, especially that in the case of increasing orders, the matter becomes more difficult for them. .
Here, fulfillment centers come to solve this problem by assuming the task of storing, packaging and shipping products to customers also on time on behalf of retailers in electronic stores.
They are ready to complete the largest number of orders in the least possible time, which provides retailers more time to grow their business and focus on other important things.
Can a fulfillment center do one- or two-day delivery?
The answer is of course yes, as provides retailers with many fast delivery options, which include the ability to ship within a day or two, and also the ability to ship on the same day.
And these services differ from one fulfillment center to another according to the geographical location of the shipping center as well as the technologies used and companies Transport that is handled.
