In a hyper-competitive e-commerce landscape, companies that provide a positive e-commerce shopping experience can tighten the bond between their brand and their customer base.
A tight bond with customers means e-commerce retailers can spend fewer dollars on new customer acquisitions as loyal shoppers spread the word on social media about their positive experience and encourage others to join in.
Most importantly, loyal customers reward e-commerce companies with repeat business that provides a revenue uplift.
Given that the competition is just a click away, e-commerce companies that offer exceptional customer service have a strategic market edge for winning over online and mobile shoppers.
So, how can e-commerce companies ensure a positive customer shopping experience all the time?
Warehouse Automation is the Answer You Seek
An automated fulfillment solution enables e-commerce companies to ensure order accuracy, product quality, product presentation, traceability, and speedy delivery. That translates to online and mobile shoppers receiving the right product, in the right condition, in the right quantity, at the right time.
An automated fulfillment solution does away with the problems commonly inherent to manual fulfillment, while expediting both the efficiency and speed of an operation. Software-directed goods-to-person operations, utilizing technology such as pick-to-light systems, virtually eliminate the kind of operator error typical of more manual pick/pack operations, while greatly increasing the efficiency and productivity of the picking operation. This enables an expedited fulfillment process that allows e-commerce providers to better meet promised delivery dates, while also ensuring the customer gets exactly what was ordered.
The tracking of bar codes by the intralogistics software overseeing an automated operation ensures order accuracy and product quality from the start of the fulfillment process to the finish. By marrying inventory insertions with customer designated cartons through the use of unique bar code identifiers or RFID tags, intralogistics software can monitor fulfillment activities to ensure orders are filled as intended and pinpoint problems that may occur before they reach the shipping dock. Warehouse workers using bar code readers verify inventory accuracy at key points in the process such as picking and packing, while bar code readers on the automation equipment scan bar-coded cartons throughout the fulfillment process to ensure the proper alignment of inventory with a pending shipment. If insertions don’t match the order profile associated with a particular carton, the carton is diverted to an exception area to be corrected. And a transaction log of all scans associated with each order creates an audit trail in the event of a need for order tracing, or order duplication due to unforeseen shipping problems.
In light of the need for e-commerce companies to meet today’s shortened time frame for order turnaround, an automated solution also streamlines the fulfillment process by reducing the necessary product touches and worker travel time that typically slows the pace of order fulfillment and increases the cost of goods sold in manual or semi-automated operations. And by utilizing intralogistics software to orchestrate the optimal balance of labor, equipment, and inventory activities, automation systems reduce costs, while allowing for order prioritization to ensure that urgent shipments can meet a specified carrier pickup time if needed, so customer delivery promises are kept. Finally, automation also ensures a controlled product fulfillment process such that product presentation is consistent with company standards.
Not only does automated fulfillment guarantee quality control, order traceability, and fast-paced order throughput for compressed order-to-delivery windows, it provides an efficient, consistent, labor-saving approach to picking, packing, and labeling in the fulfillment center. Most important of all, the solution ensures that retailers keep their customer commitments and, in doing so, build their reputations for providing the positive shopping experience that’s the key to long-term success.
Walter High is VP Marketing at MSI Automate, where he has worked since 2012.