E-fulfilment vs. Traditional Fulfilment: Looking at This Concept with a Different Set of Eyes

Jan 31
00:00

2020

Nancy Whitman

Nancy Whitman

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Online retailing (“etailing”), like traditional retail, has same purpose of customer gratification, but it is changing the traditional retail eco-system by offering unprecedented choice, convenience to transact by being able to order from anywhere, anytime, and having the option to get products delivered anywhere, anytime!

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In the process,E-fulfilment vs. Traditional Fulfilment: Looking at This Concept with a Different Set of Eyes Articles online retailing is creating a new value-chain by changing the rules of the game, putting new demands on the ecosystem players, extensive use of technology, cultural shift, new mind-sets and ultimately new strategies for e-fulfilment!

Setting new industry benchmarks

The new rules are being formed every day, new benchmarks are being set every day – who would have imagined that Amazon and Google will fight with each other on the same turf, trying to outdo each other? Who would have thought an American to be delivering products on holidays (didn’t holidays mean all fun and no work)?

On the one hand, online retailers try to match the value being offered by traditional retail, yet on the other hand, they are setting new benchmarks (like offering endless choice to the customers, that amount of unique products could never be stored in a physical store).

Technology drives e-fulfilment!

Technology takes over as the most important capability that any serious online retailer needs to have in order to achieve results just not in terms of posting good top line sales but also having a greater impact on bottom-line results by being able to drive efficiencies and control costs in the whole e-fulfilment process.

The complete process - from online ordering to final delivery to the end-customer - has to be technologically enabled for faster order processing and time-definite deliveries as same day deliveries are the general rule). The online retailers and their end-customers expect complete visibility through-out, supported with excellent customer service and operations

New challenges for e-fulfilment partners!

These developments are posing new challenges to the logistics companies who are the fulfilment partners of online retailers. Those who aspire to be part of any e-fulfilment process have to mould themselves differently to handle the demands that e-tailing companies will put on them.

The ability to quickly understand and align themselves to emerging models and ever changing strategies, and the ability to quickly build new capabilities require the logistics players to be extremely transparent, flexible, innovative and agile.

All this is very different from what traditional logistics players have been used to. E-fulfilment requires them to look at this space with a new set of eyes.

Choose the right e-fulfilment partner!

Companies have to be very mindful of above facts while choosing their logistics service provider for e-fulfilment. E-commerce order fulfilment cannot be run like or run along with traditional fulfilment channels with the same mindset and capabilities. The customers need to look at those logistics service providers who understand online retail space as much as they do themselves.

For more than a century, BCR has continued to help small, medium and large businesses achieve an optimum logistics solution with warehousing and transportation, including air freight and sea freight services to and from the major ports including Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Fremantle (Perth).