The Importance of Warehousing Strategy

With the world of e-commerce growing, customer expectations have grown as well. It is essential to get ahead of your competition and tackle those expectations. Customers expect to get a delivery within a few days. As a business owner you might be asking yourself how it is possible to get a package delivered within a couple days. The answer is multi-warehousing.  

How it Works

Many e-commerce stores are shipping from one location, but keeping all your inventory in one place can cause longer shipping times, higher shipping expenses, and unhappy customers. An alternative is spreading your inventory between multiple warehouses in strategic locations. Once an order is placed the warehouse closest to the shipping address will fulfill the order. This can help promote quick delivery times and give you an edge over the competition.

Benefits  

As mentioned above there are many benefits to multi warehousing. The most obvious benefit is reduced shipping times. Ecommerce is growing, causing competition to grow with it. Because of this it is important to go the extra mile to keep customers happy. Placing warehouses strategically can reduce long distance shipping so you are primarily shipping locally which cuts shipping times.

Multi-warehousing also helps cut shipping costs. You will need to ship your inventory to your fulfillment centers, but shipping in bulk is often cheaper than shipping individual packages from one location worldwide. Final delivery will be cheaper in the long run because local deliveries are always cheaper than cross country shipments.  

Having multiple fulfillment centers allows your business to grow and expand. Once an online store is big enough, shipping from one location becomes inefficient and frustrating for customer experience. Multi-warehousing can help you expand and reach new markets.

Lastly the most important benefit of multi-warehousing is increased customer satisfaction. Shorter shipping times and cheaper shipping costs will lead to happier customers. A happier customer will lead to repeated purchases and lifetime loyalty. Because of this multi-warehousing could become your biggest tool in customer satisfaction.  

Concerns

Even with all the benefits of multi-warehousing you might still be skeptical. “How will I manage multiple warehouses? How will I get inventory from one warehouse to another?”. Here at iDrive we have the first ever TWMS software called ShipCaddie. ShipCaddie offers warehouse management, inventory management, carrier integrations, and AI to route packages. It also comes with additional features like the ability to select shipping insurance and file a claim in the software, as well as virtual warehousing, something that comes in handy especially when running multiple facilities. ShipCaddie TWMS is your one-stop shop for all things shipping and warehousing, and multi-warehousing might just be the key to improving delivery times, cutting overall costs, and retaining customers.

If you have questions or would like a demo of ShipCaddie, don’t hesitate to reach out!