The world of fulfilment, the process of picking, packing, and shipping orders, has changed significantly over the past 25 years to facilitate the new ways that consumers buy, and retailers sell. This has been driven by the rise of e-commerce, shifting consumer expectations and more latterly the introduction of social selling on platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
Legacy fulfilment
Up until the mid to late 90s people mainly bought their stuff from retail outlets and maybe through catalogues. This meant that fulfilment was primarily focused on business-to-business (B2B) transactions where orders were placed in bulk for deliveries to a single retailer. Speed of delivery wasn’t the top priority and standard delivery times ranged from several days to a few weeks. There was little appetite for same-day, or next-day delivery and inventory decisions were based on long term forecasts, not real-time demand. There were no drop shipping models and overall fulfilment was slower, simpler, and less customer centric.
The digital revolution
Today things couldn’t be more different as the digital revolution, and its impact on e-commerce, has turned fulfilment into a strategic differentiator that’s now core to the customer experience supporting brands whose products are sold across multiple stores, sales channels, and online and social media marketplaces.
Interestingly with the rise of ecommerce sales to B2C customers there has come a reluctance by many fulfilment companies to include the B2B element to their service because of the need for different expertise and equipment – as well as the risk of large penalties and ultimately delisting as a result of failure to meet specific criteria.
Omnichannel fulfilment
At Prolog we offer a fully comprehensive omnichannel fulfilment, integrating and coordinating multiple retail channels to deliver a seamless customer experience supported by technology that facilitates a single view of stock, orders and delivery visibility throughout the process. We are able to integrate various systems easily such as ERP, WMS, POS, and CRM to work cohesively. This addresses one of the key challenges of maintaining real-time, accurate inventory levels across all channels as poor visibility can lead to stockouts, overstocking, or missed sales opportunities.
Customer expectations
Perhaps the biggest change is around customer expectations. Customers expect fast, flexible, and transparent delivery options with same and next day increasingly the norm. These high expectations increase pressure on operations and infrastructure and failure to meet these demands can seriously damage brand reputation. They also want to be able to return products easily and get their refunds quickly and retailers need to get them back into stock as quickly as they can.
Personalisation
They want to feel special so tailoring the order fulfilment process to meet individual customer preferences and expectations can be a key differentiator to enhance customer experience, boost loyalty, and increase repeat purchases. This can include branded or themed packaging based on customer behaviour such as birthdays or a first purchase, personalised messages or thank-you notes, enabling eco-friendly packaging preferences selected by the customer, or adding free samples or promotional items based on past purchases. At Prolog we also offer laser printing, embroidery, and printing to take products to the next level.
Scalability
Different sales channels are subject to different peaks and troughs and the ability to scale the fulfilment up and down to meet demand driven for example by traditional seasonality or a social media campaign. During the Christmas period some of our clients experienced unplanned peaks in excess of 200% of forecast – and we delivered!
In conclusion, strong fulfilment solutions are increasingly at the centre of successful e-commerce brands, playing a vital role in the customer journey, protecting revenue and supporting scalability. The right choice of partner has never been more important.
