Cont from part 1 & 2..
To read part 1 click here
To read part 2 click here
Lie #3: You’ll never want or need a holiday or time away from your business, ever again.
Outsourcing Fulfillment
Getting a business working online is a fantastic feeling and something to be proud of. However, no one ever talks about what you need to do AFTER your business is working and how to maintain it without your hands needing to be constantly on the wheel.
I already discussed how to save time if you’re packing and shipping orders in house in part 1. Although if you’re successful then the time needed to pick, pack and ship orders increases as your business grows.
If you’re selling on eBay or Amazon I’m sure at some point you’ll probably reach a point when the amount of time it will take you and your team to pick, pack and ship orders becomes more than the time you have available to commit or want to commit to packing and shipping orders.
Besides you’ll probably want to take time away from the business for a break at some point, even if it’s a day or two.
Solution: Instead of picking, packing and shipping orders in house you can instead use professional fulfillment services. These types of services store your inventory at their warehouse facilities and ship your orders to your customers as and when you receive sales. A well known fulfillment service in the eCommerce space is fulfillment by Amazon for which you can use the ready to go Amazon FBA integration.
In a nutshell you can ship orders directly from the Amazon warehouses regardless of whether you received the sale on the Amazon website or on any other
– even its rival eBay site, or anywhere else.
MultiChannelWorks also has integrations with fulfillment services in 5 continents giving you immediate access to warehouses and fulfillment in many countries which means you can easily sell in countries around the world even if you’re business is not based in those other countries
–and even if you’ve yet to advertise in those overseas markets. In addition, by storing your products locally in other countries you’ll have as much advantage as any other business in those countries where you decide to hold inventory.
Limited Storage Space for ‘Inventory’ Can Limit Growth
If you’re in the business of supplying ‘physical products’ and your business isn’t growing then its in decline because competitors always exist and you can expect those competitors to be aiming to grow their businesses bigger, stronger and better than yours – so let’s assume that you ARE growing your business.
At some point the storage available to store your inventory will be too little. This is a problem because you’re going to need room to store more inventory as your business grows.
Solution: Fulfillment services store your inventory for you and they’re in the ‘warehousing’ business so you can often store as little or as much inventory at those warehouses as you need to. Currently MultiChannelWorks has integrations with warehousing and fulfillment centers available in many countries all potentially available for you store goods in ‘regional hubs’ to be able to ship orders locally within the region.
This concludes the 3 part series of
‘The Lies About Selling On Amazon and eBay’.
To read this series from the begining click here