To successfully compete in the hotly contested online sales marketplace, fulfillment warehouses must employ robust technology. Your e-commerce store must integrate flawlessly with your fulfillment center, whether it is in house or outsourced. That is, orders should reach the people who pack and ship items seamlessly and without manual intervention. Similarly, integrations should be used for all online platforms on which you sell – not just your own website.
Your fulfillment warehouse should utilize one of the following methods for sending orders from the web store (or other marketplaces online) to your warehouse staff:
- Web services
- APIs
- CSV or FTP uploads
In a similar fashion, shipping tracking information must be relayed back to your customers, and your stock levels and inventory must be trackable. To meet these demands, most companies utilize an inventory and order management system. Outsourced fulfillment providers have robust warehouse management systems (WMS) that they utilize, and they offer the ability to ‘link’ to their WMS seamlessly using a technology integration.
