There are many questions and factors companies must consider when determining the right e-commerce & omnichannel fulfillment strategy. Here are just a couple:
Do we build dedicated fulfillment centers for e-commerce or have all of our fulfillment operations under one roof?
Should we collaborate with our suppliers and have them drop-ship more orders?
But the biggest question of all, particularly for companies that are just getting started, is this: How do we scale our e-commerce and omnichannel fulfillment capabilities while minimizing risk, cost, and time-to-market?
Rather than completely reinventing the wheel, many companies are leveraging their existing network, resources, and relationships, especially with logistics service providers, to address this challenge.
As Gonzalez and Glodziak state in this paper, the answers to your ecommerce questions may already exist.
Similarly, you can begin your ecommerce journey by making logistics a competitive weapon.
You can collaborate with your current third-party logistics partners because they already possess two critical attributes for success: they have already earned your trust by successfully managing your existing fulfillment operations and they are already very knowledgeable about your products and supply chain, as well as very knowledgeable about emerging trends and leading practices in the industry.
How Do You Get Started?
Download this ecommerce logistics leader series and find out how you can get to market faster, by leveraging your existing network, resources, and relationships to their fullest potential as well as how you can use logistics as a competitive weapon.
