Shipping Warehouse offers scalable fulfillment services

What is warehouse shipping?

A shipping warehouse stores products and ships them to their final destination. Shipping warehouses send shipments to residential and business customers. The final destination depends on the type of goods sold and the clientele.

Shipping warehouses are a vital lifeline in scalable supply chains for manufacturing, retail and eCommerce companies. Companies selling and shipping record-high product volumes experience the biggest cost savings with a shipping warehouse. There are two types of shipping warehouses. The first is independent fulfillment operations run internally by a company. Alternately, outsourced third-party logistics (3PLs) warehouse providers have shipping warehouses and additional supply chain skills.

Outsourced shipping warehouses are a service offered by several business models. The right shipping warehouse solution depends on your industry, customers and the supply chain demands.

For more service offerings and a wider range of expertise offered consider working with a 3PL or 4PL partner.

• Third-party logistics (3PL) companies provide end-to-end supply chain support and solutions to clients.
  • Asset-less: Many large 3PL companies do not own or lease warehouse facilities and do not operate the shipping warehouse. Instead, asset-less 3PLs partner with different logistics companies across the globe to put together end-to-end supply chain solutions using other companies’ resources.
  • Asset based: Most small and medium 3PL providers lease their own warehouse space, and are involved with the daily operations at the facilities. Asset based 3PLs often have a modest global footprint.
• Fourth-party logistics (4PL) companies are similar to asset-less 3PLs with a strong network of domestic and global partners to complete end-to-end logistics.
  • The advantage of 4PLs is often their robust software and reporting tools to integrate with your business operations.
  • Note some 3PLs also offer strong technical integrations.

For smaller jobs specific to storing goods and shipping orders to customers consider a:

• Fulfillment center to store, pick-pack-and-ship orders to residential customers in cartonized orders.
• Distribution center to bridge the gap between suppliers and their customers by shipping pallets or cartons of products to customers.

What is order fulfillment in a shipping warehouse?

Order fulfillment in a warehouse is the physical process of picking, packing and shipping an order to a customer. Order fulfillment is one of the final stages in the product lifecycle. Goods and products are shipped to their final destination from the warehouse. Customers anxiously await the arrival of their products after placing orders, so real-time updates and tracking are key.

The first step in order fulfillment happens way before customer make a purchase. Order fulfillment warehouses receive inventory on behalf of clients, stores the goods, and manage inventory consistently. A great order fulfillment center quickly and accurately fulfills orders and exceeds customers’ ordering expectations, encouraging them to reorder after such a smooth experience.

What does a fulfillment center do?

A fulfillment center is a large physical building devoted to storing inventory for businesses that sell goods. Fulfillment centers ship retail and eCommerce orders to customers and relieve in-house teams from the stress of scaling their direct-to-consumer supply chain.

The purpose of a fulfillment center is to store bulk quantities of products and manage the inventory of multiple clients in the same space. Fulfillment centers specialize in direct-to-consumer order fulfillment and offer a variety of kitting and value-added services for eCommerce brands.

Is a fulfillment center a shipping warehouse?

Shipping warehouses and fulfillment centers have a lot in common but, typically, serve different use cases and customers. A fulfillment center specializes in fulfilling orders to eCommerce customers and offer additional warehouse services that eCommerce businesses frequently request.

On the other hand, shipping warehouses specialize in a wider range of warehouse services and specialized use cases. For instance, a shipping warehouse may specialize in large volume, high throughput for manufacturers or industrial kitting fulfillment businesses.

What is 3PL fulfillment?

Retailers, e-commerce brands, manufacturers and industrial companies use third-party logistics (3PL) fulfillment services to relieve the pain of scaling in-house fulfillment operations and warehouse space. 3PL fulfillment is a powerful tool to alleviate growth pains. 3PLs store your inventory in their warehouses and manage the inventory, quality control, and order fulfillment to customers.

3PLs are supply chain and logistics experts who can handle problems and scale operations to meet the direct-to-consumer demand. Larger eCommerce brands receive value from 3PL fulfillment services when the 3PL partner can pick up the slack in the supply chain when your business is bursting at the seams.

What are warehouse services?

Warehouse services are the operational backbone in any business’s supply chain where goods move from an origin to a destination with periods of storage or instances of changing the mode of transportation. There are a handful of general warehouse services in the supply chain that are applicable across industries such as storage, fulfillment and kitting.

Most warehouses provide a range of specialized services to add more value to their key customers, such as light assembly to remove steps in the manufacturing pipelines. Shipping warehouse services provide niche services to customers looking for direct-to-consumer order fulfillment and inventory management specialization.

What services do warehouses offer?

Warehouses offer a variety of general and customized supply chain services to companies depending on the specific industry needs of customers. The warehouse services offer an outsourced solution to efficiently manage the entire supply chain or jobs in the supply chain. In-house business teams often outsource jobs that are outside of their speciality, or beyond the capacity they can handle.

General warehouse services offered include:

• Storage
• Inventory management
• Pick, pack and shipping fulfillment
• Transloading

Customized warehouse services:

• Light assembly of fishing tackle to manufacture products
• Development kit assembly for semiconductor customers
• Quality control textile and fashion goods
• and other client requested jobs