Do you have an online store and brick-and-mortar store(s)? If you answered yes, then you should consider ship from store as a fulfilment method.
As the name suggests, ‘ship from store’ is the process of fulfilling orders from a physical store rather than a warehouse. In recent years retailers have doubled down on ship from store model for several reasons, such as more efficient order fulfilment and improving customer satisfaction.
Why ship from store?
1. Efficient delivery
Dispatch orders from the closest location to your customer for faster transit and delivery times and lower shipping costs.
2. Keep stock moving
Make sure every item is ready to be sold and maximise your ATS (available to sell) inventory online.
3. Customer satisfaction
Are items out-of-stock in one particular store location? Ship stock from a different location directly to the customer and provide a better customer experience. It also enables more delivery options, such as click-and-collect and same-day or on-demand delivery.
Ship from store requirements
Before you set up a ship from store model for your business, it’s important to assess whether it’s right for you. Overhauling your inventory management system, hiring and training extra staff for order fulfilment can be a costly and lengthy process. For some retailers, that time and energy could be better invested into a 3PL partnership or some form of B2B and retail distribution.
However, if the benefits of ship from store outweigh the cost of investment, or if you’re a smaller retailer without access to warehousing or a distribution centre, ship from store may be your best path to get your products into the hands of your customers. But what do you need to set this up?
One of the challenges of ship from store is maintaining accurate stock levels. Ideally, you’ll need to set up a unified inventory management process and workflow to allocate stock from a list of prioritised stores within the region. If you’re not using an inventory management system, you’ll need to check whether your eCommerce platform supports multi-location shipping. Platforms like Shopify support multi-location shipping as well as the ability to integrate with POS systems to alert staff when new orders come in.
Once an order is placed and staff are alerted, the pick and pack process begins. In order to set your team up for success, you need a streamlined and automated way to pick and pack orders and book them for delivery. Otherwise, your staff could spend valuable hours manually updating, labelling and booking orders for delivery.
Enter Shippit … one platform for your stores, brands, and locations
However and wherever your customer buys, Shippit is the easiest way to orchestrate order fulfilment.
If you’re shipping from store, Shippit gives you visibility and control whether you have two stores or 2000 fulfilling online orders.
Using Shippit you can:
- Offer more delivery options by increasing your available to sell inventory
- Ensure consistent customer experience when fulfilling from any location
- Track shipping costs, transit times and courier performance at store level
To see how Cue Clothing Co increased their sales by 130% by using Shippit to support their ship from store model, check out our case study “How Cue Clothing Increased Sales by 130%.”