Category: 3PL Provider

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What to Know About Low Average Order Value eCommerce

Improved Average Order Value (AOV) with 3PL Services

Understanding and Optimizing Low Average Order Value E-Commerce

Running an e-commerce business involves keeping track of various key performance indicators such as average order value (AOV). AOV refers to the revenue you generate per sale during a certain period. Low AOV means that your customers are spending less per order.

Having a low AOV presents various challenges including less profit per sale, dependency on volume, and slow business growth. However, there are instances where a low AOV e-commerce model makes sense, depending on your industry. Also, there are effective strategies to maximize your online business’s AOV.

Importance of AOV as an E-Commerce Metric

AOV influences how you approach marketing, pricing, and promotions. You can use AOV to gauge the health of your e-commerce business and optimize to realize better returns from every sale.

Overall, it can help your marketing team evaluate the efficacy of specific strategies. For instance, a low AOV gives you an opportunity to try out different marketing tactics. In this case, you can leverage upselling and product bundling and optimize accordingly based on results.

Ways to Increase Your Average Order Value

One of the best ways to encourage customers to spend more is through upselling and cross selling via timely promotions, offers, and product bundles. For instance, you can offer marginal or bulk discounts to move inventory faster.  You can also provide coupons and deals based on minimum spend thresholds.

Present additional purchase options like related, newly added, and popular products. Also, place high-value products in front of your visitors more. Loyalty programs that incentivize return customers also work wonders.

Offering a personalized customer experience is also important. Leverage user data to recommend products based on individual customers preferences and purchase history. You can also conduct personalized email campaigns to pique customer interest.

Optimizing your e-commerce site can also increase AOV. A responsive and intuitive website increases purchases from first-time and return visitors.

Ensure your website is easy to navigate with filtering options and optimized product pages. You should also streamline your checkout process. Checkout difficulties often lead to fewer purchases and cart abandonment.

Another effective way to maximize AOV is by streamlining your fulfillment process. It’s crucial to partner with a competent fulfillment company to support increased sales volume. After all, scaling is a major challenge for low AOV e-commerce setups. A fulfillment company can help you handle aspects like product storage, shipping, tracking, and prompt delivery.

Conclusion

It’s important to understand how AOV affects your e-commerce business. Implementing strategies to improve this metric can help ramp up overall revenue. Proper product promotion, pricing strategies, and optimized user experiences help you get more out of each order.

An important step toward e-commerce success is hiring a reputable fulfillment company to support your venture. Medallion Fulfillment and Logistics offers tailored solutions based on business goals and requirements.

Our services can help you improve AOV, save operational costs, and scale comfortably. Contact us today to unlock your e-commerce business’s full profitability potential.

                                                                                        

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Stewardship and Long-Term Commitment: The Foundation of Family Businesses

Family Business Fulfillment Partner

In a world that increasingly prioritizes quick wins and instant gratification, family-owned businesses like Medallion Fulfillment & Logistics stand as beacons of long-term commitment and stewardship. From our humble beginnings in a garage to owning warehouses on both the East and West coasts, our story is a testament to what can be accomplished with a focus on the future. 

The Focus is On Small Businesses

Family businesses have a unique advantage in that they can prioritize long-term success over short-term gains. This is not just a strategy but a philosophy that is woven into the very fabric of how they operate. For us at Medallion Fulfillment, this has meant making investments that may not pay off immediately but promise substantial benefits for our clients in the long term. A prime example of this is our decision to purchase an East coast warehouse to supplement our West coast operations. This move was driven by a vision to provide more efficient and timely shipping solutions for our clients, positioning us as a pivotal fulfillment warehouse and fulfillment company for startups, small businesses, and medium-sized enterprises. 

The benefits of working with a family business like ours are echoed in the experiences of our clients. One such testimonial highlights the value we bring to our partners: 

“Medallion Fulfillment & Logistics is a great 3PL partner for small businesses and start-ups! Their warehouses on both coasts help us more effectively deliver to our customers with timely shipping. Being a family-owned and operated company, they get our needs as a new business, and have helped us every step of the way on the logistics and operations end of things. We trust them with our products and managing the customer unboxing experience. Highly recommend!” 

This feedback not only underscores our commitment to our clients but also our understanding of the unique challenges and opportunities they face. It’s a reflection of our approach to business – one that values relationships, quality service, and a vision for success that extends beyond the next quarter.

Family Owned and Small Business Fulfillment Partner

Family businesses like Medallion Fulfillment & Logistics demonstrate that with stewardship and long-term commitment, it’s possible to build lasting legacies that support our clients’ growth and success. We’re proud to offer a partnership that goes beyond simple transactions, providing a foundation for our clients to thrive in an ever-changing marketplace. Visit us at https://www.medallionenterprises.com to learn more about how our family business can support yours. 

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Throw Out Your Marketing Plan and Try These Tips

Warehouse Fulfillment Company Workers Planning for the Day.

Is your marketing plan not producing the results you’re looking for? Instead of doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different outcome, why not try something new? Our Plainfield RI fulfillment experts share these surprisingly easy yet effective tips for jump-starting your marketing plan.

1. Be transparent.

If you promise nothing but blue sky yet rain falls on your customers, they’re going to head for dry land. A serious disconnect between what’s on your website and the actual buying experience will turn customers into one-and-done. Carefully review the content on your website to make sure it’s consistent with your brand and you’re not overreaching with your commitments.

2. Promote a sense of trust.

Inc. Magazine says that a staggering 84 percent of consumers place equal trust in online reviews and personal recommendations.

*Post genuine testimonials in appropriate spots on your website. Creating false reviews is an absolute no-no and will quickly backfire.

*Post logos of membership in professional associations and other “trust signals” indicating your reliability.

3. Create urgency.

No one likes to feel like they missed out. Leverage free shipping, bonus gifts, and other perks by running them for a limited time. You can also offer opt-in enticements, such as a 10 percent discount for joining your email list.

4. Keep it simple.

There’s such a thing as having too many choices. If your shoppers have to wade through too many options, it can result in paralysis by analysis that ends without a sale. Know your target market and provide a carefully curated selection of products organized in well-defined categories.

Your #1 Choice for Plainfield RI (Boston Region) Fulfillment Services

We offer a full assortment of Plainfield RI fulfillment services, ranging from assembly and packaging to website design and hosting. Contact Medallion Fulfillment & Logistics to learn more.

 

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The Technology Behind Successful Ecommerce Fulfillment

Distribution center concept and international communication network. globalized business, transportation and professional connections.

Online sales in the United States have more than surpassed expectations. In 2012, online sales hit a record $226 billion, and accounted for 7% of all total retail sales. Experts projected $327 billion by 2016, but they were wrong… Total online sales in 2016 were $394 billion! If your fulfillment company isn’t participating in the ecommerce segment, no doubt you know that you’re missing out on an exceptional opportunity!

In this article, I’ll focus on the technological capabilities a warehouse needs in order to implement an ecommerce fulfillment service. The article isn’t going to be about listing the pros and cons of the Top 10 software programs on the market, because I don’t know your current capabilities or strategic goals. Instead, I believe that the most productive approach is to breakdown the process to help you identify where you can improve your systems.

Let’s talk about process integration. Ecommerce clients will typically approach a fulfillment company with an established business infrastructure. Integration means adapting your systems to plug into those of your customer. The processes that are frequently affected are:

• Order Capture & Management

• Picking/Packing & Shipping

• Synchronizing Order and Inventory Status

• Visibility

• Client & Customer Service

Order Capture & Management

There are more than 300 ecommerce shopping cart companies on the market. Your company needs to be technically capable of adapting to the wide variety of methodologies for communicating with those carts. Orders from carts need to be harvested on a regular basis, controlled to insure none are dropped or duplicated, and converted into a form that is compatible with your system.

I believe this area represents the greatest technical challenge for fulfillment companies in the ecommerce space. Your tool bag for interfacing with a client’s systems must include a wide array of technologies, including the ability to interact with flat files, Application Program Interfaces, Web Services, File Transfer Protocol, call center systems, and the occasional manual-order entry. IT resources to plan the implementation and support this process need to be broadly skilled and creative. Administrative resources that perform the daily-order harvesting routines need to be highly attentive to detail.

Picking/Packing & Shipping

This process is probably the most straightforward. Picking slips are generated, product is picked and boxed, and shipping labels are applied using traditional fulfillment methods. Although there may be special requirements for packing slip and box branding, those requirements don’t vary much from conventional fulfillment. It is essential to operate at a very fast past as ecommerce performance is measured in hours and the volume of orders is measured in thousands per day.

Synchronizing Order and Inventory Status

Ecommerce fulfillment requires that the client’s shopping cart has the most recent inventory and order status information. Your systems need to regularly communicate inventory availability to the cart to ensure that a client’s customer is made aware of out-of-stock situations before placing an order. Customers also need to be able to reference the shopping cart to find the status of their order. Process synchronization between your operation and that of your client is an absolute necessity.

Visibility

Ecommerce fulfillment is very fast moving! We used to joke that customers would press the “buy” button and run to the front door looking for the UPS truck! With Amazon’s latest experiments in same-day delivery, this joke is almost a reality. Given the speed of ecommerce, it’s important for your clients to be able to have a real-time window into your process and inventory. At a minimum, clients should be able to see orders and inventory in near real time. The leading-edge, ecommerce fulfillment companies have taken a more pro-active stance by publishing “alerts” when important events are happening in the fulfillment process. Alert examples might include: Product X is running low on inventory; a new shipment of stock has arrived; or a customer has returned an order.

Client & Customer Service

The fulfillment process is heavily impacted by fast-paced marketing and promotional decisions. Ecommerce client support typically requires a designated coordinator to represent the client’s requirements to the fulfillment organization and to coordinate program changes. The volume and minutiae of detail often warrant the implementation of “issue logging” and “project workflow” processes within the organization. Given the pace of the business, these processes are best automated.

Some clients, particularly the Entrepreneur and Offshore segments, may ask the fulfillment organization to manage customer support. This might involve call-center work, authorizing returns, handling the occasional complaint, and so on. These client groups often have too small a volume to outsource their work to large call center. Having an arsenal of exceptional customer-support tools, therefore, positions you to capitalize on a good revenue opportunity.

In summary, successful ecommerce fulfillment relies on solid technical foundations. Warehouses and 3PLs must understand that ecommerce clients have very different needs (and expectations) for the technical aptitude, agility and pace of their fulfillment partners. To fully capitalize on the ecommerce segment, your fulfillment service must meet–and exceed–these requirements.

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Warehousing or Fulfillment Service – Understanding Your Needs

Medallion Fulfillment for Third Party Fulfillment Needs.

As the operator of a virtual storefront, your eCommerce business needs storage for your products and a way to fulfill orders. Which will better satisfy your needs: a warehouse or a fulfillment company? Take a closer look at how each one works.

Difference Between Warehouse and Fulfillment Center

• Warehouses are widely used by both eCommerce shops and brick-and-mortar stores. These large facilities provide storage for a company’s inventory until it’s sold. Individual SKUs (stock keeping units) are kept on shelves or in storage bins and containers to facilitate order-picking.

• On the other hand, a fulfillment center is a more comprehensive operation. In addition to storing product, a fulfillment center generally handles the entire process, from inventory management to order filling and shipping. These centers are sometimes referred to as a third-party logistics provider, or 3PL.

Benefits of a Fulfillment Company

• In business, larger volume means better pricing. A fulfillment center manages a number of customers, allowing them to receive more advantageous pricing on supplies and transportation than you could ever obtain on your own.

• Are you finding it difficult to keep up with the ever-increasing number of orders? Is it taking too long for customers to receive their products? Fulfillment centers have streamlined processes that can be scaled to accommodate company growth.

• Order fulfillment involves many moving parts. Managing this side of your business on your own is cumbersome and time-consuming. When you partner with a fulfillment warehouse, it frees you up to spend your time and energy growing your business.

A Fulfillment Company Invested in Your Success

At Medallion Fulfillment & Logistics, your success means our success. We have a variety of services, including start-up and Amazon replenishment warehousing, that can be tailored to fit your individual needs. Contact us today for more information.