Unlock Business Growth with 3PL Logistics Pt.1

Supply chain management has evolved significantly in recent years, with businesses of all sizes grappling with increasing complexity, rising customer expectations, and the need to remain competitive. Now more than ever, strategic third-party logistics (3PL) partnerships are paving the way for businesses to scale, reduce costs, and improve efficiency.

This blog explores the world of 3PL logistics, offering insights into their role, benefits, and the critical factors to consider when choosing the right partner. In our next post we’ll also highlight real-world success stories that showcase the transformative potential of 3PL partnerships.

What is a 3PL?

Third-party logistics (3PL) providers offer outsourced logistics services that include inventory management, warehousing, distribution, and shipping. These providers act as the connective tissue in supply chains, enabling businesses to offload logistical complexities and focus on their core competencies.

Scope of Services

The services offered by 3PL companies typically include:

Warehousing for storing goods safely and efficiently.
Inventory Management to monitor and optimize stock levels.
Order Fulfillment to manage picking, packing, and shipping.
Freight Forwarding for global or regional shipping logistics.
Returns and Reverse Logistics to ensure a smooth return handling process.

Why Businesses Need 3PL

Many businesses, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs), find it challenging to meet fluctuating demand and keep up with operational complexities. This is where 3PLs provide unmatched value by acting as logistics experts and operational partners.

Benefits of Strategic 3PL Partnerships

Outsourcing logistics to a capable 3PL partner offers several advantages beyond simple operational support.

Cost Reduction

By leveraging economies of scale, 3PL providers can negotiate better rates with carriers, optimize warehouse space, and reduce overhead costs. This translates to significant savings for your business.

Improved Efficiency

3PLs specialize in logistics and bring tried-and-tested processes to the table. With their expertise, businesses achieve faster shipping times, fewer errors, and optimized supply chain workflows.

Scalability and Flexibility

Expanding into a new market? Facing surging seasonal demand? A 3PL partner can help your operations scale seamlessly, allowing your business to respond to new opportunities or challenges without disrupting operations.

Access to Technology and Expertise

3PLs invest in cutting-edge logistics technology, such as warehouse management systems (WMS) and advanced analytics platforms. Leveraging these technologies ensures better tracking, data-driven insights, and real-time transparency for your operations.

Enhanced Customer Satisfaction

Quick, reliable delivery and hassle-free returns are essential for creating loyal customers. A competent 3PL partnership ensures your customers’ expectations are met every time, enhancing satisfaction and retention.

Harness the Potential of 3PL Partnerships

The future of business is dynamic, and agility is key to thriving in rapidly changing markets. Strategic 3PL partnerships allow businesses to unlock potential, improve efficiency, and exceed customer expectations in ways that would be difficult with in-house logistics alone.

At Medallion Fulfillment & Logistics, we’ve spent decades crafting tailored logistics solutions for businesses across industries. Leveraging expertise, technology, and a people-first approach, we help you achieve operational excellence every step of the way.

Explore our 3PL services today to see how we can help your business grow. Contact us to get started.

July 15, 2024July 15, 2024

Best Practices for Ecommerce Apparel Stores

The ecommerce apparel industry offers exciting opportunities for new entrepreneurs and small business owners. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your existing business, understanding the key elements of success can make all the difference. In this post, we’ll cover some best practices centered around 3PL apparel fulfillment, niche selection, and branding — with insights from successful ecommerce apparel store Gymshark.

3PL Apparel Fulfillment

Why 3PL is Important for Apparel Stores

Third-Party Logistics (3PL) providers can be a game-changer for apparel stores, handling everything from warehousing to shipping, and enabling you to focus on growing your brand. Efficient order fulfillment is crucial for customer satisfaction and retention.

Actionable Advice

Research and Select a Reliable 3PL Partner

Ensure that your 3PL partner has experience in handling apparel specifically to guarantee timely and accurate order fulfillment.
Look for reviews and testimonials from other apparel businesses that have used their services.

Optimize Inventory Management

Work closely with your 3PL to manage inventory effectively. This helps prevent stockouts and minimizes excess inventory, which can tie up your capital.
Use automated inventory management systems to track stock levels in real-time.

Leverage Technology and Analytics

Utilize the technology and analytics provided by your 3PL to gain insights into customer demand. This can improve your forecasting and help you make data-driven decisions.
Regularly review these insights to adapt to changing market trends and customer preferences.

Niche Selection

Why Choosing the Right Niche Matters

Selecting a specific niche within the apparel industry allows you to cater to a targeted audience, reducing competition and increasing customer loyalty.

Actionable Advice

Conduct Thorough Market Research

Identify underserved or emerging niches by analyzing market trends, customer behavior, and gaps in the current market.
Use tools like Google Trends and social media analytics to gauge interest in various niches.

Evaluate the Competition

Conduct a competitive analysis to understand who your potential competitors are and what they offer.
Identify their strengths and weaknesses to find opportunities for differentiation.

Leverage Customer Feedback

Use surveys, reviews, and social media interactions to gather feedback from your customers. This can help you refine your niche and expand your product offerings based on actual customer needs.

Gymshark Case Study

Gymshark started by targeting the fitness community with high-quality, trendy apparel. Their success can be attributed to:

Thorough market research and targeting a motivated, engaged niche.
Consistent refinement of their offerings based on customer feedback.
Leveraging social media influencers to create a sense of community.

Branding

Why Strong Branding is Essential

A unique and compelling brand identity helps you stand out in a crowded market, build trust, and connect emotionally with your customers.

Actionable Advice

Develop a Unique Brand Identity

Create a brand that resonates with your target audience. This includes your logo, color scheme, typography, and overall design philosophy.
Ensure your brand’s voice and messaging align with your audience’s values and lifestyle.

Consistently Apply Your Brand Across All Touchpoints

Consistency builds recognition and trust. Ensure your branding is visible and uniform across your website, social media, packaging, and any other customer touchpoints.
Invest in professional photography and design to maintain a high-quality, cohesive look.

Tell Your Brand Story Effectively

Use content and visuals to tell your brand’s story. Share your mission, values, and the inspiration behind your products.
Engage customers through storytelling on social media, blogs, and email marketing to create an emotional connection.

Gymshark Case Study

Gymshark’s branding strategy involves:

Building a strong brand identity that resonates with fitness enthusiasts.
Partnering with influencers to enhance brand visibility and credibility.
Creating a sense of community through engaging content and events.

Conclusion

Starting and growing a successful ecommerce apparel store requires strategic planning and execution. By focusing on efficient 3PL apparel fulfillment, carefully selecting and refining your niche, and building a robust brand identity, you can stand out in the competitive apparel market.

Take these tips to heart and start applying them to your business today. If you are in the market for a 3PL partner for your business, don’t hesitate to book a consultation with Medallion Fulfillment your 3PL apparel fulfillment experts to refine your strategy and grow your store. Happy selling!

June 10, 2024June 10, 2024

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.

April 17, 2024May 13, 2024

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.