Grow your Business, not your Warehouse
With holiday shopping winding down and the New Year rapidly approaching, it is time to plan for 2015. A great way to start is to look back on 2014. What were the biggest challenges you faced? Were there any bottlenecks you encountered? If your largest trials were around manual data entry and fragmented communication with drop shipping, you will want to take a look at solutions for automation.
A true solution for drop ship automation will allow you to grow your business, not your warehouse. As a drop ship retailer, you have the ability to sell an endless aisle of virtual inventory. Your drop ship automation solution will leverage expertise and knowledge in the EDI field to rapidly onboard new trading partners. With more trading partners, you can have a wider variety of products to offer and more quantities by utilizing partners that offer the same items. Plus, by offering virtual inventory, you don’t necessarily need a warehouse. If you do have your own stock, rather than increase your warehouse size or open up a second location to house more product, you can form relationships with drop ship suppliers to fulfill orders on your behalf.
Another perk to implementing a solution for drop ship automation is the ability to source orders to suppliers by either rank or cost. If you have your own warehouse and wish to deplete inventory from their before reaching out to drop ship suppliers, you can set a default vendor and then chose to source orders to the lowest cost or by a ranking of your choice. With complete control of sourcing, you can maximize your margins. In addition, you will receive inventory updates in real time to keep levels accurate and minimize the likelihood of backorders.
With an end-to-end integration with trading partners, you can send purchase orders and receive shipping and tracking information with no manual touches via EDI (XML, CSV, API). Orders will be automatically routed to your suppliers, 3PL, or warehouse. As customers place orders, you automation solution will send those orders to the right place in the correct format. For your partners who cannot adopt EDI standards, they can use a vendor portal to manually fulfill orders. The order updates will be sent to you in EDI, so you can reap the benefits of automation without sacrificing business relationships.
By electing to implement a solution for drop ship automation, you will grow your business without growing your warehouse. With the ability to offer numerous virtual products that won’t crowd your 3PL or warehouse, you can appeal to a broader range of cliental and ensure happy customers by having plenty of stock and real-time updates. The ease and efficiency associated with automation eliminates the need to manually enter data or rekey information, enabling your team to focus on other aspects of your business, be it sales, marketing, customer service, or IT. Start the year off on the right foot and error free by implementing a solution for drop ship automation. Learn more here.
