If you’re considering working with a third-party logistics (3PL) provider or are new to outsourcing shipping, what goes on in a fulfillment center may seem like a black box. But the fulfillment process doesn’t have to — and shouldn’t — be a mystery!
So what exactly happens at a 3PL’s ecommerce warehouse once a customer clicks “Submit order” on your online store? We hope this post sheds some light on the fulfillment center operations that take place between checkout and when the order arrives on your customer’s doorstep.
The ecommerce fulfillment process
Here are the top operational activities that occur in a fulfillment center, involving both inbound and outbound logistics processes at a fulfillment center like ShipBob.
Receiving
Your 3PL can’t ship orders if they don’t have your inventory! The receiving of inventory is one of the top warehousing operations that has to take place before your 3PL can start fulfilling orders for your online store. Receiving refers to the acceptance of incoming inventory followed by its storage.
Each 3PL has its own processes for receiving and storing inventory. For example, at ShipBob, we require clients to fill out a Warehouse Receiving Order (WRO) so that we know which products we will be receiving and how many units.
This helps us stay organized and timely with receiving, meaning we can start fulfilling your orders more quickly and efficiently.
Once we receive your inventory, we store your items in our fulfillment centers. Each SKU has a separate dedicated storage location, either on a shelf, in a bin, or on a pallet.
Picking
When your customer places an order, it’s time for the fulfillment process to begin! Some 3PLs require you to manually upload orders to their system; however, there are 3PLs (like ShipBob!) that can integrate with your online store and automatically push orders to your fulfillment provider.
This modern fulfillment software integrates with top ecommerce platforms and marketplaces to bring orders, shipments, inventory levels, and more together in one place.
As soon as an order is sent to your 3PL, it is assigned to a warehouse picking team or a picker. The picking team receives a picking list of the items, quantities, and storage locations at the facility to collect the ordered products from their respective locations.
Packing
When all items in an order have been picked, it’s time to get them securely packed up. Some 3PLs will charge for packing materials as a separate line item, while others include them as part of their fulfillment services.
At ShipBob, for example, plain, standard packing materials — brown boxes, yellow bubble mailers, white poly bags, packing tape, and dunnage — are included. We strive to choose the best packing materials to both protect your products and achieve the lowest practical dimensional weight. We also allow our clients to use custom packing materials to put their brand front and center at an additional cost.
Shipping
The next step is shipping your order. Most 3PLs will purchase and print shipping labels on your behalf. Some 3PLs have preferred carriers with whom they partner, while others compare shipping costs from a variety of carriers.
ShipBob does the latter to make sure that our clients receive the most affordable pricing possible for the delivery speed their customers choose.
Carriers such as DHL, USPS, and UPS pick up orders from fulfillment centers to ship. Once the order ships, you should automatically receive tracking info from your 3PL. With ShipBob, as soon as the order ships, tracking info is pushed back to our clients’ stores.
Technology, fulfillment, and ShipBob
We hope this post demystifies the basics of the fulfillment process. Of course, there may be variations in this process from 3PL to 3PL. Unlike an on-demand warehousing company, 3PLs are the experts in fulfillment, not just excess storage needs.
At ShipBob, every action we take while fulfilling your order has an automatic, corresponding digital counterpart in our dashboard, which keeps our ecommerce fulfillment processes efficient and consistent. Each step is directed by information that is automatically populated in the dashboard when an order is submitted.
For example, in the picking step, the ShipBob dashboard shows our fulfillment associates exactly which SKUs will go in the order, including any custom packaging, and where in the fulfillment center to find those SKUs. This takes the guesswork out of fulfillment and helps us fulfill orders for hundreds of clients each day.
3PL fulfillment process FAQs
Learn more
Learn more about how partnering with a 3PL can help your business scale, and get tips for choosing a fulfillment partner. Download “How to Choose a 3PL for Your Ecommerce Business.”
