Speed and efficiency are everything in eCommerce. The less hands-on management your eCommerce store needs, the more time you free up to spend on customer service, content marketing, and all of the other tasks that keep your business at the top of its game.
Order fulfillment is one of the most tedious but essential tasks for online shopping. Instead of handling the demanding process of exchanging shipping information and billing addresses, put everything on autopilot with automated order fulfillment.
This dynamic tool automates various aspects of the order fulfillment process, from inventory management to shipping, so you process customer orders more quickly and accurately.
Order fulfillment automation might sound technical or complicated, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
You only need the right processes and automation tools to set up your business for success. In this guide, we’ll explain how automated order fulfillment works and share seven steps to automate fulfillment for your store.
What Is Automated Order Fulfillment?
Order fulfillment is a strategy that leverages technology to streamline the fulfillment process. It usually involves advanced software and machinery to handle tasks like picking, packing, and shipping customer orders.
Humans used to manage all of these repetitive tasks, but the right software and hardware can now manage just about everything for you.
But automation doesn’t just happen at the warehouse level. Fulfillment automation streamlines the entire fulfillment process, from when the customer orders to when it reaches their front door.
With fulfillment automation, you automate several key processes in your eCommerce business, including:
- Inventory control, including instant inventory updates
- Order processing
- Warehouse management
- Automatic selection of the best shipping prices
- Intelligent routing features, which lower shipping costs by choosing the most efficient routes and carriers
Before automation, store owners handled manual data entry and other repetitive tasks. That included updating inventory, packing boxes, and arranging shipments—all of which are time-consuming and prone to human error.
Fortunately, order fulfillment systems can handle most of these tasks for you, leading to a more accurate and cost-effective business.
How Automated Fulfillment Works
Automated fulfillment isn’t just a technological upgrade. It’s a strategic business decision that saves time, boosts customer satisfaction, and saves costs.
It doesn’t have to be complicated, either. Here’s a quick breakdown of how automated fulfillment works for eCommerce businesses.
Purchase
The order fulfillment process starts when a customer orders through your online store. The automated order fulfillment system integrates with your website or eCommerce platform, allowing it to receive and process the order instantly.
You’ll likely receive an email informing you about the customer order and that your fulfillment system processed the order.
Order Routing
Once the system receives the order, it uses a series of algorithms to find the most efficient, cost-effective way to fulfill it. The system will:
- Find the right items from your vendors or inventory
- Decide on the best packaging
- Find the most cost-effective shipping method
If you have your own warehouse, technologies like robotics, barcode scanners, and conveyor belts work with your fulfillment system to handle picking and packing. Everything integrates with your warehouse management system (WMS) to guide workers and manage inventory.
Inventory Management
When a product is low in stock, the system either notifies you or automatically reorders it. If you use a solution like Spark Shipping, the system will even order products from the lowest in-stock suppliers, giving you access to the cheapest products possible.
Shipping Process
Once the order is picked and packed, the automated fulfillment system updates the shipping information. It selects the best shipping service based on cost, speed, and reliability to balance costs with efficiency.
The system then prints shipping labels and sorts packages. Some fulfillment centers will even offer shipping discounts by aggregating your orders and negotiating better rates with carriers.
Reporting
Fulfillment automation gives you detailed reports on various aspects of your business, including:
- Shipping costs
- Fulfillment speeds
- Inventory levels
If you’re looking for opportunities to grow your business, the data doesn’t lie. Tweak your eCommerce business practices and see if that makes a difference in your expenses, total revenue, customer lifetime value, and other essential metrics.
Benefits of Automating the Fulfillment Process
Whether you’re a start-up or an established eCommerce brand, automation will give you a huge leg up. It requires an upfront setup, but automated order fulfillment has many benefits.
Simpler Multi-Channel Retailing
Chances are, you don’t just sell products on your website. You’re on Instagram, eBay, Amazon, and maybe even Walmart Marketplace. That’s great for boosting sales, but manual multi-channel fulfillment requires a lot of legwork.
Automated order fulfillment simplifies the complexity of multiple sales channels and vendors.
By integrating all channels into a single system, you get consistent inventory management and order processing across all platforms, reducing the likelihood of errors and setting you up for multi-channel success.
Better Customer Satisfaction
Online shoppers want a seamless experience, or they’ll take their business elsewhere. Fortunately, automated order fulfillment has a significant impact on customer satisfaction.
A smoother shipping process and the potential for shipping discounts encourage more customers to shop online. Faster delivery times and order accuracy also help you meet and exceed customer expectations.
Efficient Warehouse Management
You might not manage your own warehouse, but if you do, order fulfillment automation is a must-have.
Automation makes quick work of picking, packing, and shipping products in a warehouse management system. It can even maximize warehouse space and the overall picking process, maximizing productivity at all times.
Improved Inventory Management
Do your inventory levels update once a day? That’s a recipe for out-of-stocks and a poor customer experience. eCommerce is a real-time game, so you need to update inventory instantly and continuously.
Automated order fulfillment reduces the risk of overselling and stock shortages by automatically updating inventory figures across all channels. This level of precision in inventory planning is essential for a healthy supply chain and keeping customers happy.
Cost Savings
Human error happens, but it still can lead to expensive mistakes. Automated processes eliminate human error, so let the robots handle the repetitive tasks while your human team works on more complex issues.
As a bonus, eCommerce fulfillment automation cuts expenses associated with errors and your overall labor costs, leading to big savings.
Order fulfillment software isn’t free, but even then, the savings and efficiency make up for the subscription costs.
Scalability
Growing businesses don’t stay small forever. With order fulfillment automation, you have the power to quickly scale up your eCommerce business and become more competitive in your niche.
Automation will set you up for long-term success: leverage economies of scale, score shipping discounts, and sell on more platforms without the learning curve.
Seven Steps To Set Up Fulfillment Automation
A fulfillment automation setup might sound daunting, but it comes down to choosing the right platform for the job. Follow these steps to set up hands-free order fulfillment processes.
1. Assess Your Needs
Every business is different. Before you look for an automation solution, understand exactly what you’re looking for. Your order volume, product variety, and future plans all impact which platform you choose.
Define clear goals for what you want to achieve with automation, such as faster fulfillment, cost reduction, or improved customer experience. There’s no such thing as perfect automated fulfillment solutions, but you at least need a solution that touches on these basics.
2. Choose the Right Fulfillment Technology
There are so many fulfillment automation platforms to choose from, so do your research. First and foremost, look for a platform that solves your biggest problems. Budget is always important, but don’t let the dollar signs get you off track—the goal is to find the best option for the money.
When in doubt, sign up for a few free trials or demos to get firsthand experience using each platform.
The more features the platform offers, the more valuable it is to your business. Look for features like seamless integration with your existing eCommerce platform, scalability, ease of use, and robust inventory management capabilities. For example, Spark Shipping manages not only order fulfillment but also:
- Vendor integrations
- Product management
- Price automation
- Fitment data
- Tracking updates
Spark Shipping offers advanced features like intelligent routing, automatically selecting the lowest-cost in-stock vendor for each order.
This capability reduces fulfillment costs and optimizes the fulfillment process by choosing the most efficient route and vendor based on real-time data.
3. Integrate With Your eCommerce Channels
Automation tool in hand, it’s time to integrate it with your sales channels. Not only that, but it should integrate with your accounting software, marketing tools, and other platforms to keep everything running smoothly.
Integrations facilitate real-time data exchange, which is essential for accurate inventory management and order processing, so make sure these connections are available and in working order. It doesn't hurt that these integrations pave the way for even more automation down the line.
4. Select a Fulfillment Center
If you aren’t fulfilling orders in-house, you need to choose a fulfillment center that supports fulfillment automation. Consider factors like the distribution center location, infrastructure, and how well they can handle your products and order volume.
Fortunately, if you use platforms like Amazon or Walmart Marketplace, you can pay a fee to access their fulfillment center. They’re a little pricey, but professional sellers swear they’re worth the money.
5. Do Vendor Management
Do you work with multiple vendors and distribution centers? Your fulfillment automation system needs to manage and coordinate between these different providers. Make sure it works well with your vendors’ systems; this is key for store inventory tracking and automatic order status updates, especially across multiple locations.
6. Test and Train
The last thing you want is for an automation to go haywire. Always test automations before you implement a new system. Conduct thorough testing to make sure everything works as expected.
Training is also important. Whether you’re a team of one or have a small group of employees, everyone using the system needs training on properly using it.
Most automated order fulfillment software will offer free training to get your team up to speed. Not only does this minimize the chance for error, but it also increases time to value and speeds up implementation. Budget in a few weeks for training while you and your team get used to the new way of doing things.
7. Monitor and Optimize
After implementation, continuously monitor the system’s performance. Analyze metrics like order processing time, shipping costs, and customer satisfaction to identify areas for improvement.
You should test the system when you set it up and make it a point to test the automations at least once a month (or more frequently). A broken integration can spell disaster for an eCommerce brand, so give yourself a reminder to test the system often.
Be open to adjusting and updating your approach as needed to ensure the system remains effective and efficient.
Automation should free up your time to focus on more high-value tasks, so if you find you’re still stuck in the minutiae of fulfilling customer orders, look for more opportunities to automate order fulfillment.
Streamline the Order Fulfillment Process With Spark Shipping
Automation might feel like a big change, but it’s a worthwhile investment in your time as a business owner and your business’s future. Automated order fulfillment supports efficient scaling so you can meet the ever-growing needs of online shoppers.
As long as you have the right platform in your corner, you’ll reduce human error, lower shipping costs, and speed up order fulfillment rates.
Of course, the key is choosing the right platform, and that’s where we come in. Spark Shipping’s advanced automation capabilities and intelligent routing help modern retailers scale efficiently across multiple platforms.
Intelligent routing ensures each order is fulfilled by the lowest cost, in-stock vendor. This not only streamlines the fulfillment process but also cuts down on expenses.
See the Spark Shipping difference firsthand: Sign up for a no-hassle demo now.