What will I continue to do myself if I outsource fulfillment?

You’re outsourcing the fulfillment, not your business. The boxes, order picking, and shipping are handled by the warehouse. Everything that defines your brand, your product lineup, and your customer relationships stays exactly where it was: with you.

What Remains of You

• Your online store, your brand, and your entire shopping experience
• Your product lineup, your prices, and your promotions
• Your Purchases: What You Order, When, and in What Quantities
• Your marketing, your online visibility, and your customer base
• Your customer service and the tone you use when providing it

You remain in control of the implementation

Outsourcing doesn’t mean you lose control. You decide what an order looks like when the box is opened, which shipping options to offer, when a return is ready to be resold, and what instructions apply in case of doubt. The warehouse carries out those decisions, consistently for every order.

And you'll keep watching

You'll get your own account where you can track your inventory and orders in real time, as well as a dashboard that shows the status of each order with all carriers. That way, you won't have to rely on an email with a summary or wait for someone to call you back.

What You Really Lose

The day-to-day grind: printing labels, hauling boxes, working late into the night to get the last orders out, and scheduling staff for a surge you didn’t see coming. Plus, looking for a bigger space as soon as you start to grow.

And what else is involved

It’s a coordination task you didn’t have before. Your article details need to be accurate, your submissions need to be registered, and your instructions need to be in writing. It’s not a full-time job, but it’s no small task either, and it requires you to assign someone to handle it.

The conversation continues

You'll be assigned a dedicated contact person who is familiar with your operations. This isn't just a minor detail: the difference between a partner and a supplier lies in whether someone understands the structure of your product line when something out of the ordinary comes up.

Where Others Go Wrong

Online stores that outsource and then wash their hands of it are bound to run into trouble. Not because the warehouse isn’t doing its job, but because no one is making the decisions that only the online store can make. So stay involved in your own operations, even if you’re no longer running them yourself.

How much time it takes you

Expect to spend more time on logistics during the first few weeks than afterward, because your instructions and data are still being refined. After that, it will settle down to simply keeping your product information up to date and registering your deliveries. That’s a fraction of what it used to take you to process everything yourself.