The process of receiving products, packing your monthly boxes, and shipping is fundamental to your subscription business. It requires a considerable amount of effort and coordination, and mastering it is essential to providing an excellent customer experience. So should you outsource packing and shipping, or keep it in-house?
It can be incredibly tempting to keep fulfillment under your roof. You can keep a watchful eye on your product, and after building your business up to a few hundred customers, you may feel confident with your ability to pack and ship boxes.
But ultimately, this is a distraction that pulls time away from more important elements of your business. You should be focusing on growing your customer base, not on trying to be a fulfillment company. Outsourcing offers a professional, affordable, and scalable solution for all subscription businesses. That’s why you should consider it as a viable alternative (especially once you get to a couple hundred customers).
Never Worry About Storage or Receiving
Outsourcing fulfillment means you no longer have to deal with storing and receiving products. At the early stages, you may only be receiving a few packages of product a month, but as you grow, this becomes something that requires considerable space. Keep in mind, it won’t be long till those small boxes turn into entire pallets of product showing up on your doorstep! In addition, it means you have to ensure someone is always available at your office or home to receive packages. Ultimately, if you haven’t outsourced your fulfillment, it reduces your flexibility as an entrepreneur and the mobility of your business as a whole.
Pay an Expense, Not an Employee
Another benefit of outsourcing fulfillment is that an entire operation becomes a single expense – a simple cost per box associated to a single vendor. On the other hand, in-house fulfillment means interviewing, hiring, and coordinating part-time packers each month and often requires someone dedicated solely to this task. Furthermore, you’re looking at extra paperwork and liabilities associated with hiring temp workers.
Keep Expenses Low
If you keep your monthly fulfillment in-house, in addition to paying labor costs for packing your monthly boxes, you’re looking at several associated costs. Packing boxes and storing product takes up a lot of space. By outsourcing your fulfillment, you can potentially save thousands of dollars by not needing to lease large commercial spaces. You’re also saving on utility costs, buying tables to pack on, tape and other supplies, anti-fatigue floor mats, and liability insurance. If you’re storing and packing food items, you’d also save on professional pest control services (required by law).
High-Quality Work
Taking the time to vet your fulfillment company is worth it. A good fulfillment company will be run by someone who takes ownership of your product, weeding out broken or less-than-satisfactory-looking products. If they’re not local, they’ll work with you each month to determine an optimal “box build,” sending you pictures of a variety of different arrangements for your approval before packing.
More Time to Grow Your Business
As mentioned, the primary benefit of outsourcing is that it allows you more time to spend on the things that really matter, like growing your business and engaging with customers. In-house fulfillment anchors both you and your business down to a central location and creates an entirely new set of responsibilities and logistical challenges.
At first, packing and shipping your own boxes sounds like a no-brainer. But be careful – it can quickly become a burden and cause an unnecessary amount of stress, ultimately distracting you from the parts of your business that really deserve attention. Take the time to compare the costs of both options and carefully consider it before taking on the challenge of in-house fulfillment.
