Christmas business is just around the corner!

fulfillment-weihnachten

Although Christmas usually does not come as a surprise and after all takes place on the same day every year, the pre-Christmas period is usually characterised by hustle and bustle. Both online and offline retailers are once again faced with the challenge of meeting the increased purchasing power of customers at the end of the year. For this purpose, despite increased demand, sufficient logistics and supplier capacities must be created and optimal delivery and customer service must be guaranteed.

Sales booster and challenge at the same time

The Christmas shopping season begins at the end of November with Black Friday, which in recent years has developed from a discount day to entire discount weeks for many retailers. From then on, the rush increases steadily until the peak is reached in the week before Christmas and the last gifts for family and friends are bought just before the last minute. For all those involved in the value chain, this results in a challenging task and heavy workload.

But it's not only for private individuals that it's "Merry Christmas", the upcoming festive season is also a real sales booster for retailers. Especially in e-commerce, increasing sales are expected again this year. The reason for this is, on the one hand, the declining importance of stationary shops and, on the other hand, the Corona pandemic has further increased online buying behaviour.

Corona pandemic leads to new era in e-commerce

Due to Corona restrictions, the big rush in stationary shops already failed to materialise last year. On the other hand, there was all the more hustle and bustle in front of smartphones, tablets and PCs, because online shopping behaviour has increased significantly. The same is expected for the last month of this year.

In order not to start the Christmas business unprepared, it is important for retailers to make appropriate preparations early on and to develop a strategy for dealing with the increased online demand. Not only a stable online shop has high priority here. Supporting processes, such as logistics and shipping, should also be fundamentally reconsidered and optimised for the stressful pre-Christmas period in order to ultimately provide the customer with a satisfying buying experience. Because at the same time as the increased volume of online orders, the demands of customers are also rising, who are increasingly less tolerant of errors and whose patience span with regard to delivery times is decreasing.

Industry giants such as Amazon or Zalando know how the hare runs and are ideally positioned to meet these challenges. However, this is not to say that there are no options for smaller companies to keep customers happy even in stressful times. In this case, outsourcing processes and consequently relieving employees can be a real relief, especially in the shipping and logistics sector.

Deceleration in everyday work

Companies that handle their entire processes, including order picking, packaging and shipping, in-house in times of high order volumes such as the pre-Christmas season know the enormous effort they have to put in every year. At the same time, it is often unavoidable that mistakes are made here and there, whereby a quick reaction and solution orientation are required. Such situations do not make the already stressful business any easier.

This is precisely what has prompted our customers to make use of our fulfilment service and to leave certain tasks to us, so that they feel a significant relief and can concentrate on the essentials in the company. In most cases, outsourcing individual processes is more profitable than in-house handling.
In the area of e-commerce, we relieve small, medium and large companies in terms of ordering, shipping, logistics and returns and adapt our fulfillment service to their individual needs.

We support with processes such as order acceptance, order picking, transport solutions, returns management and packaging services and can look back on many years of experience. Our centrally located site in Gelnhausen in the Rhine-Main region is the perfect starting point for smooth logistics. The excellent infrastructure and short distances can be a decisive competitive advantage. We also attend e-commerce and logistics events as often as possible to keep abreast of new trends and adapt and optimise our fulfilment services accordingly.

We wish you a good start into the new year 2022!

As a fulfilment service provider, we are aware of how challenging the individual processes for order processing are and how much time is involved - especially during what is actually the most beautiful time of the year. For this reason, it is all the more beautiful and practical to save time through outsourced processes, which can be used sensibly for other fundamental things in the company or simply to take a deep breath. At the same time, it is possible to avoid reaching the limits of existing capacities. This has a positive effect not only on traders and employees, but also on customers, because you and your team are left with more time for the essentials, such as marketing and sales, a win-win situation, so to speak, for everyone involved.

No matter what your decision is, whether you continue to rely on in-house processing or think about outsourcing processes, we wish you a merry Christmas and all the best, especially health, for the new year 2022!

Mike Schubert und Raimund Bergler

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