What is a fulfilment centre?
A fulfilment centre can save you a lot of time, money and effort, which you can put back into your web shop. Are you curious what a fulfilment centre can do for your webshop? We will explain it to you by answering the questions below:
- What does a fulfilment centre do?
- What kind of services does a fulfilment centre offer?
- Is a fulfilment centre the same as an e-fulfilment centre?
- How do I choose the right fulfilment centre for my online store?
What does a fulfilment centre do?
A fulfilment centre takes care of the whole logistic process of order fulfilment. From receiving the goods to shipping the orders.
For example, for web shops. The logistics process for a webshop is also called e-fulfilment or webshop logistics.
The location where the logistical process takes place is called a fulfilment centre. It may be that a logistics service provider consists of several fulfilment centres.
Outsource fulfilment?
Would you like to outsource the logistics of your webshop to a fulfilment centre? Ask Active Ants about the possibilities without any obligations!
What services does a fulfilment centre offer?
As a fulfilment centre, Active Ants performs all the actions required to deliver a product within a web shop to the customer, starting from the order placed in the web shop.
To clarify this, we have listed a number of services we offer at Active Ants. You can also watch the video below to find out more about our fulfilment services.
Receiving (Goods-in) and storage
We receive your parcels directly from the supplier or manufacturer at our reception department. Upon receipt, the incoming products are first checked. Within our fulfilment centre we have an Autostore, which is specialised for the smaller and medium-sized web shop products. Here we store the products for your web shop awaiting dispatch.
Advantages:
- As a web shop, you do not need to invest in your own warehouse.
- You save time and space because products are stored efficiently in our automated stock management system.
- You can keep track of your webshop's stock in real time.
- You no longer have to search through the warehouse when an order comes in.
Orderpicking and Basketpic
When orders come in, our orderpickers at the fulfilment centre start picking and sorting the products. Active Ants' fulfilment centres employ 450 committed employees and more than 200 robots. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When the products are collected, a picture is taken (Basketpic) which can be sent to the consumer. The products are then carefully packed. The parcel is then immediately provided with a packing slip and an address label.
Shipping
Within our fulfilment centre we make sure that your packages are sent to the customer as soon as possible. We also offer various delivery options, so we can deliver your package within one day, or even the same day! Thanks to Active Ants' excellent partnerships with our delivery services such as Royal Mail, Hermes, bpost, PostNL, La Poste, FedEx and UPS, your customers will be able to enjoy their new purchases in no time.
Return processing
At Active Ants we offer additional fulfilment services to our standard services as a fulfilment centre. For example, you can also outsource return shipments to us. When your customers send their package back, we receive it at our fulfilment centre. We inspect the return shipment and take care of further processing. The products that are returned in good condition are taken back into stock. Ready for the next order.
Is a fulfilment centre the same as an e-fulfilment centre?
Not quite. A fulfilment centre provides logistics services for physical shops and web shops. However, the fulfilment centre may choose to focus only on the logistics of the physical shops or of the web shops.
An e-fulfilment centre only provides logistics services for web shops. An e-fulfilment company does not, therefore, take care of the logistics of physical shops. In short, an e-fulfilment centre is a fulfilment centre, but a fulfilment centre does not necessarily have to be an e-fulfilment centre. That is why they are not entirely comparable with each other.
How do I choose the right fulfilment centre for my (online) business?
A good fulfilment centre can contribute to the success of a web shop. Choosing the right partner for your webshop logistics is therefore very important. But which fulfilment service provider fits your web shop best? In the UK, there are many different options and sometimes it is difficult to see the wood for the trees. This can make it difficult to decide what differences you should pay attention to. For example, the service can be very different from one another. To help you make the right choice, we have prepared a number of questions. By answering the questions below, you can compare different fulfilment centres and make the right choice which one suits your webshop best:
- Does the service of the fulfilment centre match the requirements and wishes of my web shop? Or are there still certain things you miss?
- Are there minimum requirements that the fulfilment centre has for their services? And does my webshop meet these requirements?
- Is integration possible with the order- and stock management system of my web shop and the fulfilment centre?
- Is the location of the fulfilment centre strategically advantageous for my web shop? Does the fulfilment centre have multiple locations (fulfilment centres)?
- How flexible should the fulfilment centre be in order to handle peak periodes in your sales process? And can this company meet these requirements?
- How important is sustainability for my webshop? And can the fulfilment centre comply with this?
- What are the costs for using the logistics services? To what extent are these costs fixed or flexible? And will I, as a web shop, have enough margin left over for healthy business operations?
Fulfilment centres UK, Netherlands, Belgium And Germany
Are you looking for a fulfilment centre in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany or Belgium?
Fulfilment centres Active Ants
Active Ants is a fulfilment company with several fulfilment centres in the UK, Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. Our ambition is to continue to grow in the coming years, both at home and abroad, with new fulfilment centres at strategic locations. In this way we can better serve web shops and help them grow in the UK and abroad.
Innovation, automation and sustainability are of paramount importance within our fulfilment centres. For example, man and robot work together at our company. This has enabled us to organise our fulfilment process very accurately and efficiently, so that the orders within your web shop are processed and shipped even faster. We use a cut-off time of 23:59 hours, whereby an order is usually delivered the next day. Same-day delivery is also one of the possibilities.
Discover the fulfilment possibilities for your webshop
Would you like to know more about our fulfilment centres and what we can do for your web shop? Contact us today using the contact details below. Active Ants can take care of your web shop logistics, so you can focus on the core business of your web shop. Together we will go for a satisfied customer!
Would you like to take a look at one of our fulfilment centres? Watch the video below or make an appointment and visit us!
