Jamie C. Winters

Scaling Past Dropshipping

Has your business gone from a sweet side-hustle to a 24/7 churn and you need to outsource some operations to regain a life? We just so happen to know a little bit about a key factor in leveling up your e-commerce business. Today we’re going to share how to scale past dropshipping and what steps you can take right now to expand your e-commerce business.

Building a Foundation to Scale Your Subscription Box

When it comes to scaling your subscription box, it’s important to create a foundation that allows you to scale your e-commerce business as you please.  By revisiting your subscription model and optimizing your shipping strategy, you can begin attracting the customers you need to grow.

Key Aspects of Creating a Successful Subscription Box

There are key aspects to creating a successful subscription box. Depending on which kind of subscription model your e-commerce business is offering will determine what additional partners you might need. Whether you are considering launching a new subscription box or you are looking to scale, selecting and securing foundational elements is crucial.

Here are a few elements to consider when launching a successful e-commerce subscription box.

Is Your E-commerce Success Based on Skill or Luck?

The question: do successful e-commerce brands achieve their success through skill or mere chance? Today, let’s explore the key factors influencing e-commerce success. Are you effectively leveraging these factors, or are you relying solely on luck in your own e-commerce endeavors?

Cornell University suggests that luck accounts for up to 30% of business success.

Easy to Find and Easy to Use Online Presence

In 2022, most successful e-commerce brands have an online presence that is easy to find and simple to navigate. This includes publicly accessible social media channels and a user-friendly website.  Are your online channels on-brand, optimized, and easy to find?  Is your website built in a way that guides shoppers towards a purchase?  Consider these aspects when determining if your e-commerce success is based on skill or luck.

• On-brand social media channels
• Fast loading website that is optimized for mobile
• Easy-to-find FAQ
• Detailed and easy-to-understand information

Positive Customer Experience

Customers will return if you provide them with a personalized and memorable experience. Furthermore, creating a one-of-a-kind unboxing experience as well as a tailored plan to target and appeal to customers will help your e-commerce form loyal shoppers. Moreover, by utilizing branded packaging, personalized inserts, and a strong team that prioritizes quality, you can build a customer experience that distinguishes your brand from the rest.

Are you delivering on these customer experience expectations?

• Personalization
• Sustainability
• Delivery Efficiency
• Unboxing Value

Streamlined Delivery and Fulfillment

When an order is processed and fulfilled, it enters the most important stage of selling an item: the final delivery experience. Without expert knowledge, quality, and personalization, orders are at risk of damage, error, and a less than perfect unboxing experience for shoppers. Furthermore, the fulfillment procedure creates the groundwork for a successful delivery.  With the correct packaging techniques and efficient inventory management systems, orders can be delivered quickly and damage-free to customers.

Various Omnichannel Selling

Reaching your customers and selling to them on different platforms in a variety of ways is the future of e-commerce.  By connecting with shoppers across multiple social media and marketplace platforms, you offer new forms of shopping convenience while also exposing your brand to new buyers.

Are you currently selling on two or more of these platforms?

Environmental Impact

Eco-awareness is growing in popularity amongst shoppers, particularly younger generations.  Successful e-commerce brands around the world are quickly making the transition to sustainable packaging in order to stay ahead of consumer trends and expectations.  By utilizing eco-materials like compostable mailers, reusable shipping boxes, and recyclable packaging filler, brands are shifting toward e-commerce success with sustainable fulfillment choices. How have you shifted your brand toward sustainability?

Surpassing every other generation, 73% of Gen Z consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products.

Consumer expectation is on the rise and e-commerce success is a slippery slope.  After considering the success factors of e-commerce including customer experience, streamlined fulfillment, delivery speed, and environmental impact, is the success of your business built on skill or luck?

Thomas Jefferson once said, “I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”

The Importance of Supply Chain Metrics

An efficient and streamlined supply chain is a key component of a successful e-commerce company.  You can minimize delays and backorders in your fulfillment process and generate satisfied consumers by evaluating KPIs such as dock-to-stock durations, shipping timeframes, and order accuracy rates. Measuring supply chain key performance indicators gives you the data you need to solve problems and continuously improve supply chain efficiency.

Dock-to-stock cycle time is the amount of time it takes (normally measured in hours) to transfer inventory from docks to warehouse shelves, making it available for picking.  The cycle starts when the items arrive from the manufacturer and ends when they are stored and recorded in the inventory management system (IMS).

At Falcon Fulfillment, we pride ourselves on a swift dock-to-stock cycle time.  We guarantee inventory will be unloaded and available for picking within 48 hours of arrival.

Inventory accuracy is defined as the physical accuracy compared to the information reported into the inventory management system. Additionally, it’s recommended that your 3PL do two to four-cycle counts and one physical inventory per year to monitor this supply chain KPI. A cycle count measures each unit and its SKUs to compare the data entered into your warehouse facility’s IMS upon receiving with what is physically available.

Throughout 2023, we delivered on order accuracy with a peak performance of 99.93%.

A term used to define the accuracy of product selection during the order fulfillment stage of a sale. This metric consists of a trained picker collecting precise merchandise from warehouse inventory to complete a customer order.  Once all items are gathered, they are packaged and shipped to customers. Picking accuracy greatly influences order accuracy, therefore the industry standard is no less than 99.30%.

The pickers at Falcon avoid errors from the get-go.  With a specialized barcode inventory management system, warehouse staff is able to accurately pick orders with a 99.999% accuracy.

On-time delivery is a term used to describe the rate at which an order was successfully delivered in accordance with the customer’s preferences at the time of purchase. For instance, if a shopper chose 2-day shipping, did their package arrive within those 2-day specifications? Maintaining customer satisfaction and fulfilling consumer expectations requires a robust on-time delivery rate. Therefore, to sustain customer satisfaction and rising supply chain metrics, it’s suggested that e-commerce achieve an on-time delivery rate of at least 95.20% or higher.

Exceptional supply chain KPIs are reliant on strong e-commerce fulfillment performance. Therefore, partnering with a 3PL partner that prioritizes quality and efficiency is crucial for the long-term success of your business.

Moreover, Falcon Fulfillment provides e-commerce companies with the support they need to scale and reach industry performance standards. Furthermore, we strive to provide stress-free logistic services that are backed by fulfillment experts and proactive staff.

The Goal: A 3PL That Goes Beyond a Partnership

If you’re browsing through third-party logistic companies, chances are, you’re looking for a fulfillment partner. A typical 3PL partnership consists of a third party handling the order fulfillment sector of your business.  With most popular 3PL companies – that’s all you ever get.

Phase One: Introduction

The introductory stage with Falcon Fulfillment consists of representatives from both companies collaborating and discussing their goals. This establishes a better understanding of what a future partnership would look like between the two.  There are a few topics that are covered during the introductory stage. The outcomes of those discussions and topics determine whether moving into phase two of the partnership would be ideal.  Falcon’s introductory topics include:

Business Information

One of the first topics of discussion is, of course, your business.  At Falcon, we are interested in your company, its values, current KPIs, and much more.  We aim to gather key information about your business that will help us better understand how we can assist and whether working with Falcon is the right fit for you.

Company Pain Points

Next, we will gradually move into the main reasons you’re looking to partner with a 3PL. We will dive into the specific pain points your company is experiencing and how you’re looking to improve.  It’s critical to be fully transparent with the needs of your company and what support you’re looking for in a partner. This insight provides Falcon with the baseline for establishing a successful strategy in your fulfillment partnership.

Future Company Goals

The final subject we cover during the introductory phase is the future goals of your company.  Defining where you’d like to see your e-commerce in the foreseeable future and what tools you need to get there is extremely important when working with any 3PL partner.  Discussing the goals of your company will help us better understand how to be the partner your e-commerce needs to succeed.

“The process of discovery is important to us. The idea is to understand your demands so that we can add value where it’s needed. A rising company’s goal is scalability, and we take it into account. We can focus on your order fulfillment while you focus on sales, marketing, and product development thanks to our extensive network of industry partners!”
Gabino Chacon III, Sales Executive

Phase Two: Get to Know Each Other

Following the introductory stage, if the partnership seems beneficial, we move on to phase two where we discuss the operational side of your business. This includes requesting sensitive data, optimizing operational procedures, answering questions, and reviewing.

Request Shipment Data

Transparency and communication are important to us at Falcon Fulfillment. We take pride in providing our customers with insider information, cost-reducing opportunities, and exclusive access to our extensive network of partners.

During phase two, we ask specific questions about your products and operational data to better understand your needs as a company and how working with Falcon can benefit you. This data is needed to create a pricing model suited specifically to your e-commerce. Falcon uses 90 days’ worth of operational data to properly analyze our value adds including but not limited to

Optimizing Postage and Operations

By analyzing the weights and dimensions of your current packaging, we can optimize your packaging strategy for right-size packaging. Furthermore, we help advise on the most economical and expedited shipping method to fit your current model and SLAs to your customers.

“Data is critical to understanding business, meeting customer demands, and staying ahead of the market. Understanding that data is even more important.  That’s why our team thoroughly reviews client data to meet the needs of our partners, their e-commerce, and their customers.”
Lori Denning, Director of Ops

Review Information

At the end of phase two, we evaluate the data and begin our review stage.  We consider whether your shipment data meets our partner criteria, whether Falcon can help with your company’s pain points, in what ways we can do so, and lastly, we determine if a partnership is beneficial for both parties.

Phase Three: Bringing in the Teams

If phases one and two appear favorable for both parties we commence with the third phase. This is the point in the onboarding process where we involve the teams who are responsible for fulfillment. This is where we look at the specifics of how the partnership will function practically. The partnership has essentially begun whereby teams meet and lay the groundwork for a long-term and fruitful relationship.

Meet with IT and Operations

Your e-commerce teams will meet with Falcon’s IT and Ops teams. We then coordinate how we connect to the e-commerce shopping channel, pull orders, and ensure the end customers get exactly what they ordered in the timeframe promised.

Phase Four: Review Proposal 

At this stage, our teams will be familiarized with one another, and the framework of our partnership will begin to take shape. During phase four, company representatives will reconvene and continue finalizing the details. Final plans will include approval of a tailored pricing model, a custom proposal, and a time to begin onboarding.

Tailored Pricing and Proposal 

Fulfillment is not a one-size-fits-all solution. That’s why we provide a comprehensive price and proposal plan tailored to the specific needs of your e-commerce. After reviewing the proposal, answering final questions, and making any necessary modifications, it’s time to set up an official onboarding date and assign your business its own personal account manager to support you every step of the way.

Phase Five: Onboarding

Meet with the Senior Account Manager

The day of onboarding will have finally arrived and a meeting will be arranged between you and the Senior Account Manager to cover all the details.  Together, you will be guided through the onboarding process while SKUs are imported, APIs are connected, and your e-commerce is connected to our Shipstream system, among other mission-critical tasks.  Your personal account manager will assign a position for your fulfillment. This is contingent on the performance and needs of your e-commerce.

“Account managers act as a direct support line for our clients.  Being continually in the loop of sales inventory enables us to reach out and rectify issues before they become problems. Our close relationship with warehouse personnel enables us to communicate with our clients in a timely and easy-to-understand manner.  Additionally, we have access to shipping pricing tables and are always looking for new delivery solutions to benefit your e-commerce.”
Falcon Account Manager

Schedule a Start Date

After successfully integrating your selling platforms into our fulfillment software and meeting your new personal account manager, we will be ready to schedule an official start date for your e-commerce.  Once we’ve reached this step, the only thing left to do is sit back and relax while Falcon handles the rest.

Celebrate

Although not explicitly in the Falcon onboarding handbook, the current and future success of our partnership is definitely worth a party.  When working with Falcon, you gain more time for other important aspects of your business, or maybe more precious time at home with your family.  Whatever it is, take the time to celebrate your success.  You deserve it.