eCommerce sales in Q4 2012 broke another record.  For the year, online sales grew 15.8%, while retail trade in general grew only 5%.  When it comes to retail sales, “clicks are definitely gaining on bricks” and making efficient multi channel fulfillment a priority. 

But many companies are struggling to adapt fulfillment processes to handle picking and shipping of individual items.  Because it’s a very different operational challenge, they have chosen to separate out retail and eCommerce fulfillment operations – using separate buildings, separate systems, even separate financials.  The redundancy and inefficiency of such an approach offsets any profit gained from growing online sales. 

3PLs like Weber Logistics specialize in helping manufacturers manage a multi channel fulfillment strategy by fulfilling retail and direct-to-consumer orders from the same warehouse inventory pool.  The strategy allows companies to control distribution costs by reducing inventory, space, labor – and complexity

A new video on multi-channel fulfillment from Weber reviews how some companies are meeting the logistics challenges of online sales growth by efficiently adapting existing operations.

Need help with your multi channel fulfillment processes? Contact Weber Logistics.