What is e-fulfillment and how much does it cost?

The term "fulfillment" has Anglo-Saxon origins and means "execution" or "fulfillment." Simply explained, fulfillment stands for the processing of all activities related to the logistics and delivery of your goods. Fulfillment costs are therefore all the costs of order processing. As today's value chains become increasingly complex, the process steps that take place in the background of your online shop can be really nerve-wracking.

Some example processes for your e-fulfillment are independent warehousing, where appropriate storage space would have to be found and possibly rented or purchased, and the organization of your own employees who are hired to pack your goods. Furthermore, the synchronization between order placement and warehousing should be ensured without delay. In addition, you have to take care of customer returns in parallel and undertake appropriate warehouse planning.

This small selection of simple fulfillment processes alone confronts some entrepreneurs with seemingly unsolvable tasks. That's why more and more self-employed people are deciding to outsource their logistics and turn to a so-called fulfillment provider.

MOODJA is one such fulfillment service provider. Essentially, we want to support you to the extent that you can run your business from your laptop. Meanwhile, as an external logistics service provider, we take care of all order processing on your behalf. This means that we take care of warehousing, packaging, shipping, and returns for you.

Is fulfillment worth it?

Whether a fulfillment service provider is worthwhile for you depends on many factors. It is advisable to check whether there are specialist providers for your business sector and what kind of goods you mainly sell. The process in e-fulfillment starts basically with the order acceptance in your webshop or on a marketplace and ends either with the shipment of your goods or, if applicable, with a customer return.

As individual fulfillment services such as:

1. Warehousing
2. Order picking
3. Franking and labeling
4. Shipping
5. Returns management

are costly and require a great deal of expertise, retailers are increasingly choosing to outsource these processes to fulfillment providers like us.

However, it is always important for us to fulfill your individual wishes as precisely as possible, in order to guarantee you and your customers the optimal shopping experience.

What do I get out of fulfillment?

Bundle your resources for your two most important tasks: generating order requests and managing these orders. This directly impacts your sales and allows you to really focus on increasing your bottom line. Any other additional activity will cost you either time or valuable resources, which will then no longer be available to increase your profits. With the help of a professional fulfillment partner, you can focus on your core competencies with a clear conscience.

Today, professional e-commerce is no longer conceivable without the involvement of fulfillment service providers. The decisive question should therefore be, which fulfillment provider is the right one for you?

Fulfillment costs

Even in online retail, each company should be considered completely independently and individually, especially when it comes to pricing. Typically, fulfillment service providers charge a flat monthly fee for working with the online retailer and their fulfillment center. Then there are the costs for the actual order processing, which are typically charged individually for each order type. The order type was previously defined together with the online retailer and results from an individual effort as well as a corresponding cost type.

The cheapest e-fulfillment variant consists of warehousing, standard packaging, and shipping. Special requests such as fulfillment with returns management, which also includes disposal or alternatively repackaging of returned goods, cost correspondingly more. The actual shipment of the goods to the end customer is carried out by us via reliable German logistics partners. If desired, you or your end customer can check the status of the order at any time via tracking ID.

In addition to the classic method of calculating fulfillment costs, scaling has also become established for calculating fees. In this case, the fulfillment process is made assessable in advance through recurring order quantities or order relationships. Subsequently, measurements are made using a yardstick to determine the fulfillment price.

Ultimately, you must decide this for yourself

Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages, but in the end, you have to decide for yourself which method makes more sense for you and your shop to opt for a professional fulfillment fee model in the long term.

The fulfillment costs are never borne by you anyway, as you always pass them on to your end customers via your product price. However, fulfillment costs are typically not itemized to the end customer. For your internal company accounts, you should not only look at the pure fulfillment prices but also at your internal resources that you can save by using e-fulfillment. We know this calculation is never easy, but our experts at MOODJA GmbH are happy to help you find out whether e-commerce fulfillment is worthwhile for you. We are your partner and will gladly help you further increase the success of your business, even beyond the classic logistics issues. Simply contact us and let us support you.