Overcoming The Top 4 Fulfilment Pain Points

Simplify your 3PL warehouse and fulfilment workflows to grow your business.

The right workflows can save you time and money — and empower your team to increase daily order fulfilment. What to know how? Check out how you can overcome the top 4 fulfilment pain points in your 3PL Warehouse today! 

Navigating the complexities of logistics can be a nightmare at times — from managing global and local supply chain systems — to simply keeping accurate track of your inventory and storage. Let alone adding in online integrations for e-commerce fulfilment, optimizing rate cards and charges, and ensuring you can manage your team and resources smartly.

There's a lot to consider, and a lot at stake. It's no wonder so many customers look to outsource logistics all together, by engaging a Third-party logistics provider (3PL). 

Though, to run a successful 3PL warehouse operation, there are a few common pain points to overcome. That's where the power of a cloud-based logistics management system comes in. A cloud-based 3PL WMS gives you the ability to tap into time-saving features, seamless online integrations, and a world of automation that will save you and your team hours each day! 

Let's take a look at four common 3PL Warehouse fulfilment pain points, and how the right WMS features can help you overcome them — and grow your business.

‍Pain Point #1: Manual Data Entry

Problem: Manual data entry is time-consuming and painstaking, and often delivers sub-par results. Across all logistics and warehousing environments — no matter how large or small your operation— manual data entry can create significant issues. Poor accuracy and lost paperwork can cause errors in fulfilment, from incorrect item selection to the wrong delivery destination. It can also limit your potential customer base if you don't offer automated data entry or online e-commerce WMS integrations. ‍

Solution: Automate data entry with a cloud-based warehouse management system or transport management system. Data automation not only saves you time and money, it also increases accuracy and improves your customer’s experience!

• Provide real-time reporting to your customers without lifting a finger!
• Accept e-commerce orders directly to your WMS as sale orders ready for picking.
• Simplify data sharing with partners and customers. 
• Automate data capture across the entirety of your operation and save hours on admin each day.

 *Want to know more? See our recent blog article on simplifying data capture for SMB logistics companies. 

CartonCloud's top-user rated integrated WMS/TMS system is designed specifically to support 3PL and logistics operators to overcome daily pain points, and streamline their workflows.

With simplified data input and confirmation, you can save hours of admin time from your day — keeping you and your team on top of business, and allowing you to go home at 5!

Pain Point #2: Supply Chain Visibility 

Problem: As our industry becomes ever-more online and automated, the pressure to provide up to date data, and have effective data flow between systems is building for smaller providers. Downstream businesses, partnering providers and end customers rely on this data to make rapid decisions, plan ahead, manage stock, and report to their own customers. For smaller businesses running on paper-based processes, the demand for up to date data can seem like a mammoth task. 

Solution: Our logistics software provides customers with visibility on stock availability, order statuses, and deliveries, achieving a completely online and transparent end-to-end process. This means they can make operational decisions in real-time based on data,  effectively increase or decrease the flow of stock, check stock 24/7 and react operationally to the changes occurring in demand. The best part? With a cloud-based system like CartonCloud, this data reporting is automated, using features like barcode scanning, mobile app for order fulfilment and stock movement, and capturing driver delivery ePODs. Data Capture is seamlessly woven into each step, ensuring your data is up to date, with each action. 

Pain Point #3: Accurate Inventory location

Problem: Struggling to understand where your stock is can be common for SME’s in the warehouse and transport industry. Without warehouse locations set up for inventory identification, warehouse pickers could be relying on memory, or guessing in order to pick for orders. Of course, the flow-on effects can mean frustrated staff, slow order fulfilment, and incorrect picks requiring returns, just to name a few. ‍

Solution: Automated software updates to maintain real-time inventory data. With an integrated WMS system like CartonCloud, you can record and track inventory from incoming freight to put away location (or cross-docking), when inventory is picked for orders, and dispatched — all in real-time. With seamless integrations to your partner and customer software, data can flow easily between the platforms, ensuring the most up-to-date records are captured.  

Paint Point #4: Scalable Systems

Problem: It's ok to wing it at the start. You might have workarounds, varied processes between staff members, or time-consuming double checks for paper-based processes — but these will only work for so long, before you can no longer scale up operations. To grow into multi-site and nationwide operations requires connectivity across the systems and sites, and uniformity across procedures.‍

Solution: Our cloud-based warehouse management systems provides optimized workflows, with flexible workflows designed to simplify processes and boost accuracy. Access your dashboard from desktop or tablet, or use the task mode on the WMS mobile app to complete specific actions — and empower your team with accuracy and simplicity.

📱Take our CartonCloud WMS Mobile Picking 2.0 features for example;

• Sales orders are automatically created from incoming orders, available to your warehouse team via the mobile app.
• You can assign picking tasks to team members, or they can select an order by status — ensuring clear communication and cohesion across a busy warehouse floor at all times.
• Each order can be optimized for picking via the mobile app— to save time between warehouse locations, to prioritise urgent orders, or use reallocation for ease of access to required stock.

Watch our YouTube tutorial series to see how you can unlock accuracy and speed with our Picking 2.0 feature.

This empowers businesses to duplicate or mirror the same processes and systems across multiple sites very easily. The software can also integrate with transport management systems and can plug into other programs like Quickbooks, Xero and thousands of others through our open Zapier.  

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Overcome your fulfilment paint points, with CartonCloud 

Doing everything manually is a tough ask. And if you want your business to grow, it’s almost impossible to reach that next level without a streamlined WMS system. 

At CartonCloud, we pride ourselves on providing the most easy-to-use warehouse and transport management systems, at an affordable price, to empower small to medium-sized businesses to simplify operations, boost their order fulfillment, and scale up. 

Want to know more?

CartonCloud is created by logistics people for logistics people.

Get in touch with our friendly team today to book a FREE Demo at a time that suits you. See our software in action, talk to our experienced team about your operations and services, and find out how CartonCloud can help you revolutionize your operations with ease.