Fulfillment Services and Product Fulfillment Blog

Amazon.com, Inc. which operates retail web sites, as well as provides programs that enable third parties to sell their products on it’s web sites recently began offering fulfillment services.  The company that is known primarily for it’s book business and for being one for the first companies on the web to master the upsell is entering the fulfillment business.  They are attempting to leverage their experience of fulfilling their own products and the products of companies that list on their website and expand to products that don’t have anything to do with their website. 

“The Amazon Fulfillment Web Service (Amazon FWS) allows merchants to tap in to Amazon’s network of fulfillment centers and our expertise in logistics,” said Amazon Web Services evangelist Jeff Barr in a blog post. “Merchants can store their own products to our fulfillment centers and then, using a simple Web service interface, fulfill orders for the products.”

After reviewing the pricing of this offering it is pretty clear that this service is intended and most beneficial for the small business markets.  Companies that offer fulfillment services and services related to fulfillment like AMS Fulfillment will still clearly be the best choice for medium or large companies or medium to large fulfillment, assembly, or warehousing needs. 

In setting up for inventory management of a 500-plus business-to-business (B-2-B) fulfillment operation, the discovery process is critical to the success of the client and the 3rd party fulfillment company.  To be successful, the fulfillment company must understand all of the nuances of the client’s order configurations (i.e. number of line items, number of units per line item), seasonal spikes, SKU lifecycles, master and inner carton specifications, SKU information on master cartons, inner cartons and on the loose items, sales velocity by SKU and the stability of sales by SKU.  From here, warehouse management professionals can begin to devise a scheme for receiving, put-away and pick-pack-ship fulfillment.  Without this information, a fulfillment company would be spending hours (dollars) setting up a fulfillment operation that would undoubtedly need to be altered or updated at the expense of either party.  If you are in the process of shifting inventory from one facility to another, make sure the company you are choosing is asking intelligent questions well in advance of the arrival of the first container!

The formula for fulfillment efficiency and excellance is people, expertiese, space, and systems.  With optimally efficient operations a fulfillment company can provide the best service as well as the best price.  Opimial effiiciency comes from having the right people in the right jobs.  This comes from having fulfillment management teams in place with a substancial amount of experience.  Of course you have to have a strategically ideal location that has enough space to take on even the largest inventory.  Excellent systems and procedures top it off to make sure the fulfillment team knows the specific needs of each individual client project.  Maybe AMS Fulfillment has the right formula for your company.

Welcome to the AMS Fulfillment www.amsfulfillment.com Blog!  We are happy you have joined us.  As leaders in the fulfillment industry we feel it is important to educate people to help them make the best decisions regarding your fulfillment needs.  We work with some of the the best companies out there.  If you are a medium to large business we may be the right fulfillment company for you.  Feel free to contact us to see if we can help you.