6 Frequently Asked Questions about Shipping Labels Answered
Shipping a package isn’t complicated, but you should know that there are certain requirements when shipping boxes to customers. One of these requirements is a shipping label. These labels are the only way you can get a courier to deliver your products, as they provide the necessary information to get the job done. Here are some frequently asked questions and answers about shipping labels.
1. What Are Shipping Labels?
Shipping labels are identification documents that present information about the shipment. They are attached to boxes when orders are sent out for delivery. Every e-commerce seller must have shipping labels on their boxes to get their shipments to their customers.
The labels will differ depending on your courier of choice but will always show important information such as the recipient’s name and address, the weight of the shipment, and the tracking barcode. This information is required for any courier to deliver your package from its starting point at your warehouse to its destination.
Along with this important information, shipping labels also specify the contents of the package. This is especially the case for international shipments. They also include details about the method of shipping (standard or express).
Shipping labels can only be used once; a new one must be issued each time a new shipment is sent out.
2. What Is the Ideal Structure for Shipping Labels?
Every shipping label must have certain information on it for your courier to deliver the package to your customer. Here is the structure of shipping labels regarding the information you must provide.
- Return Address: This is valuable in cases where the package cannot be delivered. This address should be of your third-party logistics provider’s (3PL) warehouse or home (if you run your business from a home office).
- Destination Address: This is the address of your customer to inform the courier where the shipment needs to be delivered. The postal code or zip code should always be included to make it easier to accurately route the shipment.
- Shipping Date: This is the date the shipment needs to be sent out for delivery. It helps couriers confirm that the shipment is moving along the line following the right timelines.
- Package Weight: This is another vital piece of information that should be included on the shipping label. The weight determines the cost of shipping and impacts how the courier sorts the packages.
- Shipping Class: This feature is an important determiner of how long it will take to deliver the item. The names vary, but they communicate the speed (standard, express, next day, etc.)
- Barcode and Tracking Number: This information helps track the movement of packages during shipment.
3. Where Do I Get Shipping Labels?
There are a few ways to get a shipping label, depending on where you are purchasing your shipping service. If you use a shipping service, you can easily get a label directly from your dashboard. Or, you can generate and print packing slips and customs declarations for shipments on your own by visiting your courier’s web site.
4. Can I Print Shipping Labels from Home?
Shipping labels can be created from the comfort of your home. You can simply download and print your shipping labels directly from your courier website or dashboard. This is the easiest way to create your own shipping labels at home if you run your ecommerce business from there.
If your business is growing, however, you may want to reconsider how you manage your logistics. There are 3PL providers that not only handle shipping labelling and delivery, but they also take care of multiple responsibilities, so that you can focus on sales and marketing.
5. Do I Need a Special Printer to Print Shipping Labels?
In general, you will not need a special printer to print shipping labels. You can download these labels directly from your courier’s website or your dashboard and print them on any printer. However, you will need to purchase clear, plastic stick-on envelopes to put the slips inside and adhere them to the boxes. Or, you can tape or glue them to the package. There are special printers that can print self-adhesive shipping labels for you.
6. How Can Lean Supply Solutions Help Improve My Shipping Process?
Shipping labels are one important factor to ensure you have right when sending deliveries to customers, but there are more details to address before the labels are slapped onto your boxes.
With the help of an experienced 3PL partner like Lean Supply Solutions, you can access the right shipping company that gets your products to your customers safely and on-time. As a 3PL partner, we have the services you need to exceed your customer expectations, get better tracking of your inventory and supplies, prepare and forecast changes, and more. When it comes to your shipping process, there is little room for error if you want your business to grow and profit. This is why working with a 3PL partner is an unmatched solution.
If you are looking for the right company to partner with, Lean Supply Solutions is the answer. We rise to the challenge of meeting our clients’ needs through our services, which include product fulfillment, warehousing and distribution, e-commerce fulfillment, warehouse pick and pack, order fulfillment, shipping, delivery, and more. To learn more about outsourcing to us, or to ask any questions, contact us today.
- Published in Blog
What Is the Difference between a 3PL and 4PL Provider?
Fourth-party logistics (4PL) providers have a huge role within the supply chain. Not only do they assume many of the same roles as third-party logistics (3PL) providers, but they also take on a bigger responsibility in helping the business clients reach their goals.
The main difference between a 3PL vs. 4PL provider is the level of accountability and control. 4PLs are more like trusted advisors and the customer often relies heavily on their data and services to grow and meet their business goals. Depending on your business size and goals, one of these options will be right for you. For a deeper look at the difference between these two types of logistics management, here’s what you need to know.
What Is 4PL?
Fourth-party logistics is a model in which manufacturers outsource both the organization and management of their supply chain to an external provider. 4PL offers a higher level of effective supply chain management to customers, which allows manufacturers to completely outsource their logistics process to external professionals for better management.
For example, the manufacture of a product will outsource aspects such as logistics, packaging, warehousing, and delivery of their products to a 4PL company. A 4PL company will then take control all these operations so that the manufacturer or retailer can focus on other aspects of their business.
These services include:
- Freight sourcing strategies
- Logistics
- Analysis of transportation expenses
- Analysis of carrier performance
- Effective 3PL management
- Business planning
- Project management
- Management of inbound, outbound, and reverse logistics
- Coordination of a wide supplier base
- Network analysis and designs
- Analysis of capacity utilization
- Inventory planning and management
Advantages of 4PL
- Wider Management of Operations: Shipping, distribution, warehousing, physical sites, and information flow are all managed by the provider.
- Information Technology: Software and automation are processes included in 4PL services to improve communication across the network. Providers can offer valuable information technology and software that increases visibility on a real-time basis.
- Solution-Oriented Methods: 4PL providers aim to design the solution first to meet the business’ requirements. They have expertise of end-to-end operations that relate to warehousing, distribution, freight, and information technology, and provide the best solutions for the client.
Disadvantages of 4PL
- Less control over fulfillment and logistics processes
- Possibility of being cost-prohibitive for start-up organizations and small businesses
What Is 3PL?
Third-party logistics involves a manufacturer maintaining oversight of their supply chain but outsourcing transportation and logistics operations to a 3PL provider. This model is similar to 4PL in many ways, but 3PL providers focus on logistics such as inventory storage, inventory management, customs brokerage, freight forwarding, contract management, picking and packing, crossdocking, and IT solutions. Unlike a 4PL, 3PL providers will not oversee the entire supply chain and organization.
Advantages of 3PL
- Resource Network: A 3PL provider has a large resource network that provides advantages for in-house supply chains. They will manage all the logistics for a business from beginning to end. With their relationships and discounts, they can save you money on overhead and provide you with faster service.
- Save Time and Money: A 3PL provider will eliminate your need to invest in warehouse space, technology, transportation, and staff to execute the logistics process. They can also manage billing, audits, training, staffing, and optimization.
- Scalability and Flexibility: 3PL providers can also scale space, transportation, and labour according to your inventory needs.
Disadvantages of 3PL
- Less inventory control
- Costly expense if customer orders are low
- Suitable for small-to-medium businesses, but not large ones
- Limited control over the customer experience and fulfillment
The Main Differences between 4PL and 3PL
The main difference between a 3PL provider and a 4PL provider is that a 4PL handles the entire supply chain, while a 3PL focuses on logistics. Each one provides its own advantages depending on your situation, so understanding what you get with each provider will help you make the right decisions for your company.
Here are some of the key differences between the two options:
- 4PL providers are better for medium-to-large businesses, while 3PL providers are more suitable for small-to-medium businesses.
- 4PL providers function at the optimization and integration level while 3PL providers focus more on daily operations.
- 4PL providers may own assets like trucks and warehouses while 3PL providers generally don’t typically own these assets.
- 4PL companies can effectively coordinate the activities of 3PL providers.
- 4PL providers provide the highest level of logistics services for a great value while 3PL providers are more focused on one-off transactions.
- 4PL providers maintain a single point of contact for every business’ supply chain while with 3PL providers, businesses often need to manage certain aspects of the supply process internally.
Choose Lean Supply Solutions for 3PL or 4PL Services
If you have a start-up or small to medium-sized business 3PL services will be the better option for you. They will help you manage your warehousing and distribution so you can focus on marketing and sales as your business grows. However, if you need a wider range of services for your medium to large-sized organization a 4PL provider will be better suited to you.
The good news is that Lean Supply Solutions offers both. We offer 3PL and 4PL services, depending on what works best for our clients. While you get the logistics support you need, we will also ensure you get a return on your investment.
Our services include contract logistics, e-commerce fulfillment services, inventory planning and management, supply chain management and optimization, pick-and-pack services, freight and warehousing, reverse logistics management, and more.
We rise to the challenge of understanding our customers’ needs and providing customized solutions to help them succeed. To learn more about outsourcing to our 3PL or 4PL services or to ask any questions, contact us today.
- Published in Blog
How Automated Shipping Can Benefit Your Order Fulfilment
If you’ve been working in the order fulfillment industry for a while, you’ve probably heard about technology like chatbots, auto-email replies, barcode scanners, customer management software, robotics, and more. Automation is everywhere, and many of your competitors are taking full advantage of this technology to optimize their supply chain. If you want to learn more about how automated shipping can benefit your organization, here’s what you need to know.
What Is Automated Shipping?
Automated shipping is the automatic process of ensuring commercial shipping procedures are performed as new orders are placed. This includes picking items from inventory, packing boxes, and delivering packages to customers.
When it comes to fulfillment, speed is one of the major advantages that companies seek. With an automated shipping solution, you can automatically get orders in cue and eliminate several manual tasks involved in the process. You can introduce robots to take over manual tasks, add a layer of software to your system, or install conveyor belts to move products through the warehouse.
Benefits of Automated Shipping
Improved Order Accuracy Rate
An automated shipping system can significantly improve your order accuracy rate. It achieves this by automatically checking the existing cube and weight of a carton against the expected cube and weight of an order. If any carton that is processed shows that it is following outside of the expected range, it will be diverted for manual checking and reprocessing. In the long run, this translates to fewer errors, fewer returns, and happier customers who are more likely to stay loyal to your brand.
Increased Efficiency
Automated shipping systems lead to significantly faster turnarounds. Since tasks like packing, adhering shipping labels, and sorting or counting stock levels can be time-consuming when handled manually, automation can help you perform these tasks faster. A streamlined shipping process helps you increase production, which lets you cater to more orders in less time. The ultimate benefit of automation is that it helps you drive sales and boost your profits.
For example, you can use barcodes to speed up processes. As you scan items, it automatically updates counts and data in your warehouse management system. Similarly, you can send tracking information in real-time to your customers using GPS location on your delivery trucks.
Optimizes Supply Chain
The process of optimizing your supply chain aims to consolidate your data in one place. This makes it easier to track orders and manage inventory, and even provides you with data to improve demand forecasting.
Reduced Errors
An automated warehouse helps businesses fully integrate inventory management through the ERP (enterprise resource planning) system. This includes all fixed and current assets and goods available. Automation provides access to important information such as your customer address book, the introduction of fuel charges, and other types of automatic storage. With accurate and updated information such as this, it will help you eliminate significant errors that can be costly.
With manual data entering, the risk of errors is increasingly high. This can have many negative financial consequences especially as your business changes and grows. Some of the consequences of these errors include increased delivery costs, maintaining excessively high availability, improper planning and coordinating, future penalties for documentation errors, and more.
With the right freight management software, you can optimize your entire logistics business. You may be surprised to find out how many aspects of your operations can be integrated to bring peace of mind to your warehouse managers and your customers.
Cost-Effective Shipping
Automated shipping systems can help your business find significant reductions in shipping costs. This is a huge advantage for organizations that work in this industry because shipping costs tend to account for a huge percentage of total fulfillment costs. Some of the savings you will find through automation include the labour savings mentioned before, but also includes the benefit of fewer dimensional weight surcharges.
Automation reduces dimensional weight surcharges, thus keeping the costs lower. This is accomplished in numerous ways, but the most common method is cartonization. Cartonization is the process of using software to ensure that orders are shipped in the best sized packaging for the items inside. This ensures that shipments do not fail the dimensional weight calculation test.
If a shipment fails this test, it is flagged and redirected for repackaging into a more appropriately sized carton to eliminate or reduce the surcharge. Over time, these savings can have a major impact on your bottom line.
Choose Lean Supply Solutions to Automate Your Shipping
An automated shipping process can help your business grow and save money at the same time. Although automation is usually reserved for large enterprises, e-commerce merchants and small businesses that partner with third party logistics providers (3PLs) can access automation to help them save on shipping costs as their business grows.
At Lean Supply Solutions, you can benefit from quality and accurate software and automation solutions that help you make wiser decisions about optimizing your supply chain. Our Lean Methodology helps our clients eliminate any operations, equipment, personnel, or resources that do not add value to their supply chains. We do our best to ensure that you consistently deliver the right products to the right customers at the right time.
Ready to get long-term savings, customer satisfactions that deliver the best return on investment, lower operating costs, improved focus, high-end technology, and more? We’re here to help you. In addition to automated shipping, our services also include warehousing and distribution, pick and pack, repackaging, integrated solutions with companies like Amazon, labelling, online reporting, and transportation. You can trust us to provide consistent, predictable, and quality results. Contact us today!
- Published in Blog
Quick Guide to Understand the Retail Order Fulfillment Process and Optimization
For many companies, their e-commerce sales have outperformed those of their brick-and-mortar store sales. Now, in light of the global pandemic, companies are seeing their online sales skyrocket to new heights. In 2020, after merchants closed their doors and adapted to online retail avenues, many quickly realized the difference between delivering products to customers and having them come to the store.
The fulfillment process has never been more important to retailers. Each order placed online needs to be picked from available inventory, packed in boxes, properly labelled for shipment, and physically delivered to the customer. There are retail fulfillment costs that come with this process, too.
If you want to truly embrace what it means to be an omnichannel business, you’ll need to improve your retail fulfillment process and get professional logistics management to help you with the heavy lifting. What is retail fulfillment? How can a logistics provider help you scale your e-commerce business? Here’s everything you need to know to optimize.
What Is Retail Fulfillment?
Retail fulfillment involves the assembly and shipment of a customer product order. Instead of a customer going to a physical store to buy the items they want, they can visit your website and purchase the items they want. The e-commerce platform allows this notification to arrive to the fulfillment centre, where they will ensure the correct products are picked, packed, and delivered to the customer.
The Importance of the Retail Fulfillment Process
Retail fulfilment is important to your online because it directly impacts customer satisfaction and profits. Although you may be an excellent salesperson, you still need to consider the costs and time to pack orders, ship them out, and deliver them to your customers within an acceptable time frame. If you cannot deliver on these guarantees each time your customers place orders, they will happily move on to a retailer that can.
Working with a third-party logistics (3PL) provider to manage your retail fulfillment process is necessary to helping your business grow. Their efficient processes and management of customer orders will help you scale as demand increases, so you can also make more profits.
Workflow of the Retail Fulfillment Process
Receiving New Inventory
As products leave your inventory to go to your customers, you will need to order more. If you have an e-commerce system in place, you will likely get a lot more orders than your local shoppers. With a retail fulfillment provider, you will be more equipped to manage reorder quantities and have a deeper understanding of inventory forecasting.
When new inventory comes into your fulfillment centre, each SKU will get a storage bin, shelf, or pallet, and will be organized into the physical and digital system with proper documentation. A warehouse management team can help you implement the right organization, infrastructure, software, and processes to track your inventory.
Warehousing
After the inventory is stored, the next step is to use those organized products to fulfill customer orders. Your stock levels will need to be monitored to ensure that you replenish items as they are sold to prevent stockouts.
Picking and Packing
When a customer places an order and it has been processed in your queue, a picking list is generated. This list is given to warehouse workers to retrieve the products and prepare them for packing. Most deliveries are sent in durable cardboard boxes or poly mailers. These containers may be filled with stuffing to protect the products from bouncing around and getting broken during delivery.
Shipping Order
The last step in the fulfillment process is shipping. The item will be shipped or delivered to the customer and should arrive before the estimated date as posted on your website after they checkout the item. A 3PL provider that has great relationships with shipping companies and drivers can ensure that your products will arrive to your customers on time.
Retail Fulfillment Optimization
Selecting a Fulfilment Centre
The closer your fulfillment centre is to your customers, the more affordable and simpler your shipping process will be. But even with international customers, you can help customers get their orders faster while reducing shipping costs if you choose a fulfillment provider with strategic locations.
Integrated Fulfillment Software
When choosing your 3PL partner, be sure that they have integrated fulfillment software and technology. Their software should seamlessly integrate with the e-commerce platform and online marketplace to better manage orders across sales channels.
As soon as an order is placed online, your fulfillment staff will get the alert to pick, pack, and ship the right items to the customer. Then, tracking information can be sent to the platform or marketplace and shared with your customers when you ship their orders.
Shipping Time
Amazon’s lightning-speed two-day shipping is the new expectation, so customers want to know that they won’t have to wait long between the time they checkout a purchase online and receive the item at their door. Choosing a 3PL provider with strategically located distribution centers will save you big time on delivery and shipping. You can reduce your fulfillment time without paying for expedited costs.
Choose Lean Supply Solutions
If you’re looking for quality retail order fulfillment support and want to partner with a company near you, Lean Supply Solutions is your solution. We offer extensive e-commerce solutions to a wide range of retailers around the world and provide an assortment of services to help your business grow. Contact us today to learn how we can help you improve your supply chain operations.
- Published in Blog
How 3PLs Can Ensure e-Commerce Growth with the Help of End-to-End e-Commerce Solutions
As you’re probably already aware, the world is still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the fact that things seem to have slightly calmed down. An increasing number of countries are successfully mitigating and reducing the amount of viral transmissions by enforcing stringent health and safety policies. However, worldwide e-commerce fulfillment operations are still being severely impacted by the wake of the coronavirus. International border closures and warehouse lockdowns have caused massive delivery delays and disruptions across the supply chain, logistics management, and distribution industries on a mass scale.
Despite all of these setbacks, however, many order fulfillment and supply chain operations are able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Innovative e-commerce solutions such as third-party logistics (3PL) operations can help you get your supply chain and logistics management systems back on track.
What Are End-to-End e-Commerce Solutions? How Can They Benefit Your Business?
Third-party end-to-end e-commerce solutions offer invaluable support to help your business stay competitive no matter what challenges you and your industry are currently facing. From creating effective marketing campaigns to processing transactions to handling delivery services, end-to-end solutions encompass a vast array of services that aid in order fulfillment. Most importantly, end-to-end solutions streamline your business process and ensure that you can fulfill your direct-to-consumer processes as efficiently and accurately as possible.
Outsourcing end-to-end solutions to 3PLs can help you save a great deal of time, money, and resources that you can then allocate to other more or equally important aspects of your business while still minimizing financial and labour-related risks. Ultimately, the goal of end-to-end business and e-commerce solutions such as 3PL is to provide your business with the robust technological networks it requires to achieve your customer satisfaction goals and uphold your company values.
What Are the Different E-Commerce Services That Are Available?
When it comes to logistics management, there are a variety of palpable e-commerce service options that are available to meet the unique needs and standards of both your business and your industry at large. Considering all of the options that are available to you, there’s no need to compromise on any level of service. You have the option of choosing from a robust and unlimited list of e-commerce solutions that perfectly suit your needs and adhere to your company’s mission statement.
Here is an overview of some of the different types of e-commerce services that are currently available, but keep in mind that the industry standards are constantly evolving.
Building Strong e-Commerce Platforms
E-commerce platforms are online tools that you can use to build your custom business website. Alternatively, they can also be integrated into your existing website if you already have one. These innovative online tools can help you enhance your website by adding unique features to keep your brand competitive and set you apart from other companies in your industry.
Building a website can be expensive and complex but using the right e-commerce platforms and website building tools is an excellent starting point to help you figure out what works and what doesn’t.
Secure Transaction Processing
Another benefit of integrating the right e-commerce solutions into your business model is that they provide secure transactional tools that are easy to use and manage. These tools include online order forms, contact pages, etc. Customers can use these tools to place online orders, make general inquiries, or to simply contact your business. E-commerce platforms provide safe and secure networks for your customers to complete transactions on your website without the fear of having their sensitive payment information hacked or intercepted.
You should also invest in secure cloud-based network management and security systems to give your customers further peace of mind and build trust.
Improve Inventory Management Processes
One of the biggest challenges faced by businesses of all sizes and industries is how to effectively and accurately manage and store inventory. Whether you have one or multiple warehouses and storage facilities, keeping track of your entire inventory is essential to both sustaining and expanding your business while minimizing cost.
Working with the right third-party logistics company can streamline and simplify your inventory management process, helping you save a lot of money, time, and resources—all of which are valuable commodities in the supply chain and retail industries. Robust supply chain companies have access to unlimited warehouses, storage facilities, and distribution centers in addition to strong relationships with countless retailers around the world. Partnering with logistics management and supply chain company allows you to focus on other pertinent aspects of running your business, so you can leave the logistical side of things to the experts.
Boosting Order Fulfillment Rates
From managing inventory to distributing and shipping products out to customers, order fulfillment is a vital part of running a successful e-commerce business. At the end of the day, customers expect their orders to be delivered within the specified delivery period. And, if they paid extra for same-day or express shipping, the customer satisfaction stakes are a lot higher.
Sometimes delays that are out of your control do happen and that’s perfectly understandable, especially given the-pandemic related obstacles faced by the supply chain industry. But there are ways in which 3PLs can streamline your order fulfillment process while still working within the confines of those restrictions and making sure products are delivered to your customers in a timely fashion. Customers can track their orders in real time, and they’ll be notified immediately if there are any delays.
Customer Support and Return Management
Customer support and return management are two branches that are intertwined on the supply chain tree. As your business continues to grow, so will your need for a robust and experienced team of customer support and return management team. Take this as the sign of success that it is.
3PLs can ensure that all customer needs are resolved amicably and that returned products are processed in a timely manner so that they can be inspected for damages and resale value.
Need supply chain and logistics management support? Lean Supply Solutions offers extensive e-commerce solutions to a wide range of retailers around the world. Contact us today to learn how we can help you improve your supply chain operations.
- Published in Blog