For many businesses that need to manage fulfillment effectively, fewer mistakes must be made, which could ultimately drive the company into the ground.
Fulfillment is the backbone of any e-commerce company, and for creative entrepreneurs within e-commerce, it directly impacts customer satisfaction, the overall profitability of the business, and brand reputation.
With that being said, if you’re looking to mitigate the risks as an entrepreneur, then here are several fulfillment mistakes that you’ll want to avoid for your own business this year.
- Turning a blind eye to all issues
Within fulfillment, you mustn’t simply turn a blind eye to the obvious issues within the operations. Whether it’s financial or otherwise, if you choose to ignore the problems, they’re not going to simply disappear.
A lot of those within the creative world of e-commerce will often find that they have more than a few issues setting their fulfillment success back.
While the creativity of your brand can help you drive more sales and sustain customer interest, ignoring staffing or financial issues isn’t something to dismiss. Cash flow issues or unproductive staff should ideally be dealt with before they reach a critical point in the business that risks its collapse.
Not everyone likes confrontation, but that might often be something you have to navigate as a creative entrepreneur, whether you want it or not.
2. Undervaluing your work
Creative entrepreneurs will often find it easier when working to see it as a deeply rewarding or fulfilling effort, especially when things go successfully.
However, when it comes to fulfillment, it’s important to try to set aside the desire to just be recognized for their achievements. You should also have a desire for knowledge, to learn what works within fulfillment operations and what might be hindering your efforts, and ultimately, your ability to achieve new goals that can be celebrated.
When you’re going into the e-commerce business, it’s important to recognize the value of everything that comes with it and not just creatively.
3. A lack of flexibility
As a creative, you should be familiar with the flexibility of the market and the need to adapt and change your efforts to attract your ideal customers.
That same flexibility is required with fufillment but often it is the case that fulfillment operations can be a little rigid in comparison.
Flexibility in e-commerce fulfillment could be offering same-day delivery instead of the usual two-to three-day delivery window. It might be offering easy returns. All that and more can require an agile approach, access to distributed networks that can scale instantly to meet demands, whatever that might look like.
As market conditions change, it’s essential that you’re carrying that flexibility you have creatively, to your fulfillment demands too.
4. Getting ahead of yourself too early on
For any entrepreneur, there’s a hunger to succeed, and that energy can sometimes be transferred into goals and efforts that might be beyond what your business is capable of right now.
Within the world of e-commerce, there’s still plenty of growth to be found. However, it is possible to get ahead of yourself in that initial excitement of starting a business from scratch.
That baseless optimism can often be catastrophic for business owners, especially if you’re not tethering those goals and dreams to strong, reality-based finances.
With that being said, you want to align your business goals to what’s possible with your available resources and risk profile currently. That’s not to say things will change, but if you’re looking for exponential growth when you’re just starting, the reality might not align with the dreams you have.
Of course, dreaming big is great, but for the most part, you should be cynical about those dreams if you don’t have the resources available to achieve them yet.
5. Not dreaming big enough
While it might seem contradictory, the opposite can be the case for some creative entrepreneurs in business by not dreaming big enough.
Yes, it’s good to be realistic, but if you’re not pushing your boundaries and your goals to some extent, then you might be hindering any growth that’s possible to achieve.
This can be underinvestment in capacity and technology, low employment engagement, and not doing more to retain the staff you do have. Settling for suboptimal processes can also lead to less-than-impressive results for your e-commerce fulfillment.
6. Refusing to expand and let many hands make light work
Ever heard of the phrase, more hands make light work? Well, that’s an attitude you should have towards your business, particularly within areas of logistics and fulfillment. Thankfully, nowadays, we have a plethora of technology to use to our advantage.
For example, the use of a 3pl provider can be incredibly effective to free up internal resources and digitize your fulfillment efforts in general. A platform like this can also help scale as and when you require. Hiring and outsourcing should also be something you do proactively and not as a last resort.
7. Not listening to your market or customers
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it’s essential that you’re listening closely to the market and the leads you’ve already converted into paying customers.
This is particularly important in the early stages of your business because it’s at this crucial point that you can make impressionable changes to move your company efforts in the right direction.
Anything your customers’ feedback on is helpful guidance and advice for improved decision-making within the logistics of fulfillment and every other aspect of the business operations, too. If you’re not getting much in the way of feedback, reach out to your current customers for advice.
Within logistics and fulfillment, you must be doing everything you possibly can to tailor your e-commerce to suit the needs of your customers. These fulfillment mistakes will hopefully be something you can avoid for your own creative enterprise online.
Creative minds make for some of the best business owners, but it’s important not to forget about all the other aspects of business and to avoid that creativity clouding your efforts in other areas of the company.
