Outsourced Delivery Fulfilment: What are the Benefits?

Delivery fulfilment is the final, most important step of any order process, offering benefits to your business and your customers alike. Arguably, the most efficient way to manage your last-mile delivery is through outsourced partners, who have the experience and infrastructure needed to provide quality fulfilment.

And that’s exactly what we offer at Zedify, supporting businesses of all shapes and sizes throughout the UK with last-mile delivery services. In this article, we’ll help you understand the advantages of outsourced fulfilment for you, your deliveries, and your customers.

Interested in sustainable last-mile delivery? Contact us today.

The Challenges of Delivery Fulfilment for Businesses

Logistics managers or co-ordinators, like you, have to deal with large amounts of product processing, connecting marketing and manufacturing with end users. They ensure the right number of products are produced, meaning the delivery process goes smoothly.

However, with so many steps to consider for delivery fulfilment, and the potential for massive quantities of orders in this digital age, keeping up with logistics requirements internally can be a major challenge, as the cost of scaling your operations increases, as well as the time delay to implement these new systems.

That is where outsourced delivery fulfilment takes centre stage.

What is outsourced fulfilment?

For those who don’t already know, outsourcing your delivery fulfilment involves hiring a third party known as a third-party logistics provider (3PL) to manage parts of the order and fulfilment process from dedicated fulfilment warehouses or centres.

3PLs can help you handle many stages of fulfilment, including:

• Storage
• Inventory management
• Picking and packing items
• Receiving and processing orders
• Shipping and delivery

With outsourced fulfilment, you can delegate parts of – or even all of – the supply chain to experienced professionals, freeing up your valuable time while providing you with plenty of other advantages.

Find out about the delivery options available with Zedify > 

 

The growth of outsourced delivery fulfilment

Deliveries are getting faster. Not just because of the mechanisms behind them, but also due to customer expectations. As such, your efforts need to grow to match – something that isn’t always sustainable when using entirely internal resources.

A Statista study on online shopper delivery time expectations in 2023 revealed that more than 50% of shoppers expect a delivery time under 24 hours for groceries, pharmaceuticals, and financial products, with alcohol not coming in far behind at 49%.

Other industries like toys, clothing, and technology hover around the 35% mark, still showing a fair share of people that expect fast deliveries.

Within these numbers lie customers with even greater expectations. For groceries, pharmaceuticals, alcohol, and finance, more than 30% of people expect to be able to receive products within 2 hours. Other industries all sit at around the 15% mark, showing a small but impactful level of expectation.

Working with an outsourced delivery partner can help businesses increase their capacity and better fulfil the needs and expectations of a 21st Century audience.

Developments in outsourced fulfilment

Advancements like the Amazon Prime Air delivery drones stand to cut down on delivery times in busy urban centres, with proposed regulation changes meaning they could even deliver critical medical supplies in record time.

However, solutions like this are only available in specific locations, have restrictions on the products they can deliver, and are in an unsteady regulatory climate. The environmental impact of developing and fielding these drones should also be considered, whereas existing solutions that minimise environmental impacts can still offer great delivery times at a low cost.

Explore the battle between cargo bikes and drone deliveries >

Whatever the case, outsourcing your delivery fulfilment comes with a number of benefits to all stakeholders, helping you to meet the rising expectations of your customers.

Benefits for your business

While outsourcing your fulfilment comes with an upfront cost, it leads to great returns down the line by increasing the quality of your service while freeing up internal resources. Some of the key advantages of using outsourced delivery fulfilment for your business include:

• Reduced internal admin time
• Increased time for core activities
• Leveraging infrastructure and connections to reduce delivery times
• Fulfilling orders reliably and quickly
• Streamlining your operations

All these benefits lead to a better delivery service, more time to enhance the quality of your products, and improvements to customer satisfaction.

Benefits for your customers

The benefits your business receives from outsourcing your deliveries can then be passed on to your customers. This happens in the forms of indirect benefits brought about by the increased resources you have to work on your products, and also benefits to the actual delivery process, including:

• Faster orders
• Lower shipping costs
• Consistent order quality from best practice protection during shipping

With a wide range of benefits to yourself and your customers, working with an outsource delivery partner is a sensible choice for any business or SME. The next step is finding out who to work with.

 

How we helped Grubby

In 2022, we partnered up with the team at Grubby – the UK’s leading vegan recipe kit company – to increase their delivery capacity, helping them deliver delicious recipe kits that are friendly to people and the planet.

Since 2022, we have been helping them grow their operations. Now, every week, our Hoxton team delivers hundreds of recipe kits all across London, and their customers LOVE it!

Learn more about our partnership with Grubby >

 

Choosing the right outsource delivery partner for you!

There are as many ways to deliver a package as there are ways to tie a knot. This is to say, quite a few. Choosing your delivery channel, as well as the partner that will provide it for you, is a fundamental part to securing the best fulfilment process for your business.

With that in mind, here are the six steps to finding the right outsource delivery partner for your business:

• What services do they offer, and how do these align with your goals?

If you’re after cross-country or international shipping, choosing the same partner you work with locally isn’t always the best idea. What is best is to observe the needs of each channel, the costs of each solution, and how both of these factors align with your goals. This could result in multiple partnerships, as you pick and choose your logistics providers to create the biggest impact on your business.

• Can they deliver products, to time and to scale?

Certain delivery methods are slower or faster than others, even in the same scenario. For example, our cargo bikes are an efficient solution for urban deliveries that can bypass the traffic of a bustling city, often making them better than traditional van delivery. However, you wouldn’t catch our bikes doing 70 down the motorway.

Likewise, the scale of the products should also be considered. Do you need a full van to deliver your goods, or would it be manageable via another method? By bearing all this in mind, you can select the delivery option that matches every scenario.

At Zedify, we have options for next-day or even same-day delivery, getting packages to your customers in a flash.

• Do they have the agility to adapt to changes in order, schedule, or route?

With such high standards for order fulfilment, agility becomes one of the most vital parts of any 3PL. Next day or same day deliveries mean fulfilment needs to be quick on its feet, adapting to changes in the route, order details, and scheduling to ensure everything gets to the customer on time.

• Do you match their culture?

A delivery partner is more than just a means to an end. They’re someone you’ll be working closely with, as well as the face your end customer will see as they receive their parcel. As such, choosing someone who matches your vibe will make you feel more comfortable leaving your packages in their hands.

• Pricing – will they lead to profit?

As with many things, your choice of fulfilment provider often comes down to the operating costs and profit. After all, there’s no point in cutting into your margins when a similar solution that’s far more cost-effective is also available.

Consider what the impact of a given 3PL will be on your profits, bearing in mind the impact of their service on the return you’ll see, when deciding which fulfilment provider to go with. Often, working with an outsource partner is more cost-effective and scalable than trying to find the capacity internally.

• Sustainability – what is their environmental impact?

If your business has net-zero goals, as every business should these days, choosing to outsource your delivery fulfilment to a reliable, sustainable partner is often the best solution. This lowers the environmental impact of your orders, feeding into your other sustainability efforts. This is especially impactful in dense urban environments, particularly those with low-emission zones.

Following these steps will help you find the best fulfilment partner to suit your needs. Or, you can cut to the chase and work with us to secure a solution that’s right for you.

 

Outsource your delivery fulfilment with Zedify

By outsourcing your delivery fulfilment, you open up internal resources so you can achieve your business’ full potential. At the same time, you can improve the quality of your service for your customers, as well as the benefits both you and the end user receive.

At Zedify, you can secure all of this in a tight-and-tidy package, adaptable to your needs, that provides the perfect sustainable solution to deliveries in an urban environment. Get in touch today to find out more, or check out some of our related articles below!

Find out how you can avoid greenwashing while leading the pack on sustainable progress >

Learn how cargo bikes are helping companies achieve their net-zero goals >

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