When you have a retail or e-commerce business, losing control over your day-to-day operations isn’t something that gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling. Just the thought of not being able to fulfill and ship your orders is something that keeps you up at night. Letting go of this control, however, can benefit your company in a positive way. You can devote more time to other areas of your business like marketing, sales, and product management; and in certain situations, it just makes good financial sense. Let’s take a look at two scenarios where losing control is the best thing that can happen to your business.
You’re using an existing provider to help with day-to-day operations, but feel as if you’re receiving inadequate services.
When you feel that services are lacking and you have reached a threshold with this provider, what do you do when you’ve outgrown them? The main thing to remember is that your business’ success depends on you finding a provider that is the right fit for your company. By doing this, you’ll be able to meet your customers’ needs every time. There’s a barrier that keeps many business owners from making the best decisions during this time. They’re afraid to lose control of what they have and feel as if it’s better to deal with someone or something that’s familiar than to deal with a provider they don’t know. When your requirements and service demands are changing, you have to find a provider who can adapt and change right along with you.
Here’s an example of a business owner who realized that it was time to let go of something familiar and decided to make the switch. Michael O’Donnell is the CEO of Cave Tools, which is a company that sells barbecue tools and accessories. When the company was a start-up, he used Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) as his main provider. Problems started with Amazon when his company’s sales grew to over $2 Million and they began shipping products that were larger in size. Amazon’s inventory storage costs and fulfillment fees were so high for these non-Amazon related products that he decided to switch to another provider for inventory storage and fulfillment on non-Amazon sales.
When you have a new business, starting out with a company like Amazon FBA might be an easier solution when you’re trying to get it off the ground and generate some revenue. Once you’re established, however, you’ll need more cost-effective solutions because your customers are expecting a seamless experience, and you want to make sure that your products are reaching them in the most direct and cost-efficient way.
Here’s another scenario where losing control is the best thing that can happen.
You’re a company that’s just getting started and have had some recent success. The thing is that you’re looking to get out of doing fulfillment yourself because it’s just too time-consuming.
As a business owner, preparing those packages and either dropping them off or having them picked up on a daily basis will only work when you have a handful of orders. When those orders start coming in faster, you have to be prepared to get them to your customers as quickly as possible. When a business is just getting started, there’s a barrier that stops many owners from making the best decisions during this time. They feel as if they’re losing control or are failing to handle things if they turn their daily operations over to a third party. That’s not true, however, because letting go of this control is the one thing that will help you function well when your business is at its current size and give you the scalability you need when you have to handle an increasing number of customers.
Here’s a business owner who found out the hard way that trying to fulfill orders yourself can quickly become a nightmare. Death Wish Coffee was just a small business back in 2013 when someone decided to write a blog piece about them. After the piece was published, Mike Brown, the owner, started getting phone calls from everywhere. Good Morning America called and said, “Hey, we read about your coffee online and want to shoot a report.” Mike said, “Sure.”
After the reporters at Good Morning America aired the interview and gave the company glowing reviews, sales took off and they had thousands and thousands of pounds of coffee orders that needed to be fulfilled. What the public didn’t know was that the company only consisted of two people; Mike and his barista! It took 30 days to fulfill some of those orders and they ended up refunding half the money. They were kicked off of Amazon and eBay because customers were complaining. It’s hard to redeem yourself after something like that happens, but they drew up a plan that said this would never happen again and began using a provider to make sure that customers were receiving their orders. They were lucky because stories like this usually don’t have a happy ending.
In both of these situations, the business owners realized that sometimes you have to let go and let others step in so you can have a viable business.
At CTL Global, we know the challenges you face when trying to organize and maintain a business. That’s why we’re not just a fulfillment provider but a partner who offers an end-to-end solution. What does this mean? When you let us take control of those day-to-day operations, we’ll be there for you; from device to doorstep and every step in between. This means that you won’t have to worry about a thing and can count on us to provide seamless brand experiences. Losing control doesn’t sound so bad now, right? To learn more, please contact us today.
