How You Can Simplify the Fulfillment Process When Offering Subscription Boxes

Subscription boxes. They’re becoming more and more popular. And they’re a great idea for businesses. After all, customers get something enjoy turning up at their door every month, and your business gets the benefit of recurring orders.

The tricky part? Everything that’s going on in the background.

One box might not seem like a lot of work. Pick the products. Put them in a box. Add a label. Send it out. Simple, right? But then you multiple it by a few hundred – or a few thousand – customers. All of a sudden, fulfillment is taking up a big chunk of the working week.

It doesn’t have to be that way. A few changes to the way orders are handled makes the process much easier to keep under control. Keep reading on to learn more.

Automate Your Orders

Manually dealing with every subscription order is one of those jobs that seems manageable at first. Then the customer list grows.

Before long, someone is spending hours moving information between systems, checking spreadsheets, updating orders, and making sure nothing has been missed.

Automation takes a lot of that work away. Orders can flow into the fulfillment system automatically, while customer and shipping information is kept up to date without someone having to enter it all by hand.

That’s not just a time saver. Fewer manual steps also mean fewer opportunities for something to go awry.

Get a Better Handle on Inventory

Running out of one product is frustrating enough. Running out of one product when it’s supposed to go into every box being shipped that week is a much bigger issue.

Subscription businesses need to know what’s in stock, what’s already been allocated, and what will be needed for the next round of orders. It’s much easier to deal with this when inventory is tracked property. You shouldn’t rely on someone remembering what’s sitting on a shelf.

Past orders could help with forecasting as well. If demand tends to rise at certain times of the year – like Christmas or summer – that information gives the business a chance to order stock before it becomes urgent.

Make Packing as Straightforward as Possible

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel every time a box is packed.

A clear, repeatable packing process saves a surprising amount of time. Everyone involved should know which products go into the box, where they should be placed, what packaging to use, and what needs to happen before the box is sealed.

It also makes things far easier when someone new joins the team. Instead of having to learn by watching somebody else pack boxes, they have a process they can actually follow then and there.

And when hundreds of boxes need to go out, those few saved second per box really start to add up.

Know When It’s Time to Outsource

Doing everything in-house makes sense when a subscription business is small. But there may come a point when the warehouse starts taking over the business.

If staff are spending more time picking and packing than working on customers, products, or growth, it’s worth looking at other options. For example, Ryder’s kitting service could handle parts of the fulfillment process – and this takes some of the pressure away without requiring the business to build a much larger operation internally.

Outsourcing doesn’t mean giving up control. In many cases, it simply means letting specialists handle the jobs they’re set up to do.

To conclude, the fulfillment side of a subscription business isn’t usually the exciting part. But getting the details right? That matters. So follow the advice outlined above to ensure things move efficiently and quietly in the background.