The buying public is pressuring business owners to get products to them faster and faster. And order fulfillment providers are coming up with innovative ways to meet the need for speed.
Distributed warehousing is one solution that has made it easier to get products to customers in a fast-paced market environment.
Smart Innovation Express, an order fulfillment provider, has added another element to the warehouse network concept. The company’s Shared Inventory Stock (SIS) model provides another option for business customers. And while participants in the SIS model must meet certain criteria to be included, the opportunity means an even faster order and delivery process.
How the Shared Inventory Stock model works
Under this model, merchants use the distributed warehouse network, and when a particular item needs to be shipped to a customer, the business customer ships that item to one of Smart Innovation Express’s network warehouses.
The Company then ships an identical product to the customer from the closest warehouse. As a result, the customer receives the product much faster, often in less than 24 hours. And the warehouse owners inspect every item to ensure that nothing shipped through this program is damaged.
Cost-saving concept
The distributed warehousing concept is used by a wide range of order fulfillment companies. The appeal of distributed warehousing is that it saves business customers time and money.
Products shipped to consumers are stored in warehouses located in strategic locations. These locations may be domestic or international.
When a customer places an order, the fulfillment company locates the warehouse closest to the address. Proximity to the address provides significant benefits – reducing shipping costs and significantly shortening the time it takes to deliver the product.
“This reduced shipping time, coupled with our own fast internal turnaround time, means that your customers will receive their orders in an incredibly short amount of time and faster than they would if they received them from your closest competitor,” Smart Innovation Express states on its website at Sivexpo.com.
Differences in distribution warehouses
Order fulfillment providers vary in the way they operate their warehousing networks. Some own their own warehouses, some rent, and some partner with companies to provide warehousing space. And some companies have a handful of warehouses, while others have hundreds.
According to its website, Complemar has 5 warehouses across the country and ships products to more than 30 countries.
Easyship, a fulfillment provider, offers business customers access to national and global warehouses. And the company says it has partnerships with warehouses internationally, allowing customers to have orders fulfilled anywhere.
ShipWire, a logistics company, also has a network of global warehouses to serve its business customers. The company says it has more than 30 fulfillment centers to meet the needs of its customers.
By comparison, Smart Innovation Express offers business customers access to hundreds of distributed warehouses.
“This puts your products in the best location for delivery to virtually any location in the country,” the company says on its Sivexpo.com website. “The number and location of these facilities means we can guarantee the fastest delivery possible.”
