The presentation discusses strategies to help you streamline your order fulfillment process during the holiday season for timely deliveries.

1. a

2. Introduction
© 2015 i95dev
• Holiday Season drives nearly 20-40% of annual revenue for most online retailers.
• With this year expected to break all records, there is no doubt that brands need
to be prepared with everything they have to make this a success.
• However, being prepared is no longer enough. Rising competition and increasing
customer expectations mandate brands to deliver a seamless online shopping
experience that enables consumers to easily find items, place an order and
more importantly receive the order on time.

3. On-Time Delivery
© 2015 i95dev
• Online shoppers, especially during the holiday season, feel that prompt and
worry free shipping plays a vital role in their decision of where to spend their
money.
• When a holiday delivery comes in late, 46% of shoppers will look elsewhere the
next time they want to place an order online. Hence, a solid fulfillment strategy is
must to ensure that you do not lose almost half of your customers.
• Read on to understand strategies which retailers can adopt to streamline the
order fulfillment process this holiday season.
When a holiday delivery comes in late, 46% of shoppers will look
elsewhere the next time they want to place an order online.

4. Strategy 1 - Integrate the Right Systems
© 2015 i95dev
• Disconnected systems no longer work
• Your existing disconnected or loosely connected systems might have worked for you
for the entire year, but holiday seasons are known to put the best of systems in
trouble.
• Integrating the right systems is a must
• While investing in infrastructure to gear your systems for the holiday season rush is
required, doing that alone is not sufficient.
• You must ensure that the right systems are integrated and talking to each other for a
streamlined and timely order fulfillment.
• Integrating your eCommerce and ERP/ Warehouse management system not only
ensures that you do not oversell your products but also expedites order fulfillment
with quick order movement from your eCommerce store to your ERP/ Warehouse
management systems.
Integrating your eCommerce and ERP/ Warehouse management system
not only ensures that you do not oversell your products but also expedites
order fulfillment

5. Strategy 2 - Ensure you are Adequately Staffed & Trained
© 2015 i95dev
• Amazon hired more than 80,000 temporary workers in 2014 (70,000 in 2013) to
help them deal with the holiday season?
• This trend is no different for most other online retailers.
• Businesses must focus on increasing their warehouse and customer service employees
to account for the increase in order volume and timely delivery during the holiday
season.
• Not only that, you must assess the strengths of your seasonal workers and place
them in positions where you can capitalize on their skills and adequately train them
to ensure you continue to provide the same brand experience.
Businesses must focus on increasing their warehouse and customer
service employees to account for the increase in order volume and
timely delivery during the holiday season.

6. Strategy 3 - Relationship with your Suppliers & Shipping
Providers
© 2015 i95dev
• Prepare your Suppliers and Shipping Providers
• It is equally important, if not more, that your suppliers and shipping providers are ready
for the holiday season too.
• Use your past sales data to forecast the expected demand this year and share the
projections with your partners - suppliers and shipping providers.
• Setting the expectations right with your partners is very important and if required help
them build their systems and processes to match those expectations.
• Plan B
• Businesses must even consider backups in case weather or other unforeseeable events
were to occur. Evaluate the various points in your supply chain and walk through
common what-if scenarios.
• If your carrier delays a delivery because of a snowstorm then, what is the alternative?
Having backups, even if more expensive, can prevent bottlenecks.
Setting the expectations right with your partners is very important and
if required help them build their systems and processes to match those
expectations.

7. Strategy 4 - Manage Customer Expectations
© 2015 i95dev
• While it might be tempting for businesses to offer unrealistic timelines or extend
the deadline for guaranteed delivery, it is important to understand that the
increase in order volume can bring in unforeseen challenges for timely order
fulfillment.
• With customer satisfaction linked to timely order delivery, it is important for
businesses to understand their order fulfillment speed and capacity and their
carrier’s holiday schedule to set realistic delivery expectations with your customers.
Understand your order fulfillment speed and capacity, shipping carrier’s
holiday schedule and set realistic delivery expectations with your
customers.

8. Strategy 5 - Anticipate and be Prepared
© 2015 i95dev
• Leverage your understanding of the industry and past sales data to anticipate
orders and be prepared in advance. There are number of things that you can do to
expedite the order fulfillment process like
• Reconsider where items are placed in your warehouse: Increase productivity and
reduce the fulfillment time by placing top selling items in hot pick zones
• Pre package items: Pre-pack selected items to save additional time.
• Segregate Single- piece orders: Picking several items to send to one customer requires
more labor or automation than filling an order for a single product. As orders come in,
organize them in optimal groupings for fulfillment. Even direct all one-piece orders to
one group of employees, allowing another group to specialize in multi-piece orders, and
a third in orders that require special handling, maybe because they're fragile or
temperature sensitive. This keeps orders flowing efficiently.
Reconsider where items are placed in your warehouse, Pre package
items and Segregate single-piece orders

9. Strategy 6 - Consider Other Delivery Options
© 2015 i95dev
• Explore and plan alternate delivery options for improved customer experience. You
could consider alternatives like
• Distributed Fulfillment: Invest in setting up additional fulfillment centers - the additional
centers can not only act as backup for one another but also expedite fulfillment by
sharing the order fulfillment load. Businesses can even consider alternatives like short
term warehousing contracts or partnerships with other companies or stocking products
in their shipping carrier partner’s warehouse for faster delivery.
• In-Store Pickup: Customers waiting too long to place orders are not uncommon. These
customers have few options: place an order online and hope for best, or try their luck at
a nearby store packed with frenetic holiday crowd, or place order online with in-store
pickup option and drive to a nearby store where the order is packed and ready for
pickup.
Explore and plan alternate delivery options like distributed fulfillment
(additional warehouse, stock products with shipping partner, etc.) and
in-store pickup.

10. Also Read
© 2015 i95dev
• Holiday Season – 5 Challenges B2C eCommerce Retailers Must Prepare for Now!
• 8 Campaign ideas for Holiday Season
• Checklist for the Post-Holiday Season

11. For more information
Visit : www.i95Dev.com
E-mail : info@i95Dev.com
Maryland : 3 Bethesda, Metro Center, Suite 700 Bethesda, Maryland 20814. Ph: (301) 760.7499
New York : 1430 Broadway, 7th Floor New York, NY 10018. Ph: (646) 259.3662
Texas : 5646 Milton, Suite 100, Dallas, Texas 75206. Ph: (214) 396-2121
Australia : Sydney, NSW – 2145, Ph: (02) 8015 5446
Thank You