Pick and pack – the best option for independent traders

Online retailers often find they spend too much time packaging and distributing their goods. And with multinationals offering quicker and cheaper delivery options, small businesses need to be able to keep up to speed in order to stay competitive. The question, then, is whether to outsource the storage and delivery process.

As AOCC chief executive Christopher Denton says, it’s a question of balancing the costs against the benefits. “If you’re willing to work a twenty hour day and have your whole life eaten up with the stress of getting orders out to your customers, you probably can save money doing it yourself, but pick and pack offers a very cost effective alternative’.

There are plenty of traders whose living rooms are like a warehouse for all their items, or they spend a lot of money on renting their own warehouse. But for a lot of independent traders that’s just not practical.

This is why Mr Denton says many online retailers and eBay traders are using pick and pack services. “By switching to a third-party logistics provider (3PL), retailers are given peace of mind that a storage and distribution specialist will deliver the goods”

Traders are required to pay a small fee for the service, but this is repaid in their time, and is cheaper than renting warehouse space on its own. By outsourcing their orders to a pick and pack specialist, independent traders and manufacturers are able to dedicate more time to designing and making goods and advertising their business.

The increase of pick-and-pack trade is driven by large e-commerce sites such as Amazon. With options such as Amazon Prime and Super Saver Delivery available to customers, small online retailers have to keep streamlining their supply chain.

“For any retailer that gets a fair volume of orders, you’re just not going to be able to compete with some of the big retailers, who offer next day delivery on a lot of their items, if you’re doing it in your living room or workshop,” says Mr Denton.

Research has shown that even businesses with their own warehouse, who take on extra staff to handle the distribution, find that it can cost as much to package and deliver the items as it does to make them.
“With pick and pack, we receive orders direct from the customers and dispatch it to the customer that same day. With flexible warehousing options and our own fleet of vehicles, we make it possible for online retailers to compete with the giants like Amazon.”

A recent survey by Redshift Research found that 64 per cent of warehousing businesses reported a growth in their pick and pack services. For supply chain management firms such as AOCC, this means they have to keep delivering the goods.