Patrik Babinec (CMO, Skladon): e-shops value an individual approach to fulfillment
Fulfillment has recently experienced a huge boom among e-shoppers. Leaving logistics to a reliable partner saves time, worries and, above all, costs. But is fulfillment suitable for everyone? And what exactly can it help with? That's not all we talked about with Patrik Babinec from the Skladon company, which ranks among the biggest fulfillment partners in our country.
We hear the term fulfillment more and more often in e-commerce. At the beginning, can you briefly explain to us what its principle is and the main advantages for the e-shop?
The principle of outsourcing and at the same time its main advantage is that business companies that decide to take this step are relieved of all logistical worries, gain a competitive advantage on their side, which goes hand in hand with the further growth of their business. Our company provides merchants with complete outsourcing of logistics, i.e. we take care of the client's goods from their storage through picking and packing to their delivery to the end customers. The entire logistics process thus begins with the storage of goods in our distribution center with a current warehouse area of 16,000 m² and, after receiving the order, continues with the picking of products from the warehouse positions along the shortest, so-called optimal route, during which our system takes into account the positions of the products from the orders and navigates ideally according to the algorithm warehouse staff to make picking as efficient as possible. We then pack the selected order according to a mutually agreed procedure with the client, and finally ship it in cooperation with our more than 20 carriers almost all over the world.
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Furthermore, the magic of fulfillment also lies in the fact that the client always pays for only as much space and logistics operations as he actually uses in a specific month. The service therefore allows him to simply convert his fixed costs into variable costs, which thus change in proportion to the increasing or decreasing demand for his products during the year. At the same time, the trader does not pay personnel costs for employees in the warehouse, expenses for energy, rent or insurance of the warehouse. It also saves on the transport itself, thanks to the accumulation of all our clients' shipments, we achieve significant volume discounts. It's the same with packaging and filling material, we can negotiate much better prices in this area as well.
In addition to helping companies reduce financial costs and providing them with the most individual approach, we also make it significantly easier for them to expand abroad. Thanks to our own know-how about foreign markets, we can find an ideal solution for the client, negotiate with local carriers and then deliver the goods almost anywhere. In addition, as part of economic ground transport, we deliver shipments to four countries in the D+1 mode, i.e. within the second day of ordering.
At the same time, thanks to the fulfillment partner, the client gets much more time and space for key areas of the business, such as sales itself, product development or marketing.
In order to show our potential clients how fulfillment actually works, we also filmed our own instructional company tour video this year. In it, our director of logistics, Max Kovář, takes the viewer through our distribution center and describes individual logistics operations in detail. Companies can thus better imagine the size of our operation and our progress within specific activities.
Have you calculated how much money outsourcing logistics can save an e-shop?
It is not possible to say one generally applicable amount, because it is very individual - an important role is primarily played by the level of the client's logistics at the moment when they decide to hand it over to us. We would thus be comparing two different logistics.
If a company has a properly set up warehouse management and monitors the turnover of goods, it can save tens of thousands of crowns per month. However, we can look at it from multiple perspectives – we have clients who appreciate, for example, the fact that they could automate their logistics with us, which is something they would not have the necessary technology or funds to do on their own. In addition, we often come across the fact that the client is not able to calculate the price of his own logistics - he neglects a number of related costs and as a result does not actually know how much money is "lying" in logistics, which is not exactly optimal for a healthy cash flow.
The price of one order is also very individual - there is a difference if the order contains 1 or 15 pieces of products, there is a difference in the amount of time that needs to be spent on packaging, and at the same time it also depends on the nature of the specific product. The selection of small goods is thus priced differently than, for example, the selection of an office chair. However, we measure and take into account all these operations before the start of cooperation, so the client always knows the final price of the offered services in advance.
Although price plays a role in selection
