Find the best Warehousing & Fulfillment company by filling out the form below, or Click Here to continue reading our page Find the Best Apparel Warehousing & Fulfillment Services
When you are in the fashion industry or operating a clothing and apparel business, you spend much time and effort on ensuring your customers get quality apparel that fits their exact specifications. You labor over getting everything just right so that your apparel company will succeed.
It should really be no different when you are considering how to get your apparel to the right place at the right time. But, how can you findย apparel fulfillment servicesย that fit your company requirements like a glove?
Apparel fulfillment comes with its own unique set of complications. In order to truly find the right fit for your company, you must consider the following issues when choosing an appropriate fulfillment service:
There are few industries that produce as varied an inventory as the clothing industry. Consider the variety of colors and sizes for each type of clothing product you offer. Add to that the multitude of different products available and it is easy to see why apparel fulfillment is a challenging venture.
An apparel fulfillment service must be able to manage your inventory with ease. The fulfillment service must have systems in place to manage a sometimes rapidly growing inventory, including some way to differentiate sizes of otherwise identical items in their inventory systems.
Does your apparel require hangers for storage? If so, your apparel fulfillment service must have dedicated hanging space to house and manage your inventory appropriately.
Additionally, it is essential that you find an apparel fulfillment service which will provide packaging that meets your company standards. For instance, if your inventory must be folded, bagged, or packaged in a certain way, you must ascertain if the service is able to meet your unique requirements.
If many of your footwear goes in different colored boxes, your fulfillment center needs to have a good grasp of color differences. You can find out if your 3PL has experience with this through the vetting process.
Since placing the proper shoes in the right color box is an important part of the branding process, you don’t want mistakes. Analyze the background of the warehouse and see what their track record is in proper packaging and what kind of equipment makes it work more efficiently.
Another important consideration here is the cleanliness of the warehousing facility. Unclean conditions in the warehouse can easily ruin your inventory. Be certain to vet any fulfillment service as to its policies and procedures to ensure that your apparel stays in pristine condition and is safe from dust, dirt, and grime.
While barcode scanning technology makes inventory management an easier process in general, in the apparel industry it can mean the difference between smooth operational processes and absolute disaster.
Why is this the case? RF scanning is a quick and painless way to differentiate items that are identical in color, but varied in size. Therefore, RF scanning eliminates an element of human error in fulfillment services.
Ideally, RF scanning should be used at multiple points in the inventory process. When seeking an apparel fulfillment company, look for one that, at a minimum, uses RF scanning at the following crucial inventory stages:
RF scanning should integrate with the inventory control system in such a way that you can easily monitor the status of your inventory at any given time. This capability to provide constant visibility is a hallmark of an apparel fulfillment service that is a good fit.
Ecommerce apparel companies face another challenge in the form of returns. With industry averages estimated to be as high as 20 to 50 percent, returns can be a major headache for your fulfillment service.
Their policy for handling returns must integrate with your return policy to be effective. Why is this important? A fulfillment service that promptly handles all returns by notifying you, inspecting all items for wear and stains, and following your return policy to the letter by either returning the item to you or restocking it into inventory will keep your inventory moving at a steady pace.
A fulfillment service that does not handle returns appropriately or promptly creates a backlog of merchandise that is not sold in a timely manner.
Locating aย 3PL company for a footwear businessesย has its own set of challenges outside most other business structures. The footwear industry continues to face issues of global manufacturing, limited product life cycles, and inventory complexities. When you add the fickleness of the public in fashion and in footwear trends, it makes it tougher for you and your fulfillment center.
That’s why finding a 3PL with vast experience in the footwear industry is mandatory to help in logistics. Finding one can help you ship your products faster so your prospective customers stay loyal.
No matter what markets you want to conquer nationwide, it’s not difficult to find a 3PL in every American city. However, only a small fraction are probably suitable for your footwear company.
What should you look for in a 3PL for apparel to help address your most pressing concerns? Also, what does the general footwear industry do to find the best distribution warehouses for them?
Surveys show those in the footwear business frequentlyย focus on costย as a top priority in warehouse selection. Much of this goes by the shift to e-commerce and needing more equipment to keep up with demand. Searching for omni-channel fulfillment is the prime directive in this case without costing a fortune.
One example in operations cost is locating an apparel 3PL service with automated systems to reduce time shipping orders. This also includes increased supply chain visibility with business partners.
Even more important is finding a 3PL with enough space to handle the influx of footwear shipments. It’s now theย #1 priority for many warehousesย in this industry. That’s why it’s important to ask a warehouse how many square feet they have, and whether they still have physical room to expand.
Many footwear companies wantย a two-point distribution systemย to allow quicker shipments to customers. The trend goes by the idea that having shipments from the west coast only costs more trucking items to the east coast.
Using an east coast location for your 3PL makes more sense since 75% of the U.S. population lives east of the Mississippi River. Nevertheless, don’t discount using west coast locations since many interstates can reach east coast cities in a matter of a day or two.
For international shipping, you’ll want to find a 3PL that has experience with global regulations. Reaching markets like Mexico or in Asia can open new doors through many of the best American ports on either coast.
It’s possible you want to stick with more green practices in your footwear business. If so, you’ll need to find a 3PL that uses the green practices and best environmental practices in shipping your goods to customers.
Remember that using more sustainable methods in your distribution methods can work as a sense of branding. You may want organic material in your packaging, and that can take a more specialized 3PL.
All of these factors require the best research tools to find the warehouse you need.
Pick & Pack Warehouses offer cost efficient shipping & warehousing methods for business – including pick and pack for apparel. Vendors that specialize in Fashion and Apparel, provide shipments and storage for flat packed clothing such as T-shirts as well as Garment-On-Hanger (G.O.H) services. So what should you consider when choosing a Vendor?
In addition to these industry-specific issues, your fulfillment service must also provide cost-effective options and other standard requirements for ecommerce.
If you are looking for a apparel fulfillment service that meets your particular needs, we can get you multiple quotes from high quality apparel fulfillment services companies. We connect businesses like yours everyday with thoroughly screened warehousing and fulfillment companies that meet the specific needs of their project.
Our company prides itself in Pre-checking and pre-qualifying its Vendors.ย We do the work for you, but you are welcome to ask questions and should. In the case of fashion and apparel pick and pack companies, we can connect you with organizations that specialize in this very detail oriented niche.
Your contact information is held in the strictest of confidence. We will contact you before we connect you with vendors so that we can learn about your situation, obtain any of your contact preferences, and answer any of your questions.
YOU have control over your contact details:
We Care About Your Privacy. Your information is shared with only pre-screened providers. You may opt out of communication at any time. View our Privacy Policy.
I want to say thank you for your help in finding a warehouse so quickly. Your service was amazing. I received replies the same day and have selected a company that will work well for us. I definitely recommend your services.
I wanted to express my gratitude for your services and let you know that it was a very enjoyable experience! We have selected one of the companies and they are awesome!
You are doing such a great job and this service that you provide is a life saver for people especially startups like me....We cannot spend budgets on researching as much as the big firms can...and you provide us one stop solution which will answer all our questions.
I just wanted to let you know that I selected one of your vendors as our fulfillment house. They can do what we need and weโre looking forward to working with them. They can handle our โspecial projectsโ fulfillment, which was key to our decision in bringing them onboard. I appreciate this service. It was great for our company.
I didnโt know there was so much difference in fulfillment companies โ this was my first time in need of this sort of service. After a Google search I luckily stumbled upon WarehousingAndFulfillment.com. They saved me an incredible amount of time and money. Within minutes I had a couple of emails from good companies that fit my situation. I am very appreciative of their help.
Warehousing and Fulfillment was the perfect matchmaker in finding us a fulfillment partner. They provided several great options, all of whom were very responsive and willing to take the time to talk through our needs. We ended up going with W&Fโs top match and we couldnโt be happier. I highly recommend W&F, particularly to anyone whose business relies on a strong fulfillment partner.
We were having multiple issues with our 3PL fulfilling warranty replacement parts. Our company needed to make a change and make one fast. I reached out to WarehousingAndFulfillment.com to facilitate my search for a reputable, service oriented 3PL that can handle the demands of a highly seasonal business to pick, pack and ship parts quickly. I received several qualified 3PL leads that matched what we were looking for. After reviewing and speaking with many one stood out from the rest, and we found a great partner. We could not recommend WarehousingAndFulfillment.com enough.
We found the perfect third-party fulfillment vendor through insightQuote. We never would have found them on our own. We canโt thank you enough and our customers thank you too.
Thanks for all of your help. This was a huge undertaking for us and your guidance was extremely helpful!
Thank you so much for your excellent service. We have chosen one to go forward with. This has saved us a great deal of time.
They really listened to our requirements and then matched us with great vendors that could meet our specific challenges.
I just wanted to say thank you so much for setting me up with these vendors. I have found pricing better than I ever expected to find.
Legit, this was such a good experience ... I was shocked how fast the vendors contacted me and got the ball rolling. This was such a pleasant experience
What an awesome service. A problem I fought with daily for over 3 weeks, solved in less than 24 hours.
Get fulfillment tips delivered to your inbox!