5 Order Processing Breakthroughs Speeding Up Fulfillment in 2024

Experiencing slow order fulfillment?
You get a lot of complaints from your customers about the delayed deliveries. Some even return the products for this reason. You are likely to lose customers because of late deliveries.
Interestingly, according to a survey by Supplychainbrain.com, 55% of the respondents will stop purchasing goods from a business after two late deliveries.
Slow order fulfillment reduces your customers hence lowering sales.
How can you address this?
Adopt automation in your business operations.
This order processing innovation helps to speed up activities in your enterprise. Your customers are therefore able to receive their goods on time. This helps to improve their satisfaction.
Because of automation, you do not lose customers because of late order fulfillment.
In this article we will look at five order processing breakthroughs speeding up fulfillment in 2024. Hope you learn how these tools can transform your enterprise.
Let’s get started.
1. AI Driven Order Management Systems
Predicting demand is difficult.
You have to correctly analyze factors such as market conditions, seasonal patterns and trends. This can be challenging.
If you overestimate the appeal of the goods, you experience overstocks ( more goods than the demand) and if you underestimate you face stockouts ( less goods than needed). Both of these scenarios are costly.
Interestingly, the IHL group reported that the cost of inventory imbalances was $1.77 trillion in 2023. Poor forecasting of consumer behavior significantly eats into your profits.
Stockouts lead to delays and cancellation of orders. Overstocks increase the risk of unsold goods.
What’s the solution?
One of the order processing innovations you can utilize to curb this issue is AI driven order management systems.
This tool accurately predicts the demand of your goods. If you are looking for one, the a great warehouse management system is one that leverages AI in demand forecasting.
It analyzes past sales records, trends and market conditions. The system then makes use of advanced statistical models to accurately predict consumer behavior. You are therefore able to ascertain the optimal inventory levels.
Canceling orders because you do not have enough stock becomes a thing of the past. Delays are also minimized.
Van Dal Mannenmode, a Dutch men’s fashion retailer, was regularly experiencing understocks leading to delays in deliveries.
By utilizing Wair’s AI Replenisher, the fashion retailer was able to reduce stockouts by 90%. The AI system was able to accurately predict demand by studying the customer patterns and market conditions.
2. Customer Relationship Management Systems
Struggling with ineffective communication with customers?
You have received multiple complaints from your clients about delayed responses to queries. They are also concerned about the lack of proactive updates regarding their purchases.
Infact, according to a study by Project.co, 95% of the surveyed respondents stated that it was important for them to get status updates on their projects and orders.
Ineffective communication can make you lose your clients.
They also express their frustration with the lack of personalized communication. When you don’t communicate effectively with your clients, they feel that you do not care about them.
You could utilize CRM systems to deal with this problem.
This order processing innovation helps to improve communication with your clientele. They therefore feel valued and cherished. Because of this, they are willing to spend more on your business.
This technology helps to improve the response times. It includes features such as automated emails and chatbots that help to ensure that customers receive timely updates.
CRM also helps to improve personalization.
With improved communication with your clients, you are able to better meet the requirements of your customers. This helps to reduce the time your team spends on correcting errors. This energy is directed towards new orders.
Fitness Bell, an Indian fitness and nutrition consultancy, was experiencing complaints about poor communication.
By leveraging Kylas CRM, the company was able to increase its sales. This is because Fitness Bell was able to efficiently communicate with its customers to tailor products and services to their liking.
3. Internet of Things (IoT)
Struggling with inventory shrinkage?
You have realized that there are discrepancies between the records and the actual stock levels. This is very frustrating for you as an entrepreneur. You have unfortunately come across incidents where information is falsified to cover up theft.
Interestingly, according to Cargonet, $44 million worth of goods could not be traced in warehouses in the second quarter of 2023. This delays processes in your operations.
Your team accepts orders because the records show there is enough stock. When they go to the stores they find less goods.
They are therefore forced to place backorders to cater for these requests.
To address this issue you can incorporate IoT into your operations.
This order processing innovation helps to reduce inventory shrinkage hence speeding up order fulfillment.
You first tag your products with RFID tags and barcodes. When goods are moved within your warehouse, devices such as motion sensors and RFID scanners are able to track these items.
The system is then able to instantaneously update stock levels. The values in the records and the actual stock reconcile. Your team members are able to process orders efficiently.
They do not encounter situations where they accept orders only to go to the shelves and find the products are not there.
Yunfu, a Chinese fashion company, was experiencing inconsistencies in their stock records.
By leveraging Avery Dennison’s IoT solution, Yunfu was able to enhance transparency and traceability in its operations. They achieved this by making use of RFID technology to track their products throughout their operations.
4. Automated Mobile Robots (AMRs)
Wrong order deliveries frustrate customers.
You frequently get complaints about erroneous shipments. Your clients even return the goods and demand refunds.
According to Khoros, 65% of customers have switched to a different business after one bad experience.
This situation is likely to make you lose clients.
The wrong shipments also increase your operational costs. This is because you incur transportation costs and labor costs to facilitate returning of the items and reshipping.
These mistakes are also negatively affecting productivity in your business. Your agents spend time fixing errors rather than focusing on new orders.
What’s the solution?
One of the order processing innovations you can adopt is AMRs.
AMRs are often integrated with warehouse management systems that have data on the locations of items. The WMS is thus able to direct the robot to the correct items. Before picking the item, AMRs use RFID or barcode scanners to verify the products.
This significantly reduces picking errors.
Before packing, the robots make use of scanners to ensure that the items match the client’s order.
AMRs also automate sorting.
By removing the human element in these processes, mistakes are minimized. Your customers receive the right goods. This improves customer satisfaction and overall sales.
Comix, a Chinese B2B office supplier, was having a problem with low labor efficiency. The staff were making many mistakes.
By utilizing P40 robots from Geek+, Comix was able to achieve a picking accuracy of 99.99%. The robots were able to achieve this by verifying products by the use of scanners.
5. Supplier Diversification.
Dealing with unreliable suppliers is difficult.
They frequently fail to meet delivery deadlines which bring about delays in processing orders for clients.
According to Zencargo, 44% of surveyed respondents reported being frustrated by unreliable distributors. This greatly affects business operations.
Sometimes the suppliers deliver goods that do not meet the required standards. When you use these materials to produce your products, you often get complaints from your customers.
Your clients therefore return these goods. This brings about losses and delays in order fulfilments.
If this process continues for an extended period of time the reputation of your enterprise becomes tarnished.
How do you address this?
You can incorporate supplier diversification.
This order processing innovation ensures that the materials you need are always delivered at the right time. It also guarantees that the right quality of material is brought.
In this technique you split your order to multiple distributors. This helps to ensure that even if one fails, your operations are not affected.
You conduct regular audits to assess whether the distributors meet the deadlines and whether the materials brought meet the correct standards. If they don’t meet these criteria you replace them.
As a result, your order processing remains seamless.
Adidas, a global sportswear company, was having issues with the quality of material supplied by its vendor.
By incorporating multi sourcing, Adidas was able to reduce the number of defects by half. By diversifying its supplier and conducting regular supply audits the quality of material significantly improved hence reducing faults.
Conclusion
Experiencing payment processing issues?
The payment option that you use is regularly having technical issues. This is affecting the processing of orders. Your clients are likely to be frustrated by this.
They may even shift to your business rivals.
According to Zendesk’s 2020 report, 80% of clients switch to competitors after more than one bad experience.
Having a single payment option can make you lose clients.
To address this problem you can make use of multiple payment options.
With this order processing innovation in place, in case one option has technical problems your customers can always use the other choices. This helps to quicken your business operations.
By adopting numerous payment methods you also increase the speed of the transactions because your clients use the method they are accustomed to.
I hope this article on order processing innovations has opened your eyes to the incredible ways these methods can enhance your business operations.