5 Questions to Ask Before Choosing a Fulfillment Partner in Ontario

When you run a business, you have many decisions to make, like choosing a fulfillment partner. But there’s never enough time in the day to do the research you need to make informed decisions. 

You can save time by making sure you’re aware of the critical questions you need to ask before making a significant decision.  

You should ask the following questions before choosing a fulfillment partner:

• What happens if you make a mistake?
• What kind of online support do you provide?
• Do you have a dedicated account manager or customer service team?
• How do you handle shipping?
• Do you require a long-term commitment?

At Wills Transfer, we’re here to help you with all your fulfillment needs to help you save time, money, and hassle and let you focus on running your business.

1. What happens if you make a mistake?

Unfortunately, mistakes happen, no matter what line of work you’re in. It’s important to understand the process of correcting mistakes and how that may affect your fulfillment. 

A good order fulfillment business should:

• Not charge you for fulfillment or shipping costs when they make an error. 
• Take care of retrieving items that were incorrectly shipped.
• Cover the cost of reshipping the correct items at their expense.

2. What kind of online support do you provide?

An online presence is a must for almost any company. 

When partnering with a third-party fulfillment service, ask your contact if they offer online access to pertinent information, such as details about your inventory and your orders. 

You should also be able to access reports that can be run on demand.

As well, you want to partner with an order fulfillment service that allows you to have orders go directly from your shopping cart to their order management system or provides another way for you to add orders into their order management system easily.

3. Do you have a dedicated account manager or customer service team?

Sometimes, online information doesn’t always provide the answers you need when you’ve got pressing questions. You don’t want to contact your fulfillment partner and get passed around to random people when you need answers quickly. 

This is why a dedicated account manager or customer service team is so important.

Dedicated account managers work specifically with your company and are your primary contact for communicating about the services you rely on. If you don’t have particular needs for your fulfillment services, you may be fine working with just a customer service team.

4. How do you handle shipping?

There are two questions you need to ask when it comes to talking to an Ontario order fulfillment business about shipping:

• What companies do you use to take care of shipping? A robust order fulfillment business should work with more than one shipping company to ensure they have adequate shipping coverage.
• How do you determine shipping rates? Shipping can be expensive, but there are ways to cut costs. Your third-party fulfillment partner should have access to discounted bulk shipping rates that you can use.

5. Do you require a long-term commitment?

It’s vital to ask how long of a commitment they will require when you’re interviewing them. 

You don’t want to lock yourself into contracts that will either cost more than you can afford if you have a downturn in business or must keep paying even if you no longer want to use their services.

What can Wills Transfer offer me as an Ontario order fulfillment business?

At Wills Transfer, we provide everything you need regarding warehousing and third-party logistics. 

Are you looking for storage? We can help you with that. Are you looking for someone to take care of inventory management? We can help you with that too.

We offer several different kinds of logistics services as well:

• Our team can pick and pack your shipments, both domestic and international.
• We can tag your assets, making it easier to track them.
• With our kitting services, we can combine several finished products into one package.
• Our warehouse management solution provides easy-to-access information about your products in stock with us.

So, if you’re looking for high-quality order fulfillment services in Ontario that offer end-to-end support and value-added services, then look no further than Wills Transfer.

Asking the Right Questions is Key

Hiring the right fulfillment partner is much easier if you have a robust set of questions ready when interviewing potential partners. 

If an Ontario order fulfillment partner is not willing to give you clear answers to your questions, then they are not the right choice for you.

At Wills Transfer, we can help you with a variety of logistics services, including picking and packing shipments, tagging your assets, and combining products with our kitting services. You can rest easy knowing that your inventory is in good hands with our expertly trained staff.

Contact Us to Learn More About Ontario Order Fulfillment Services

We’re here if you have questions about the many different warehousing and third-party services we provide, including Ontario order fulfillment services. Call us at 613-283-0225 or contact us online to learn more about how we can help you.