As we continue to hear more in the news every day about delays and capacity constraints as the new normal in every form of shipping, it becomes more crucial that eCommerce businesses reduce errors so that the inventory on hand can efficiently get to the customers who have purchased it.

Online shopping continues to grow and in addition to the shipping challenges, many product supply chains are also overstretched and unable to keep up with capacity. Errors not only eat up small profit margins, but sour customer loyalty.

As eCommerce businesses weather this storm of supply chain and shipping challenges, have you considered automating your fulfillment and shipping processes for efficiency during this hardship?

Meet This Supplier of Kitchen & Bath Décor and OPAL Fanatic

Prior to Opal, this team was experiencing the typical headaches and challenges that most business owners have with keeping up with sales with manual processes in eCommerce.

They were manually processing orders, which was very time-consuming because the fulfillment team would have to consolidate orders from different e-commerce channels, manually generate shipping labels, and manually upload tracking information into each partner’s vendor portal.

There were also the occasional (and costly) human errors that resulted in items being mis-shipped or already fulfilled orders mistakenly fulfilled again.  In the beginning, they only had a few SKUs and the manual tracking worked, but as her company and the number of SKUs grew— inventory tracking became a nightmare.

Low-inventory items oftentimes were double-sold, and then inventory mistakes would mean they would have to cancel orders and give the customer a poor experience. Finding items in the warehouse was also difficult, since there was no way for inventory/warehouse staff to track. All of this contributed to a slow shipping turnaround time and provided the customer with a poor experience—regardless of the amount of hard work that went into the manual processes to get products shipped to customers. 

Why Was Opal a Good Fit for You?

We decided to go with OPAL because of the high level of customizability to make the system fit our very specific needs. We also felt that for what it was, the system was a good value.

What Results Have You Achieved with OPAL?

We have benefited tremendously from the automation OPAL provides. From an order processing standpoint, the system automatically generates labels and pick lists, making our fulfillment process highly efficient. Our team is now able to process more orders in less time than before. 

The automation also provides peace of mind, as our team is unable to fulfill the same order twice, or fulfill an order with the wrong item. Inventory tracking is also much easier. The system is able to record bin locations so our warehouse team is able to easily find and pick items from inventory.

What Would You Say to Someone Who is Considering OPAL?

OPAL was the right system for us and I would highly recommend it to anyone considering an inventory tracking and order processing system. However, anyone considering OPAL should understand that the system wasn’t perfect “out of the box”. We worked hard with the OPAL team during the onboarding process to customize the system to our needs. 

If you are considering OPAL, this can absolutely be the system for you, but you need to clearly understand what your operating pain points are and what your ideal system needs to look like, and you must be ready to communicate extensively with the OPAL team to build that ideal system. This doesn’t happen overnight (for us, it happened in waves over the course of weeks and months), but in retrospect, the lengthy process was worth it and I would absolutely do it again.

This OPAL fanatic and customer realized that her teams’ manual errors were costing them financially with products shipping to wrong addresses or overselling products across various sales channels due to errors in reported inventory.  But she quickly learned how easily these errors were reduced through simplifying with automation.

Simplify with OPAL’s 4-in-1 Software Solution
EDI | Order Management | Warehouse Management | Shipping

OPAL is the innovative solution to simplify your small to mid-sized to enterprise business fulfillment needs in today’s rapidly transforming retail world. 

With OPAL, your order processing will allow you to not only reach additional customers to sell more product, but you will build trust and prove dependability with your many sales channels.

To learn more about how OPAL can help your business simplify your order processing, click here!

Click here to book your customized demo today.  We are here to support you through this time of change and are here to help you innovate and thrive!

With eCommerce sales soaring and consumer demand for product high, life should be pretty good, right?  However, there are a number of underlying obstacles keeping suppliers from reaping the benefit of this demand.

As companies push to capitalize on a reopening economy, the competitive search for available labor has become more and more challenging, even with the US currently reporting near-record highs of job openings.

However, even if you’re fortunate enough to find the people that you need, following Covid there is still the huge obstacle of a seriously disrupted supply chain.  

Who saw that coming?  

These supply chain issues range from the inability to get adequate quantities of raw material or manufactured product from off-shore sources, to delayed shipping and its escalating cost.  Then, of course, there are over-the-road trucking delays and more escalating costs.  

The consumer sees it and is getting frustrated when everything they want is available on-line but marked as out-of-stock when they attempt to order it.

So, how can your eCommerce business come out ahead with all of these issues in your way?  

Unfortunately, much of it is outside of your immediate control.  But as a business owner you know that the only option is to reduce operating costs and maximize the management and sale of the stock you have on hand.

The only real way to do this is through the digitization of business processes that optimize the resources – product and people – that you have, and consequently derive more business sustaining profit during these difficult times.

Think about it.  It’s not a leap.  You advertise your product digitally, you sell it digitally – why not digitize its fulfillment process as well?  

If you consider your current cost per order, is the combined cost of order management systems (including people), EDI, warehouse management systems and your shipping systems less than $1.00 per order?  It should be, AND it can be.

Digitally Streamlining Order Fulfillment

Digitally processing orders enables you to remove labor intensive aspects of order management and improve order accuracy up to 99%.  This enables you to either not hire or reallocate personnel that are currently tied up with mundane tasks to revenue producing and mission critical business activities.

Maximizing available inventory is also critical.  This includes real time inventory balances on hand and what’s in transit, as well as easily representing your inventory to your sales channels in a way that prevents underselling on slow moving channels and over selling on high volume channels – in other words, making your stock count to increase revenue.   

With digital tools, highly efficient pick, pack and ship processes makes it possible to maximize your shipments per day.  Not only do daily shipments increase drastically, but you can ship more without having to hire additional employees and spend the time training and bringing them up to speed.  

Choosing one software package to manage all of your order processing and fulfillment needs drastically reduces the cost of and time to manage multiple packages.  It is critical to find a solution that integrates easily with your accounting system and covers EDI transactions – a small expense per package shipped that adds up quickly when drop shipping directly to consumers.   

In fact, more than one year into the global pandemic, UPS believes supply chains have achieved in a matter of months what would have taken years to accomplish. With ever-increasing orders, automation improves order accuracy and reduces processing costs to just cents per order. 

Simplify with OPAL’s 4-in-1 Software Solution
EDI | Order Management | Warehouse Management | Shipping

OPAL is the innovative solution to simplify your small to mid-sized to enterprise business fulfillment needs in today’s rapidly transforming retail world. 

With OPAL, automating your order fulfillment will allow you to not only reach additional customers to sell more product, but survive and thrive through these difficult times.  

To learn more about how OPAL can help your business simplify, click here!

Click here to book your customized demo today.  We are here to support you through this time of change and are here to help you innovate and thrive!

Over the past year, new industries have taken off as the pandemic forced families and friends to shift from congregating inside their beautifully curated homes to the outside, where the open wind and six feet of space could help keep others safe. 

With the outdoor furniture market on the steady rise and estimated to grow more than 4.27 billion over the coming years, eCommerce businesses like this OPAL user required a new level of organization and streamlining of processes like never before to keep up with the ever-increasing demand.

Is your business ready if your industry segment is next to take off?

Meet a Supplier of Outdoor Furniture and OPAL Fanatic

Prior to Opal, his team was experiencing significant bottlenecks related to processing orders for large retail partners. Prior to OPAL, they were required to manually process each order in the extranet and print out labels separately. In addition, they did not have a good way to get accurate inventory information to their retail partners – such as on hand quantities, allocated quantities and group item (sets) sub-components.  

Why Was Opal a Good Fit for You?

OPAL is extremely flexible, so we were able to make changes to meet the specific needs of our business – both from an order processing perspective and from an inventory reporting perspective.

What Results Have You Achieved with OPAL?

We have been able to dramatically cut down the amount of time it takes to process each order for retail partners. Before, we were processing individual orders on the retailer’s extranet, and now we are clicking a single button to batch all orders together and print all labels at the same time. 

This has allowed us to increase our number of orders processed daily by three fold….all while keeping the same staff that we had prior to OPAL. In addition, we are now reporting much more accurate inventory values due to the fact that we have customized our inventory feed being sent out, which takes into account allocations and raw materials inventory.

What Would You Say to Someone Who is Considering OPAL?

I would highly recommend OPAL. I would tell the person to make sure that they have a clear understanding of how their entire business process works and where the bottlenecks and issues are. 

From there, you can focus the attention of OPAL on those key areas and automate where necessary in order to provide a clear ROI.

Increase Daily Shipments & Strengthen Relationships with Your Sales Channels

OPAL simplifies processes so that your business can optimize on time delivery to consumers, while managing compliant retailer transactions, real-time inventory and shipping documents. Simplifying with one software solution and automating drives labor costs down and increases capacity to fulfill new orders immediately, without the hassle of hiring and training new staff.

Simplify with OPAL’s 4-in-1 Software Solution
EDI | Order Management | Warehouse Management | Shipping

OPAL is the innovative solution to simplify your small to mid-sized to enterprise business fulfillment needs in today’s rapidly transforming retail world. 

With OPAL, your order processing will allow you to not only reach additional customers to sell more product, but you will build trust and prove dependability with your many sales channels.

To learn more about how OPAL can help your business simplify your order processing, click here!

Click here to book your customized demo today.  We are here to support you through this time of change and are here to help you innovate and thrive!

The eCommerce software industry has yet another quarter of rapid growth as businesses work to keep up with the ever-increasing demand from consumers who either recognize the ease of online shopping or are still sheltering in place with the pandemic safety regulations.

In addition, global e-commerce sales are expected to increase by around 14% in 2021, and worldwide sales are nearing $5 trillion. As millennials continue to make cut backs on non-essential items, though how that term is defined is highly debated, the fastest growing eCommerce categories are bread makers, hair dye, ping pong equipment and playdoh, while trends more typical for this season of the year like travel, luggage, formal wear and swimsuits for warmer weather are still on steep decline. 

As the eCommerce software industry continues to boom, what are the benefits to your business if you hop on this trend?

Benefits of eCommerce Software

One Comprehensive Solution.
A shift in process from manual to autonomous will increase your capacity for additional and more accurate orders without the need to hire additional staff.  Not only does this decrease labor costs, but you are able to increase the shipments per day. 

Simplifying the multiple software packages required to maintain your order processing and fulfillment needs will simplify, reduce opportunities for error, and reduce the cost per shipment so you’re your team can focus on increasing shipments per day.

Pick, Pack & Ship with Order Fulfillment.
Automation through software allows your eCommerce business to do more with the same team, driving labor costs down drastically and increasing your capacity to fulfill additional orders immediately without the hassle of hiring and training new staff.  

Reliability and reduction in errors, as well as optimizing on time delivery to consumers, managing compliant retailer transactions, delivering real-time inventory and shipping documents all strengthen relationships with sales channels and the consumer journey to receive your product.

EDI Charges Eliminated.
One of the biggest benefits to a software solution is eliminating EDI charges, especially since they have grown exorbitantly over the past year as shipping to individual consumers has skyrocketed. To learn more about the history of EDI, visit our blog here.

Connecting to all retailers, suppliers and warehouses is essential, but it’s crucial to find a software that provides unlimited EDI without transaction charges.

Simplify with OPAL’s 4-in-1 Software Solution
EDI | Order Management | Warehouse Management | Shipping

OPAL is the innovative solution to simplify your small to mid-sized to enterprise business fulfillment needs in today’s rapidly transforming retail world. 

Simplifying with OPAL will:

• reduce processing time up to 90%, 
• reduce processing cost up to 80%, 
• improve order accuracy up to 99%, 
• reduce undelivered packages up to less than 1%, and 
• increase daily shipments by 25-50%. 

All in all, OPAL users experience a 300% – 500% increase in order fulfillment capacity.  To learn more about how OPAL can help your business simplify and keep up with consumer demand, click here!

Click here to book your customized demo today.  We are here to support you through this time of change and are here to help you innovate and thrive!

With an estimated 165 billion packages being shipped in the US each year, it is more and more critical for eCommerce businesses to shift to include order fulfillment strategy as part of the key performance indicators for a successful customer experience.  

For online retailers, the average cost to fulfill an order is 70% of the average order value.  From labor costs, inefficient ordering methods, and many other order expenses, eCommerce businesses who thrive will have solid systems in place to minimize errors and expenses so that they can maximize their reach and provide products to customers. 

Like many of our OPAL partners, Fred explains how order fulfillment was challenging.  From accessing numerous websites for one product shipment to simple errors that were timely and costly, simplifying with one software allowed his team to scale from 200 orders a week to more than 1,000 orders with everything else kept the same.

Meet Fred, Supplier of Pet Products

Prior to OPAL, his team had to access individual websites, download orders, and then log in to shipping partner sites. Not only was this a time consuming and labor-intensive process, but it did nothing to help scale the business. During the early days, there were no inventory feeds or small package tracking numbers being sent on a regular basis either.

Why Was OPAL a Good Fit for You?

What made Opal a good fit is having a seamless tool to handle all the eCommerce functions with our retail partners.  From on-boarding integration to daily order processing along with invoice processing and sending inventory feeds, Opal handles it all and relieves the office staff from straying beyond their capabilities.  

What Results Have You Achieved with OPAL?

We have been able to scale the business without adding staff. In the pre-Opal days we were handling approximately 200 orders a week with much effort and labor costs.  

With Opal we’ve been able to increase our business and now we regularly process over 1,000 orders weekly with the staff redeployed to sales generation activities rather than order processing efforts.

What Would You Say to Someone Who is Considering OPAL?

Opal changed the way to handle eCommerce orders bringing office automation and efficiencies to a technology concentric function.  Opal is the heart of our eCommerce fulfillment operation, allowing flawless order capture and invoice processing coupled with small package carrier integration all while using QuickBooks Enterprise.  Because of Opal we have grown the business by millions of dollars while keeping our accounting in a simple, cost effective software package.

One Comprehensive Solution

OPAL reduces the cost of multiple software packages needed for your order processing and fulfillment needs, so that like Fred, your team can keep up with the increasing consumer demand.  To learn more about the benefits of automating order processing, read our blog here.

Automation also drives labor costs down and increases capacity to fulfill new orders immediately, without the hassle of hiring and training new staff.

Simplify with OPAL’s 4-in-1 Software Solution
EDI | Order Management | Warehouse Management | Shipping

OPAL is the innovative solution to simplify your small to mid-sized to enterprise business fulfillment needs in today’s rapidly transforming retail world. 

With OPAL, your order processing will allow you to not only reach additional customers to sell more product, but you will build trust and prove dependability with your many sales channels.

To learn more about how OPAL can help your business simplify your order processing, click here!

Click here to book your customized demo today.  We are here to support you through this time of change and are here to help you innovate and thrive!

Many consumers believe the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services.  With this new era of online shopping, how does your eCommerce business update your fulfillment process to ensure the customer receives the best overall customer experience possible?

Strategic Vs Tactical

Many eCommerce businesses make the mistake of responding to problems in the moment with reactive tactics, rather than thinking ahead to how it ultimately impacts long term strategies and goals for the business, as well as impact customer perception of the overall experience.

Confusion arises when defining the two, but tactics are the immediate responses or activities that revolve around assessing and quickly fixing problems in the now.  They are the critical actions needed in the short term to achieve the long-term goals and results.

Strategy, on the other hand, defines your organizations long-term goals, insuring they are in line with overall business plans and objectives.  Many companies have long term goals, but get hung up in the day-to-day survival tactics required.

As you focus on the summer busy season ahead, and look to grow your business this year, here are five strategies to help adjust from the day-to-day survival required of the coming shipping craze to a more strategic period of growth in your company’s fulfillment strategies.

Top 5 Fulfillment Strategies

• Make Inbound Supply Chain More Efficient

Receiving materials or products on time is critical to be ready to ship to customers who have purchased your products.  Take time to assess your vendors over the past year and recognize those who had timely deliveries and helped you to meet your goals, and have the tough conversations with those who were not as reliable.

• Lower Shipping Costs & Delivery Time

Covid required an overnight shift from eCommerce businesses shipping pallets to larger retailers to now needing inventory on hand to dropship directly to individual customers around the world.  Customers expect quick delivery when working with larger retailers and the more reliable your business is, the better the reviews and the more likely you are to have repurchases or new purchases.

It is also critical to analyze this past years’ trends in shipping volume so that you can negotiate better rates based on volume for the year ahead.

• Increase Warehouse Efficiency

Space:  Using space efficiently through the layout of the warehouse, levels of inventory and packing stations will assist your team in fulfilling additional orders. 

Paperwork: Increasing accuracy and decreasing processing time with the paperwork is challenging to do manually after surpassing a certain volume.  Automation allows your team to utilize simple technology through barcodes, so that you can monitor processes like receiving, inventory levels, shipping and many more through a simple scan of a barcode. 

Orders: Increase the number of picked orders per day through more efficient processes in the warehouse.  Automation will help with this and drastically reduce errors.

• Consider Internal vs. Third Party Fulfillment

Can you achieve faster delivery with multiple distribution centers or does it make sense to look into the cost-effective model of 3PL?  Long term success strategies include multiple models and can be achieved in house if this aligns with your processes and goals.  

• Select & Implement a New Information System

Many ecommerce businesses exhaust themselves working to make things as efficient as possible for the least amount of money possible.  Unfortunately, there’s only so much work we can do manually or with the systems we already have.  Efficient technology reduces errors drastically and allows employees to do more in less time, allowing the business to grow and provide additional products to new consumers. 

Simplify with OPAL’s 4-in-1 Software Solution
EDI | Order Management | Warehouse Management | Shipping

OPAL is the innovative solution to simplify your small to mid-sized to enterprise business fulfillment needs in todays’ rapidly transforming retail world.  

As your eCommerce business looks to optimize fulfillment processes, OPAL is here to assist you in each of the strategies above.

To learn more about how to make your eCommerce business scalable with OPAL, click here!

Click here to book your customized demo today.  We are here to support you through this time of change and are here to help you innovate and thrive!