In order fulfillment, a business picks, packs, and ships an order to a customer in another location. A company must estimate the volume of product in order to determine how to handle the order fulfillment process. If the company expects a large amount of orders, then it would be wise for them to outsource their order fulfillment to an online business. Below a certain volume, it may be cost-prohibitive to work with an outside fulfillment house. Likewise, many order fulfillment houses have minimum requirements. You must estimate the per-unit price for each online fulfillment house you select. This will allow you to balance the salary and benefits you might expect to pay a dedicated staff, or the cost of using current staff on the same project. Your company must reevaluate from time to time by identifying the point where it would be more lucrative to begin outsourcing your order fulfillment, or beginning to fill your orders in-house.

Next step in order fulfillment is to see if your staff can keep up with the workload placed upon them by online fulfillment. When the workload exceeds your staff's capacity, your customers will experience poor service, and you may also lose business. Also, the time spent fulfilling orders may distract you from your ability to develop the business. This is the time when you must consider hiring another employee or deciding to outsource.

You must consider handling requirements for your product, as well. If the product is fragile and needs special handling, that must be considered when hiring staff or using another company to ship products. If your product needs a special loading device to ship, and the only company that has one is outsourced, think again about using them, after you have determined if your product could be shipped more effectively by an outside company.

Your company needs quality customer service, whether in-house or outsourced. It is possible to provide quality or inferior customer service equally under either situation. The difference is how well you plan for customer service when you set up your fulfillment process or contract with an outside vendor. Order fulfillment houses are well aware of customer service matters and offer services that can harmonize well with your own systems. Anticipate your customer service needs when you prepare to fill customer orders, including: managing inventory, offering multiple shipping options, tracking orders, replenishing out-of-stock items, and handling returns and disputes.

If outside access to your customer or inventory database is something you are wary of, then you may need to set up your own online fulfillment system. You will need to identify to what extent you need control over your customer database, your inventory, and your branding to decide whether outsourcing is right for you and to identify the right company to use. The company that fills your online orders will become an integral part of your business, and you'll need to be able to coordinate your business effectively with that company.