Sam Anderson of Order Fulfillment Experts says larger businesses are now outsourcing fulfillment to cut overhead and move faster. Rising rents, utilities, and staffing costs are pushing even established companies to shift operations. Three recent clients saw significant savings after switching to his firm.
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Hi, my name's Sam Anderson. I'm the founder of Order Fulfillment Experts. I'd like to talk to you today about something that isn't purely anecdotal, but we've noticed it in the warehouse ourselves, and that's really a change in the order fulfillment landscape. Traditionally, because we're a smaller fulfillment house, we would get very much home-based businesses, who were outgrowing their home-based business and needing then to move to an outsourced operation for their fulfillment. But we're now seeing a trend away from that, and even away from the nomadic capitalist, and more towards premises-based businesses who are now looking to really reduce their overheads in quite a meaningful way and streamline their operation, become a lot more agile, and review their whole supply chains. And even the big boys are doing this now, or in fact, I say doing this now, they've been doing it for very many years. Coca-Cola is very known for outsourcing, splitting its supply chain, bottling in one place and distribution in another, and things like that. So this isn't a new thing, but we are definitely definitely noticing, boots on the ground in the warehouse, a stark trend towards premises-based businesses outsourcing and actually closing down their operations and, and realising that, in fact, they can save a huge amount of money from an overheads perspective by doing exactly that. Our last 3 customers that moved to us did precisely that. Interestingly, one of those also had retail premises as well. So we're not just seeing it in the B2B sector, we're also seeing it in B2C premises as well. So in terms of timing, you know, this is obviously directly related to the increase in business rates, rentals, utilities, staffing. It's just going up and up and up. Obviously these things always do, but it's been a marked increase for everyone. So, if you are in that position where you've thought, "Oh my goodness, I just don't know how we can really, you know, continue to pass those increases on to our customers and remain competitive in your market space," then outsourcing could be a really good option. So, something to look at. For our part, we're nearly at capacity, but we are actually just looking for one more key account customer. And so if we are a good fit, then please go to our website and book a discovery call with me, and we can chat through whether we are a good match. And in the meantime, I wish you all the well.
