Why 2020 offers an unprecedented opportunity for agile online brands

Contributor: James Hyde, CEO and Co-founder, James and James Fulfilment

Founded in 2010 as the world’s first digitalnative fulfilment house, James and James helps ambitious online brands grow sales, delight customers and optimise operations. www.ecommercefulfilment.com When lockdown began, many traditional retailers were caught off guard. Those with little or no ecommerce presence were forced to literally shut up shop. Those with growing online operations struggled to meet demand and even slashed advertising spend

– after all, fulfilling thousands of direct-to-consumer (D2C) orders is a much bigger challenge than distributing stock to tens of high street stores.

To support growth, James and James is moving into a brand new fulfilment centre

Outsourced fulfilment can help brands stay agile in a changeable environment

With consumers unable to buy from familiar brands, many turned to smaller online retailers they hadn’t considered or even heard of before. Collectively, the order volumes of the 400 independent ecommerce brands we work with were up 65% month-on-month – and 150% yearon-year – in April 2020.

An opportunity to take long-term market share As the world slowly returns to normal, this shift in shopping behaviour shows no signs of abating. According to EY’s Future Consumer Index report, 70% of consumers no longer feel comfortable shopping instore. A similar number say it could be years until they return to pubs and restaurants. This presents agile online brands with an unprecedented opportunity to take long-term market share from bigger, traditional players. To seize that opportunity, they must retain the new customers they’ve

acquired during lockdown. They must continuously review their products and distribution – we’ve seen countless brands pivot from wholesale to D2C through the crisis. And they must be ready for future spikes in demand, whether the traditional ones like Black Friday or the unexpected ones that lockdown delivered.

Seizing the opportunity through agile fulfilment One way to achieve this agility is by outsourcing your order fulfilment. Doing so can create the delightful experience that will keep those new customers coming back. It can offer fresh insights into product performance – and the time and headspace to react to them. And it can give you the backing of an expert team that’s used to sailing through peaks and troughs in demand. For instance, despite the surge in order volumes we saw during lockdown – and the stringent hygiene and social distancing measures we put in place – we maintained our service-level agreements (SLAs) for pick and pack accuracy and same-day dispatch. We also signed a 10-year lease on a brand new UK fulfilment centre – six times the floor area of our current one – and migrated our order fulfilment software to Amazon Web Services – the cloud computing platform that powers ecommerce giants like Zalando. These changes give us the agility and scalability to help even more brands seize the opportunities that lie ahead.

ORDER FULFILMENT & WAREHOUSE SOLUTIONS FULFILMENT SERVICES

Trusted and reliable family run business

Abstrakt has been trading for 30 years, initially providing mailing services specialising in the publications market. Our all round performance and dedicated approach led our clients to request additional storage and order fulfilment services. This has now seen us move into larger, scalable owned premises, currently providing over 4000 pallet positions for our pick, pack and dispatch operation.

Warehousing In the heart of the UK, our modern warehouse is ideal for your storage and distribution needs - flexible, cost-eective storage and order fulfilment.

FBA Amazon Fulfilment For clients wishing to use FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) we provide the complete service. We barcode and dispatch to Amazon’s requirements.

Pick, Pack & Dispatch Tailored order fulfilment services to suit your business. We carefully pick, pack & dispatch to keep your customers happy.

Successes “Abstrakt Services oer consistent high quality, reliability and flexibility, always with a friendly and professional approach. I highly recommend them as the most capable partner in the UK”

Head of Production Eaglemoss Publishing Group

European Order Fulfilment

For international sellers looking to maximise sales in the UK & Europe. Import your products to our central UK fulfilment warehouse.

Subscriptions We have provided subscription services for 30 years, ensuring that your customer receives their magazine, product or gift on the expected date.