Not shipping yet? Good. This is the easiest time to get it right.
Before the first order lands, the decisions are still cheap. Packing, stock, cut-offs, what your customer sees when the box arrives. Get them settled now and launch week is dull, which is exactly what you want.
Or call 01934 912001.
Where you are
You cannot answer the questions everyone wants to ask you
How many orders a month? What is your average basket? How many SKUs by the end of year one? You do not know. Nobody launching knows. Any number you give is a guess, and a guess is a poor thing to build an operation on.
So the useful conversation is not about volumes at all. It is about what you are launching, how you expect people to buy it, and what has to be true on the day the first order arrives. Those you do know.
What actually needs deciding
Four things, and none of them are a number
- What arrives, and in what state. Loose cases, mixed pallets, a container from a manufacturer who has never shipped to the UK before. What we receive shapes everything after it.
- What goes out. Tissue and a card, or a plain mailing bag. Whether the first order from a customer looks different from the fifth. Whether anything needs assembling before it can ship.
- When it goes out. Your cut-off is a promise to your customer. It should be set by what you want to promise, then worked backwards.
- What you can see. Stock counts that are right, and a way to know what left and when, without asking anyone.
Settle those four and the volumes take care of themselves. They change every month anyway.
Why a conversation beats a comparison
Tell us what you are building, not which box you fit
Pick options off a list and you get quoted against the list. The trouble is that the list was written by somebody else, for the average of everybody, and you are launching something specific. The thing that would actually help you may not be on it.
A launch is full of those. A kitting step that removes a job you were about to hire for. Holding two lines here and letting a supplier drop-ship the bulky third. A packing spec that costs a little more and saves you every return you were about to get. None of that is selectable in advance. It comes out of describing what you are trying to do and having someone say: we would do it like this.
EZ3PL is one warehouse, in Weston-super-Mare. You will speak to someone who works in it. If what you are launching would be better served somewhere else, we will say so on the call rather than after you have moved your stock.
The difference
Launching it yourself, or launching with a warehouse behind you
Packing your own launch
- Orders go out when you are home, which sets your cut-off for you.
- You buy boxes, tape and a label printer before you know what sells.
- Stock lives in the spare room and the count lives in your head.
- A week away means the shop pauses or somebody covers for you.
Launching with EZ3PL
- A cut-off you chose, running from the first order.
- One packing spec, agreed before launch and written down.
- Stock counted in on arrival and visible without asking.
- Orders ship whether or not you are anywhere near them.
How it starts
Three steps, before you sell anything
Agree the spec. What is arriving, what goes out, what the customer opens, and what time an order has to be in to ship that day.
Send the stock. Yours or your supplier’s, direct to the warehouse. It is counted in against what the paperwork says and put away.
Go live. Your storefront feeds orders through, they are picked and packed to the spec, and they leave on that day’s carrier collection.
Questions before launch
The ones we get asked most
I do not know my volumes yet. Is that a problem?
No. Nobody launching knows them, and a guess is a poor thing to build an operation on. The call works from what you are launching and how you expect people to buy it.
Can you take stock before I start selling?
Yes. Goods arrive, are counted in and stored, ready for the day you switch the shop on.
Who chooses the carrier?
You do. Carriers collect daily; EZ3PL has the parcel packed and manifested in time and books the shipment with the carrier you have chosen.
Where is the warehouse?
Weston-super-Mare, in Somerset. One site, which is the whole operation rather than a branch of it.
Thirty minutes, before you have committed to anything
Bring what you are launching, roughly when, and what you want the customer to get. We will tell you how we would run it and what it would take to be ready. Nothing to prepare, and no need to have your numbers straight.
Or call 01934 912001.