Why Apparel Brands are Turning to Specialized Fulfillment Centers

As ecommerce sales continue to rise and consumer shopping habits shift online, apparel brands face mounting pressure to deliver orders quickly and efficiently. Offering fast and reliable fulfillment has become a key competitive advantage of fashion ecommerce. Many brands are finding they can’t keep up with fulfillment demands - especially those with surging online sales - by relying solely on their own distribution centers and warehouses.

In response, a growing number of apparel retailers and brands are partnering with specialized third-party fulfillment centers focused exclusively on ecommerce order processing and shipping. These specialized ecommerce fulfillment centers are tailored to the unique inventory, handling, and processing needs of apparel and accessories sold online. By turning fulfillment over to them, brands can shorten delivery lead times, reduce costs, and provide a better customer experience.

Speeding Up Order Delivery Times

One of the biggest appeals drawing brands to specialized fulfillment partners is the ability to significantly decrease order delivery times. Traditional distribution centers designed for wholesale shipping to brick and mortar stores tend to be larger, process items more methodically in bulk, and lack real-time connection to online ordering data. They struggle scaling rapidly during peaks in ecommerce demand.

In contrast, the infrastructure, systems, and processes at ecommerce-focused fulfillment centers are completely optimized for unit-level direct-to-consumer order fulfillment. They use advanced warehouse management systems to efficiently orchestrate staffing, inventory storage locations, picking paths, packaging, shipping carrier hand-offs, and more - all with the goal of getting online orders out the door as fast as possible.

Their expedited fulfillment capabilities directly translate into reduced delivery times compared to fulfillment through traditional brand warehouses. For example, an internal distribution center may take 4-6 days to process and ship an order while a specialized partner can execute the same process in 1-2 days. These time savings add up to a big impact on the customer experience.

Lowering Overall Fulfillment Costs

Ramping up internal resources to achieve faster fulfillment speeds is cost prohibitive for many brands. Specialized partners can offer faster processing at lower costs thanks to the economies of scale in their purpose-built facilities designed specifically for direct-to-consumer ecommerce.

They have already invested heavily in optimizing every aspect of the fast-order fulfillment machine - high-speed conveyors and sorters, smart batch picking strategies, automated packaging, strategic placement of frequent inventory items, and more. That infrastructure base applied across a high volume of orders results in efficiency gains and lower per-unit processing expenses.

These cost savings offset what brands pay in third-party fulfillment fees. Brands can ultimately save even more by avoiding expensive investments trying to recreate similarly efficient operations in-house.

In addition to lower fulfillment costs, turning fulfillment over to specialists also frees up existing brand warehouse resources. Personnel, facility space, and inventory handling capabilities can instead be reallocated to focus on more strategic priorities like new product introductions, category expansion, omnichannel initiatives, or wholesale distribution.

Access to Advanced Fulfillment Technology

Specialized ecommerce fulfillment centers are early adopters of cutting-edge fulfillment technologies including robotics, automated storage and retrieval systems, artificial intelligence, machine learning, advanced analytics, and more. These innovations drive gains in accuracy, speed, visibility, and cost efficiency.

For any single brand, acquiring and implementing these emerging technologies in-house is seldom feasible. The six and seven figure capital investments pay off for specialists fulfilling orders across a large customer base, but remain out of reach for most brands building out their own fulfillment operations.

Turning fulfillment over to an advanced specialist partner gives brands available access to these performance-enhancing technologies without the investment risk. As fulfillment technologies continue advancing rapidly, using an external specialist ensures brands stay on the leading edge operationally as new innovations are rolled out.

Mitigating Risk of Peak Order Volume Spikes

Apparel is a highly seasonal category, with order volumes spiking around new product releases, holidays, and sales events. Traditional distribution centers and warehouses sized for average volume struggle during these periodic volume surges. They simply lack the infrastructure flexibility and scalability to smoothly absorb major short-term spikes.

Excess volume gets backed up, leading to slow processing, long wait times, and poor customer experiences during critical seasonal windows - the very times when brands want fulfillment operating at peak efficiency. Specialized ecommerce fulfillment centers purpose-built for flexibility provide brands insurance against order backlogs by quickly scaling up or down in sync with even extreme changes in order levels.

They maintain extra capacity, equipment, technology, and staffing strategies to handle wild volume fluctuations. By relying on specialist partners, brands can feel confident temporary sales spikes won’t cripple their fulfillment capacity right when it matters most.

Access to Expanded Shipping Carrier Options

The growth in ecommerce has sparked expanded shipping choices as carriers compete for online retailer business. Specialized fulfillment centers have the volumes and infrastructure to easily plug into emerging shipping options like regional carriers, blended injection services, zone skipping, dynamic routing, and more.

However, brands fulfilling orders out of their own warehouses often fall below required minimums to access the full range of cost-effective carrier choices. Specialist fulfillment centers open an expanded carrier toolkit for brands to choose the best delivery speed and cost balance based on factors like order characteristics, destination, and customer choice. Wider carrier choice fuels greater delivery flexibility and competitive rates.

Elevating the Post-Purchase Brand Experience

Customer experiences don’t end at the point of sale. Post-purchase fulfillment and delivery interactions remain critically important to overall brand satisfaction. When fulfillment falters due to -processing delays, shipping confusion, or product damage, it erodes brand equity and loyalty built up through marketing and sales.

Relying on an established fulfillment specialist with a strong performance record helps guard brand reputation. Specialists have extensive quality checks, customer service protocols, and visibility tools to proactively address issues. Order tracking integration also keeps customers informed from checkout to doorstep. By handing off fulfillment, brands ensure customer post-purchase experiences reinforce - not detract from - their brand image.

As consumer appetite for online shopping shows no signs of abating, apparel brands must continue pursuing fulfillment excellence to stay competitive. Specialized ecommerce fulfillment partners provide the speed, efficiency, technology, and reliability needed to thrive amid the ongoing ecommerce boom. By transferring day-to-day order processing and shipping to these specialists, fashion brands can optimize the critical fulfillment piece of omnichannel success.