Contracted Order Fulfillment companies

[mnw]

Has anyone used or investigagted using a third party order fulfillment company? Good and bad experiences welcomed. "Watch out for" particularly welcomed. Can run the gamut from from shopping cart/fulfillment/customer service/credit card processing to just actual order picking and shipping. Thanks

[sugarkane]

We use a picking/shipping company for one site - purely because it's heavily advertised in the press at weekends, and we can't justify the staffing to deal with the demand peak.

It has it's place, but I wouldn't recommend it for a long term solution, as it's likely (certain) that the subcontractor will be dealing with many, many other companies at the same time and customer service for *your* product will not be a top priority.

I've found that order queries tend to go unanswered far too often, which is something I clamp down on immediately with our in-house fulfilment.