Fulfillment House - I can't keep up

too much to do in a day...

[sun818]

As my business grows, I'm having a difficult time having most of my day play the role of a shipping clerk. Packing, packing, packing... It seems that's what I do all day long. You get my point. Are any of outsourcing some of your labor outside services? I'm looking into fulfillment houses. You send them your stuff, they store it, and ship it for you on demand.

I figure this type of situation will scale better especially for the holidays and I can concentrate on advertising, marketing, and sales instead of being shipping clerk.

[Rubylily]

I have recently started considering the idea of using a fulfillment service in the future, when my order volume has increased sufficiently. I can't help thinking 'why reinvent the wheel?' Do I really want to rent premises, pay insurance costs and business rates, set up effective warehousing, stock and dispatch systems, become an employer and deal with all the related employment issues, deal with staff training (not to mention staff phoning in sick and going on holiday...) etc etc (the list goes on) or should I just pay a fulfillment house to do something they already specialise in everyday of the week - ie. warehousing and dispatch - while I concentrate on what I'm good at - marketing and selling my products - still in the comfort of my own home.

Obviously there are big concerns when considering the possible involvement of a third party, mainly (for me) involving quality control issues and maintaining levels of customer service, but I have to say that at the moment I'm certainly keeping the option at the top of my list for the future.