IDS Warehouse Technology for Innovative Fulfillment Services

The Role of Logistics Fulfillment Services in Business Growth

When a product-based business is focused on growth, a lot of attention necessarily goes into the products themselves, as well as marketing. With those two areas receiving so much of the focus, the key role customer order fulfillment plays may be overlooked or given minimal attention as an afterthought. As many businesses have found out the hard way, however, order fulfillment is one of the final pieces of the puzzle that leaves a strong impression on the customer. All too often, this final impression is not a good one if order fulfillment is anything less than stellar. Even if the product is everything customers wanted, the chances of them becoming repeat, loyal customers are slim to none.

In this sense, order fulfillment is the unsung hero of customer satisfaction. When it goes well, no one even notices. It’s when it doesn’t go well that you’ll hear about it, at which point it’s too late to correct the bad impression in that customer’s mind. At IDS, we understand how important order fulfillment is to business success. It should never be something that hinders business growth, and our mission is to make sure it drives growth.

Warehouse Technology and Warehouse Management System

While the focus here is on warehouse technology, it’s important to begin first with strategic warehouse locations. IDS warehouses are located in two different “crossroad” cities: Indianapolis Indiana and Salt Lake City Utah. From these strategic locations, we can reach 92% of the United States with two-day shipping. See our IDS Distribution Center page for more information. IDS maintains well over one million square feet of climate-controlled warehouse space, including FDA compliant storage for food, medical devices, over-the-counter products, and cosmetics.

IDS has made significant investments in modern warehouse technology, including the smart integration of advanced robotics. With the automation strategies and custom software tools at our disposal, we effectively leverage technology into significant benefits for our clients, including our state-of-the-art warehouse management system and inventory management system. These systems provide our clients with accurate, real-time insights to manage your product levels, order activities, and more. Our focus on the technologies in warehousing and fulfillment systems leads to improved processes that help you cut costs, reduce inaccuracies, and provide a better overall service to your customers. When you succeed, we succeed. This simple realization is at the root of our client-centric approach. It’s why we provide you with an unmatched experience through efficient inventory warehousing and order fulfillment services.

As you can imagine, we had to put a lot of time and effort into selecting the right warehouse management system to achieve superior results for our clients. What did we choose? IRMS360 by Aptean. Learn more about its capabilities and how we leverage this software to best serve you on our IDS Warehouse Management System page.

Strong Relationships with Leading Shipping Partners

With simplified parcel shipping and the ability to manage complex profiles, high-value products, seasonal sales, multi-channel sales, and more, our team can deliver on the promises you need us to make. Behind the scenes, IDS has invested an enormous amount of time into building strong relationships with the following leading shipping partners:

UPS

As the world’s largest package delivery company and a global leader in supply chain and freight services, IDS appreciates how UPS is committed to being “Customer First, People Led, Innovation Driven.” With more than a century of experience in transportation and logistics, UPS is a leading global trade expert equipped with a broad portfolio of solutions. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, UPS serves more than 220 countries and territories worldwide, delivering more than 24 million packages on a daily basis.

The United States Postal Service

Although many take it for granted, it’s worth noting that the United States Postal Service delivers more mail to more addresses in a larger geographical area than any other postal service in the world. They deliver to more than 150 million homes, businesses, and PO boxes in every state, city, town, and borough in the US. Everyone living in the US and its territories has access to postal services and pays the same postage regardless of their location.

FedEx

Delivering millions of packages around the world each day, FedEx is committed to innovating, practicing inclusion, delivering more sustainable solutions, and improving all the time. FedEx provides customers and businesses worldwide with a broad portfolio of transportation, e-commerce, and business services. They offer integrated applications through operating companies competing collectively and managed collaboratively, under the respected FedEx brand.

DHL Global Mail

This is an IDS-preferred mail consolidation program. DHL Global Mail offers a low-cost, highly effective solution for both domestic and international shipments. With low-cost options to expedited options, DHL has a wide range of services to meet all your direct-to-consumer shipping needs.

With the sharp rise of online ordering and the continual expansion of eCommerce, more businesses than ever are looking for top-notch 3PL fulfillment services to ensure customer orders are processed, shipped, and delivered as fast as possible. Sounds simple, but there is a whole lot of behind-the-scenes action happening to pull that off smoothly and efficiently. Within and around the steps of picking, packing, and shipping are all the complexities of packaging, storage, product location optimization, inventory maintenance, and logistics management.

Consistent and reliable third-party fulfillment services are pivotal to any growth-oriented business, and IDS brings both a deep expertise in fulfillment and a strong commitment to excellence in a client-centric approach that’s hard to beat.

Partnering with a 3PL Fulfillment Provider is a Business Decision

From a business management perspective, the driving factors behind the decision to shift from in-house to 3PL order fulfillment are all about cost efficiencies that impact the bottom line. As your business grows, you have to decide if it makes sense to continue scaling in-house fulfillment to meet rising demand. The question you must grapple with is this: Why let things such as the costs associated with hiring more labor, building additional warehouse space, and solidifying logistics processes stand in the way of your business growth?

From the perspective of your customers, you also have to ask yourself this question: What happens when you fall behind on order fulfillment and leave customers hanging? They may never come back. As previously mentioned, smooth shipping and delivery are the final keys to the online shopping experience that lead to repeat purchases. It’s basic customer satisfaction, and it has to be a top priority. If your business can’t excel at it as you grow, then partner with a 3PL provider like IDS who can. After all, optimizing inventory management and order fulfillment are complex tasks requiring extensive experience and cutting-edge technologies. Letting IDS apply its expertise on your behalf may be the best business decision you ever make.

IDS Fulfillment: A Trusted 3PL Partner for Business Success

Whether your company needs B2C (business-to-consumer) or B2B (business-to-business) third-party logistics services for warehousing, inventory management, distribution, or order fulfillment, IDS is the partner you can trust to deliver the superior results you need so you can focus on the rest of your business. We serve a wide range of industries, including apparel, nutraceuticals, food and beverage, toys and games, health and beauty, sporting goods, and many more. IDS goes the extra mile in offering a robust selection of value-added services such as

Kitting, Pre-Kitting, and Phantom Kitting; Custom Branding and Packing Slips; Return Processing Services; Labeling and Repacking Services; QA Product Checks; Gift Messaging and Gift Wrapping; and even Embroidery.

Founded in 1960, you can rest assured IDS has the expertise that comes from more than sixty years in the industry, and we’ve kept up with all the trends and advanced technologies so you don’t have to. If it’s time for your business to reap the benefits of working with a trusted, client-centric 3PL partner, we invite you to learn more about the IDS advantage. Start the conversation now by reaching out to us through the Contact page of our website, fill out the contact form you can find by scrolling down to the bottom of any page on our website, or call us directly at 866-232-6533. We look forward to hearing from you!

Value Add Services

IDS believes in offering a complete eCommerce fulfillment solution. This is why we have a suite of fulfillment and distribution services we can offer to compliment your fulfillment.

Kitting & Packaging

Return Processing

Labeling

Embroidery

Personalized Notes

Greeting Cards

Cross Docking

Drop Shipping

HOW IDS FULFILLMENT IS DIFFERENT

IDS’ order fulfillment centers have been providing services for over 50 years. our processes, willingness to evolve, and customization make us a clear choice as a third party logistics provider. With our two distribution processing centers in Indianapolis and Salt Lake City, we are able to provide 2-day shipping to a vast majority of the United States. If you’d like to learn more about partnering with IDS Fulfillment, request a consultation today!

Distribution Centers

Two Center Strategy