In today’s economy, the corporate version of keeping up with the Joneses (aka, the e-commerce giants) involves matching their order fulfillment speed. While your own company doesn’t have the infrastructure and resources they do, every bit of added efficiency makes a difference and improves the customer experience. Read these pointers on how to quicken your fulfillment process to realize these gains.

Think Through Your Warehouse/Storage

First, look around wherever you store your product. This could be your small strip mall store or a large warehouse. Assess whether it’s large enough to allow for plenty of inventory and easily navigable. If you constantly have to make additional orders to keep up with what you’re putting out, your space may not be big enough for you. Look into outside storage or, if you already have a location, investigate the benefits of expanding.

Some facilities are plenty big but need fulfillment-oriented organization. You should have a flow to your layout that doesn’t require too much back-and-forth. For instance, it’s wise to place items together that people buy together to make the picking process easier. Changes like these help your delivery people set out quicker.

Explore Pre-Assembly

To further quicken your fulfillment process, pre-assemble items that come in a package. Devices are a good example here—rather than gathering cables, add-ons, the device, and more upon request, you can preempt this task before an order comes in. If you offer a bundle deal, feel free to pre-pack those as well. Every kit you complete translates to fulfillment time saved.

Smarten Up Your Shipping

Our final tip is to address the final fulfillment step: shipping. There are plenty of ways to improve your shipping strategy, but embracing technology is a high-reward one nowadays.

Apart from incorporating Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to streamline record and document sharing, consider smartening up your shipping routes. You can do so by allowing an automated system to plan your drivers’ routes, quickening deliveries and saving you planning time.