The market is flooded with volume as demand continues to increase month over month at unprecedented growth rates for D2C, B2B, and B2C players. Retailers striving to become the clear choice brand for consumers are primarily putting pressure on logistics suppliers to deliver services like cost efficiency, choice, flexibility, speed, and customer satisfaction.
Cross-channel retail choices and a smooth customer experience are now expected, regardless of when or where consumers purchase. Shippers may benefit from the 3PL experience by lowering costs, administering complicated processes, and using cutting-edge logistics solutions. In the last ten years, e-commerce fulfilment solutions have grown in sophistication and scope. Nevertheless, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of what e-commerce may mean for the future.
Meanwhile, estimates indicate that e-commerce is the fastest expanding 3PL market segment. It is reported that the 2019 international 3PL market accounted for $1,027.71 billion. Likewise, the market is expected to grow to $1,789.94 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 7.1 percent from 2020 to 2027, as online purchases increased dramatically during the COVID-19 outbreak. Furthermore, e-commerce-based reverse logistics is expected to increase at a frequency of more than 20 percent annually.
Market Drivers
E-commerce fulfilment businesses are being driven by a variety of variables. The worldwide pandemic spread has functioned as a stimulant in propelling pure-play e-commerce enterprises, thrusting the sector they cover further by approximately five to seven years. COVID-19 behaved like a catapult shot, propelling an already expanding market channel of D2C, B2B, and B2C e-commerce to record rates of success and growth.
This rising demand arrived virtually overnight on the doorsteps of different fulfilment centres, resulting in a spectacular ascent for those suppliers that are designed to expand, and a suffocating bottleneck for players who fail to achieve these feats.
Value Propositions
Nowadays, digital fulfilment technologies like personalised analytics, integrated distributed order management, and end-to-end supply chain visibility provide a marketplace for retailers and manufacturers to share data and information to effectively manage and position their inventory.
Major fulfilment providers are actively personalising services to a broader customer segment, which are often classified as marketplaces, retailers, and brands. Nowadays, hybridised fulfilment concepts go beyond BORIS and BOPIS, with emerging models such as stores and ‘dark stores,’ that operate as mini fulfilment centres and stores, or indeed stores that just serve as showrooms.
The required services might differ tremendously. Platforms that can unify supply chain data and resources are the most potent platforms of the future.
Indeed, the major fulfilment companies run internationally distributed network systems, completing transactions anywhere, anytime, using any device. The ‘omnichannel’ strategy seems to be quite prevalent, with transactions from every retail channel being completed through an exclusive logistics system that administers all channels that are operated by a retailer. Such setup is often designed to be scalable, allowing the fulfilment provider to assist retailers in different ways, such as inventory management, last-mile carrier management, and new market entry, as well as, services like integrated customs, duty, and tax management, and, in certain cases, payment processing.
Vareya BV works with clients who manage e-commerce platforms on a global, regional, and national scale. Because of our platform-agnostic, customer-centric technological approach, we can either create solutions ourselves or combine external systems to provide superior value and unrivalled customer experience. Vareya BV provides services to customers who are unfamiliar with online sales, clients who are growing into new geographies, and customers who are trying to scale forwards or backwards seasonal variations.
Technology
Today, almost all of the developments in fulfilment and distribution are being driven by scalable automation technology. Indeed, automation can substitute labour, and it can also be extensible, hence expanding the overall market potential.
Although 3PL fulfilment choices abound in the United States, only a few critical speciality firms have the means to ramp up. And all must deal with labour issues, including not just shortage of labour, but also the concentrated labour requirements in the retail and wholesale distribution vs e-commerce fulfilment.
Orders must be handpicked as soon as they are received, rendering selecting technologies, processes, and procedures even more critical to fulfilling shorter deadlines. In certain instances, inventory planning and inventory receiving are much more fundamental. Furthermore, customers demand accurate information on the order status, delays, and progress.
This transparency requires accurate information and data about the shipping and fulfilment processes, which must be communicated on a real-time basis. Managing supplier exceptions, shipments, and orders is considerably more difficult on the import side. Better information, better technology, and greater data-based integrations with all stakeholders who execute segments of the supply chain enable this.
Better information, better technology, and greater data-based integrations with all stakeholders who execute segments of the supply chain enable this. The last-mile delivery can also be expensive, accounting for around 40% to 50% of total delivery expenses. As a result, 3PLs must invest in new fulfilment centres, technology, warehouses, technology, and fulfilment centres.
For instance, Vareya BV is investing in warehouse automation tech, new e-commerce fulfilment centres across the world, and staff wearables. Similarly, the company lays greater emphasis on last-mile and cross-border e-commerce delivery, as well as, the ongoing development of operational and IT systems.
Vareya BV’s worldwide integration strategy to link and automate client supply chains recognised e-commerce shipping and logistics as a business capability that needed to be strengthened. Customers have witnessed rapid development in their e-commerce networks and have requested assistance with their D2C/ B2B/ B2C supply chains.
Forward directions
E-commerce will keep evolving in terms of volume, demand, scale, as well as, the types of technologies, innovations, and services. The reasons for this are as follows: The reasons for this are as follows:
- new e-commerce competitors;
- constantly changing consumer needs, behaviours and preferences;
- new and emerging marketplaces supporting exponential growth of e-Commerce;
Cheaper delivery technologies, greener initiatives, lesser carbon footprint, efficient shipping options and better service levels will be prioritised in the last-mile arena. As a result, same-day shipping will drive the greater expansion of warehouse sites, locations, and networks. Rising peak factors and labour shortages need further warehouse mechanisation. Another aspect will be the increased availability of true omnichannel capabilities for firms seeking better flexibility and integration.
The inclusion of a visibility framework is critical in allowing e-commerce fulfilment services to become a little more responsive and flexible. Visibility will be critical in letting inventory levels be limited while meeting consumers’ needs for ‘immediate’ fulfilment.
Vareya BV believes that, parallel to large multi-faceted fulfilment solutions, logistics providers should offer more turn-key resolutions that fit the demands of SMBs.
To close, Vareya BV anticipates supplier and inbound networks growing and becoming much more globalised with increased linkages across marketplaces, resulting in more cross-border fulfilment dispatches to facilitate the online customer experience. Cross-border fulfilment will transform the globe into a broader world market in which currency, borders, and language will no longer be roadblocks to obtaining specific things from a different country.
Demand for air freight capacity is still being driven by cross-border fulfilment. Vareya BV Logistics provides a feature of owned, managed air, sea, and land freight capacity with fixed pricing. Admittedly, the skies are the real limit to e-commerce fulfilment, and Vareya BV flies above it.
