Rising Fulfillment Demands and the Case for Outsourcing to 3PL

As e-commerce platforms like Shopee raise their standards for order fulfillment, sellers are under increased pressure to meet tighter Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Shopee’s expectations now often include working on weekends, especially Saturdays, and even Sundays, to ensure timely fulfillment. As a result, sellers may face a significant workload on Monday mornings, as they clear backlogged orders from the weekend, particularly those placed on late Saturdays and Sundays.

Impact on Sellers’ Operations

This increased demand for fast, efficient delivery requires sellers to optimize their operational processes. Here’s how Shopee’s heightened SLAs affect day-to-day fulfillment:

  1. Working on Saturdays (and Possibly Sundays): With Shopee’s expectations extending into weekends, sellers must ensure their operations don’t come to a halt on Saturday and Sunday. If fulfillment centers or logistics operations don’t run during these days, the risk of falling behind increases, potentially leading to penalties and dissatisfied customers.
  2. Backlogs on Mondays: Sellers often face a backlog on Monday mornings, as weekend orders pile up. This means that, in addition to fulfilling the usual weekday volume, sellers need to allocate additional capacity on Mondays to handle orders from late Saturday and Sunday.
  3. Stricter Deadlines and Penalties: Shopee has increased its SLA penalties, and sellers who cannot process and dispatch orders within a set timeframe face lower ratings, reduced platform visibility, or fines. This puts sellers at a crossroads: either scale internal operations to meet these tighter deadlines or explore external solutions.

The Case for Outsourcing to 3PL

To meet the increasing demands without overburdening internal teams, many sellers are turning to Third-Party Logistics (3PL) providers. Outsourcing logistics to a 3PL offers several key advantages:

  • Operational Efficiency: 3PL providers, like SNT Global Logistics, specialize in fulfillment, warehousing, and shipping, ensuring that orders are processed quickly and efficiently, even on weekends.
  • Scalability: As your business grows, fulfillment needs may change dramatically. 3PL providers can scale up operations to meet demand fluctuations without requiring sellers to invest heavily in warehousing or labor.
  • Focus on Core Business: By outsourcing logistics, sellers can focus on core business areas such as product development, marketing, and customer service, leaving the complexities of fulfillment to the experts.

Conclusion

As Shopee continues to push for higher fulfillment standards, sellers must adapt to keep pace. The strain of working weekends and handling large backlogs makes it increasingly difficult for sellers to manage logistics in-house. By partnering with a reliable 3PL provider like SNT Global Logistics, e-commerce businesses can streamline their operations, meet Shopee’s SLAs, and focus on scaling their core business without the constant stress of managing fulfillment.