Fulfillment 101

I overheard a comment from a customer the other day, something along the lines of “I need to understand this fulfillment stuff.” We can take it for granted that customers know and understand how the range of services we provide can be used in their business.

What are fulfillment services?

First off, here are some definitions. If you get nothing else out of this article you’ll be able to speak the language.

• Fulfillment: services provided by a company that offers to receive, store, package, and then ship an ordered item
• Pick & Pack and Kitting: process of getting stored items and preparing them for shipping
• Mailing: sending mail and small packages directly to individual consumers or companies
• Logistics: the management of material flow from the point of origin to the point of consumption. This includes printing, warehousing, packaging, mailing and shipping.

Delivery Methods

As with everything we do, delivery options can be selected that best serve your needs. The various ways we get your product out there is:

• Direct mail  Premier’s mailing services department works directly with the US Postal Service to ensure mailings go out at the best price possible and are delivered in a timely manner.
• Small parcel carriers Our relationships with companies like FedEx and UPS help save shipping costs and ensure accurate delivery.
• Common carrier Our experienced shipping team finds the most effective way to get bulky items safely to tradeshows, retail locations, and other destinations.
• Premier’s fleet Our variety of vehicles deliver materials where and when needed in the Portland metropolitan area.
• Installations Not only can we get product where and when you need it, retail environments, wall graphics, floor graphics, banners, you name it, we come equipped to professionally install it.

Our fulfillment services meet many marketing needs.

We fulfill an unlimited range of marketing materials:

• Standard collateral printed in large volume offset runs and stored in our warehouse
  
• Product samples, from shoes to microchips
  
• Print on demand digital printed materials, from sell sheets to brochures to wide format displays, customized for an event or campaign.
  
• Tradeshow graphics, event displays, tchotchkes, and other marketing materials
  
• 1:1 personalized marketing, such as variable data direct mail

Who should consider using fulfillment services?

If any of this sounds like you or your company, you may benefit from outsourcing your marketing fulfillment:

• Instead of managing your campaigns, social media sites, and planning does your marketing department staff spend significant amounts of time with non-strategic tasks like taking sample and collateral orders from the field, boxing, and shipping. Collateral not stored or shipped properly can get damaged and become a mess.
• Does your dispersed sales and marketing reps have collateral stacked up in the garage and spare bedroom? Managing and pulling from this inventory is time-consuming, much of it eventually gets thrown out. Far too much becomes outdated and improperly used.
• Most business warehouse operations are optimized to ship product. They can struggle to maintain inventory and ship marketing collateral correctly.
• Printing costs get out of control if too much inventory is mismanaged and overstocked.

Please CONTACT US to learn more about how our specialized fulfillment services will help your business.