Online Order Fulfillment

As we're all navigating this new space of e-commerce, you may choose to ship items to people in addition to doing curbside pickup. You may be prohibited from doing curbside pickup if where you live is on full lockdown. Shipping orders may be the only solution for right now, so I wanted to share what I have learned through shipping RAI Flex orders out to Winmark stores over the past 6 months. 

Step 1: Review the incoming orders. I think it is helpful to collect all order information into one place so that you can ensure you don't miss any orders. I use the project managing tool Monday, but you can easily use a spreadsheet. This is how I set up my Monday board. 

Step 2: Then, I email to confirm the shipping address. I send a basic email just asking the customer to confirm that the shipping address I have is correct. Once they've confirmed that it is correct, I mark the order as 'confirmed' on my Monday board. 

Step 3: Collect items for the order. In my situation, this includes not only collecting the correct number of Flexes but provisioning and registering the Flexes to the correct store. In the store's case, you'll just collect the items and verify that the SKUs are the same as the ones online. I keep everything labeled with a sticky note, especially when I'm shipping several orders at once. 

Step 4: This is where you would do the check-out in DRS. I don't have an equivalent in my process. 

Step 5: I add a handwritten note thanking the customer for their order. 

Step 6: Decide which packaging you're going to use based on the size of the items you are shipping. Click here to browse the priority mail USPS packaging available.

Step 7: Pack all items up and weigh the package. I use this package scale from Amazon. 

Step 8: Create the shipping label and print. I use Shippo to create the shipping label. 

Step 9: Place label in a shipping label protector. 

Step 10: Drop off package at the post office. 

Step 11: Send email to the customer, with the tracking number, letting them know that their package has been shipped!