How Small Firms Can Take Orders, Find ‘Fulfillment’

So you want to jump into e-commerce business? Before you get too cyber-happy, consider the basics: Whether your orders come via Internet, telephone, fax or old-fashioned snail mail, you need to come up with products that people want, and you need to let people know they exist.

And then you have to be ready to answer the phone when they’re ready to order and have someone who can pick your product off the shelf, pack it and ship it to the customer. And don’t forget those small details of invoicing, credit card verification and inventory control.

You could do it yourself, but if you expect a lot of orders or calls to come in day and night, you might consider arranging for someone else to take on those tasks. Fortunately, there are fulfillment houses and telemarketing companies that specialize in helping small businesses take orders and ship products.

One of several I found on the Internet by searching the keyword “fulfillment house” is Fulfillment Express (https://www.fex.com; [800] 700-9295). The Pico Rivera company handles merchandise for large and small companies, says President Dieter Ammann.

For a fee starting at about $2 a shipment, the company will warehouse your merchandise and, when an order comes in, pack and ship it to your customer. Most of the merchandise processed by Fulfillment Express is never actually touched by the business that is selling it, Ammann says. Instead, it is shipped directly from the manufacturer to Fulfillment Express’ 40,000-square-foot warehouse, where it is kept until it’s shipped to customers.

Like other large fulfillment centers, the company offers a variety of services ranging from the basics to some pretty sophisticated computer-based order processing.

“We do everything from receiving orders on the Internet to hosting our client’s Web pages,” Ammann says. The company has its own team of in-house Web designers and provides complete e-commerce solutions for its customers. But it also will work with companies that already have e-commerce Web sites or with those who prefer to send in orders via fax or telephone.

Fulfillment Express also will process credit card orders so its clients don’t have to check the validity of their customers’ credit cards, but they do not offer credit card authorization services. Ammann insists that his customers set up their own merchant credit card accounts because he doesn’t want to be responsible for charge-backs if a customer returns an item or disputes a bill or other potential credit issues.

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Of course, you can’t ship a product until you get the order. Even if you take orders from your Web site, it still makes sense to have a toll-free number that people can call. Some customers are uncomfortable disclosing their credit card number via the Internet and others just feel more secure talking to a live person or at least knowing that the merchant has a telephone number to call.

Contracting with a call center makes sense if you anticipate lots of calls or if you want to have your phones covered 24 hours a day. There are call centers all over the United States, including some very large operations in the Midwest, but surprisingly there’s also a 30-person call center on Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills. Tel-Us Call Center (https://www.tel-us.com; [310] 552-6000) is a full-featured telemarketing company that will answer the phone, validate credit cards, accept orders, provide you with reports based on data collected on your behalf and transmit any orders to a fulfillment house. The company also will allow you to use its fax number for incoming orders or give out its Beverly Hills address as if it were your own. The only drawback is that the ZIP Code is 90212, instead of the famous 90210.

Tel-Us is willing to work with any size customer, including start-ups, says company President Stacy Polinsky. Upfront fees range from $300 to $2,000 and business customers typically pay a minimum of about $1.50 per call, though it can be higher for longer calls. Polinsky’s staff is trained to answer basic questions about the products they take calls for but refer more complicated calls back to the merchant’s customer service department.

In addition to the cost of the call center, don’t forget to budget plenty of money to promote your product.

“Businesses need a decent amount of capital to advertise their products,” Polinsky says. “When advertisements contain details about the products--including the price--customers are less likely to have questions and more likely to buy.”

Ammann agrees: “If all you know about a product is from a short TV commercial or small ad, you’re likely to have lots of questions.” Ammann recommends that you use a Web site to provide details about your products. Customers who know a lot about a product are not only more likely to buy, says Ammann, but are also much less likely to return the product.

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Another way to cut back on returns is to be sure the product is shipped promptly. If the product comes too late, he says, “people sometimes forget that they ordered it or may have bought another one while they were waiting.”

With telemarketing companies to answer your phone and fulfillment houses to fill your orders, you might wonder if you have to do anything to make your business work. You don’t get off that easy. Both Ammann and Polinsky stress the importance of picking good products, doing customer research, maintaining good customer service and advertising.

“You have to have a plan in place,” says Ammann, “and you have to have some idea of where your business is going to come from.”

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Technology reports by Lawrence J. Magid can be heard at 1:48 p.m. weekdays on KNX (1070). He can be reached at larry.magid@latimes.com. His Web site is at https://www.larrys

world.com. On AOL, use keyword “LarryMagid.”