Solving the Three Toughest Challenges in E-commerce Fulfillment – DHL Supply Chain North America

E-commerce is continuing to create opportunity for a range of businesses, but supply chain challenges can limit growth and compromise customer relationships.

There’s good news and bad news on the e-commerce front. The good news is that e-commerce is providing continued growth across a wide range of businesses, from retailers to manufacturers to distributors.

Three Supply Chain Challenges Limiting
E-commerce Growth

The bad news is that significant supply chain challenges will prevent some organizations from capitalizing on this opportunity. These include:

    • Managing Capacity. The steady upward trajectory of e-commerce is putting a strain on existing resources and forcing companies to consider significant new investments in the face of an uncertain future. At the same time, demand on a week-to-week basis can be volatile, stretching scarce human resources to the breaking point and reducing customer service. E-commerce fulfillment must be able to both flex with short-term fluctuations and scale with sustained growth. Few supply chains can meet those dual requirements.


  • Meeting Customer Expectations. Today’s e-commerce customers have higher expectations than those of even a few years ago and those expectations will only increase in the future. Two-day delivery will almost certainly be compressed to next-day or same-day delivery. Organizations struggling to meet today’s requirements risk being left behind by competitors who are able to consistently meet these changing expectations.
  • Minimizing Complexity. Inventory management, order processing and shipping all get more complex when e-commerce is introduced. In addition, integrating e-commerce fulfillment into traditional distribution operations to provide multi-channel distribution further adds to the complexity in support of omni-channel retail sales. Dealing with complexity can distract businesses from focusing on serving customers and achieving long-term objectives.

Three Challenges, One Solution

Many organizations lack the combined experience, expertise and resources to efficiently manage the speed, volatility and complexity of e-commerce fulfillment. One organization that can is DHL Supply Chain.

With e-commerce experience stretching back to 2005, combined with an organizational commitment to operational excellence, DHL Supply Chain can provide flexible capacity through dedicated or shared-use networks designed to reduce costs and support fast delivery. Our optimization processes and smart use of emerging technologies simplifies e-commerce management, reduces order cycle times and shortens the time order clicks can be fulfilled for targeted delivery expectations. Finally, we’re making the investments today in both the facilities and emerging technologies to meet the customer expectations of tomorrow.

The challenge of enabling e-commerce fulfillment capacity efficiently can seem overwhelming, but it is very achievable with a focused solution. For more information on DHL e-commerce fulfillment services, visit dhl.lookbookhq.com/ao_sector_retail.