Warehousing issues factor into holiday shipping struggles

Following the Holiday shipping season, there were several reports that came out about how poor business shipping of online orders can cause many issues for consumers. Companies like UPS and FedEx came under fire for failing to make deliveries before the December 25 deadline, despite advertising "guaranteed by" shopping days. The USPS, on the other hand, was praised for its stellar performance during this time.

A recent article from Bloomberg Businessweek examined the shipping struggles from the holidays and found that many retailers are falling short when it comes to their online processes.

Retail consultancy Kurt Salmon found that companies had a success rate of meeting shipping delivery dates of 80 percent when the cutoff for order was December 20. For those that allowed orders as late as December 23, missed deliveries increased to 33 percent.

One of the biggest problems, according to the study, is that 30 percent of orders shipped came from two or more locations and 10 percent come from three or more locations. This means a single order that contains multiple items is being processed in several different facilities at the same time, depending on which location has the needed inventory.

This is an expensive way to operate and ups the possibilities of a mistake happening. Stores not only need to deal with tracking inventory from multiple stores at the same time, but also single orders that are spread across warehoused and distribution centers.

This is where a third party logistics and shipping service can become a valuable resource to not only improve delivery systems, but also processing and warehousing strategies.