Our order fulfilment centre
BTB Mailflight's 63,000 sq ft order fulfilment centre processes thousands of orders a day. For many clients we undertake daily order fulfilment services i.e. ecommerce fulfilment, and brochure request fulfilment, whereas others work with us on a campaign basis and we can gear up our order fulfilment centre for peaks and troughs in demand.
Request our Order Fulfilment Pricing Calculator (Microsoft Exel file) so you can estimate the cost of outsourcing to BTB Mailflight.
Our order fulfilment clients range from Christian Aid where we fulfil hundreds of thousands of items during a two month campaign, to young ecommerce businesses for which we provide fulfilment of around 500 orders a month.
Our order fulfilment solution is truly flexible and scalable, we will commit to a Service Level Agreement (SLA) and provide online reports.
Our inhouse software developers can work with you to integrate your website and other data sources with our system to automate the order fulfilment process, and our system is linked to many postal and courier carrier systems so we can provide low mail order distribution prices.
Postage savings
Our overall fulfilment solution is often the cheapest because of our low cost postal and courier rates to UK and international addresses. This includes:
- A 2 day service that can be up to 10% cheaper than Royal Mail's 2nd Class Post!*
- A 2 to 3 day tracked parcel service from £2.27!*
- International packet services that can be 50% cheaper than Royal Mail!*
Sending us your customer orders
We can receive your orders in several ways:
- Website integration (real time and scheduled acquisition).
- Data file downloads.
- Via email, postal, and telephone contact at our Contact Centre.
When receiving data feeds we will agree data formats and layouts in advance and test the system thoroughly before we go live.
Find out more >>
Receiving your products
We take in deliveries from your suppliers, check them, and allocate the stock to your storage and picking areas in our warehouse. We will update the stock management system and of course report any discrepancies to you so you can liaise with your suppliers
Stock management
We can offer bulk storage, paletised and racked storage, and pigeon hole type picking faces as well as extra-secure storage and fulfilment areas. We operate strict stock management procedures and transparent inventory reporting.
Pick and pack
Stock can be called off for single orders, small consignments, or bulk shipments. The pick and pack processes are covered by our ISO90001:2008 quality system so procedures are in place to ensure accurate picking, and audit trails are available. Examples of items we store and pick and pack include:
- Medical equipment, clothing, toys...
- Merchandise, food supplements, information packs...
- Consumer electronics, welcome packs, brochures...
- Baby products, instruction manuals, DVDs...
- Directories, CDs, guides...
- Perfume, cosmetics, university prospectus...
- Homeware, reports, toiletries...
- Books, gardenware...
- Point of sale material...
- Product samples...
Order distribution: UK and worldwide
We are able to offer a range of postal services and packet and parcel services including signed-for and trackable options.
Our mail order distribution prices are often what makes our overall mail order fulfilment solution the most cost effective, as postage is typically one of the most costly parts of running a mail order business. Find out more >>
Returns handling
Any returned despatches will be processed with care to identify the reason for return and the best resolution based on your returns procedure.
Order paperwork
We can generate all relevant paperwork to go out with the order fulfilment such as personalised letters, despatch notes, receipts and invoices and these can be picked and packed along with the order. This paperwork can be branded and designed to meet your requirements.
Packaging procurement and print management
As well as packaging materials such as polybags, envelopes, boxes, bubblewrap etc that are essential for order fulfilment, we can also source printed material including letterheads, order forms, invoices, leaflets, labels, brochures, cards etc. Find out more >>
Order tracking and reporting
We utilise Microsoft's SQL Server Reporting Services for providing and maintaining flexible reports for our order fulfilment clients. These reports can be made available online so you can login securely and view important information such as:
- Stock reports
- Fulfilment reports
- Goods received reports
- Consumables used reports
- Tracking numbers for courier deliveries
- Returns reports
Find out more about reports >>
Order fulfilment & database management system: ColdFusion & SQL
We have developed our order fulfilment systems so that whether you want to simply provide us with a data feed, or send us a data file, or you want to integrate your website with our system in real time we can work with you. (Read more about our order acquisition processes).
The order fulfilment system is fundamental to accurate stock management and picking and packing, and we have developed the order fulfilment system so that it includes a complete audit trial, so on the rare occasions there is a picking error the source of the problem can be identified, which is key to resolving customers issues, and ensuring the same mistake doesn't happen again.
The order fulfilment system provides all the reporting a client could need including stock reports, fulfilment reports, despatch reports and consumables reports. This information is at the fingertips of our Account Executives so they can answer your queries quickly. The system can also be made available online so that you can access your own information.
The development software used is ColdFusion from Adobe which allows us to develop robust, flexible, scalable, and user friendly systems that are supported by one of the world’s software giants.
We use the SQL Server 2008 relational database with SQL Server Integrated Services for automating Order Acquisition from 3rd Party clients or directly from their websites, and SQL Server Reporting Services for providing and maintaining flexible reports for clients and in-house usage.
We can develop simple systems, or sophisticated bespoke systems that provide cutting edge capabilities, it depends what you need.
Security and insurance
Our order fulfilment centre is fully insured and we are required by our insurers to maintain a strict security policy. To do this we have taken a number of measures:
- Security cameras are installed throughout the order fulfillment centre.
- All external doors are alarmed and there are only two entrances/exits into the order fulfilment centre.
- The internal doors between the back and front of the warehouse are permanently closed.
- Temporary workers are given different coloured jerkins for easy identification and are required to keep to the packing areas only and not to work in the picking aisles.
- We utilise log-in security doors with the ability to audit user activity.
- Staff working at our order fulfilment centre are briefed on our security policy and must sign up to it.
For further details please do not hesitate to contact us.
Order fulfilment pricing calculator
We have produced a DIY pricing calculator using Microsoft Excel, this lists our order fulfilment services and prices so you can input your own volumes i.e. order volumes, number of pallets in stock etc and the tool will calculate the estimated monthly totals and an average price per order fulfilled by us. All pricing is itemised and in addition to storage and pick and pack prices we can also provide prices for postage, courier, and packaging materials.
We will input some starting values based on our conversation with you, but then you can change these so you can see what effect a peak or drop in demand would have.
To request our order fulfilment pricing calculator please email info@btbmf.co.uk or call us on 01234 84 84 15.
*Postage prices and potential savings are dependant upon quantities, dimensions, and weights, but substantial savings can be made.