Here at Shares we offer a variety of industrial and commercial services.  One very important service is contractpackaging.  We package for a variety of customers, ranging from the auto industries to consumer goods.  This service can entail anything from kitting, sorting, and assembling products then either boxing, bagging, or shrink wrapping.  Choosing a contract packager may be a tough decision for some, and a necessity for others.

The following article, courtesy of the contract Packaging Association, provides some great examples for when choosing to go with a contract packager is the right decision.

http://www.contractpackaging.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3287

Give it a read and decide if there are situations in your operations that may benefit from a contact packaging solution.

Indiana became the first state to pass a major electronics recycling law in 2009 as Governor Mitch Daniels signed HB 1589 into law Wednesday, making Indiana the nineteenth state to pass a law creating a statewide e-waste recycling program. Eighteen of these 19 states, including Indiana, have adopted “producer takeback” laws, requiring the manufacturers to pay for the collection and recycling of old products.

The Indiana law is similar to the law passed in 2007 by Minnesota, and requires manufacturers of video display devices (TVs, monitors, and laptops) to collect and recycle 60% by weight of the volume of products they sold in the previous year in Indiana. After the first two years, manufacturers who fail to meet those goals will pay an additional recycling fee for every pound they fall short of their goal.

While the goals are based on sales of video display devices, the program allows consumers, public schools and small businesses to recycle a larger group of products for free, including TVs, computers, laptops, keyboards, printers, fax machines, DVD players, and video cassette recorders. The program begins collection in April 2010.

“With the signing of HB 1589, Indiana has become a leader among states working to regulate electronic waste,” said Carey Hamilton, Executive Director of the Indiana Recycling Coalition (IRC). Hamilton went on to say, “Because of this law, more of our electronic waste will be safely recycled as opposed to land filled, incinerated or exported. We also believe that HEA 1589 will lead to the creation of new green jobs, including sorting, processing, and recycling jobs in Indiana.”

The Indiana Recycling Coalition has championed producer responsibility in Indiana as a practical and effective way to reduce electronic waste. They presented this issue to the legislature’s Environmental Quality Service Council in October 2008, and led support for the bill throughout the session.

Barbara Kyle, National Coordinator of the Electronics TakeBack Coalition, said, “We are already seeing that states which adopted strong laws that include collection goals or convenient recycling standards are getting excellent participation from consumers, who are bringing back their old products in record numbers.”

E-waste recycling laws are under consideration in several states, including Massachusetts, New York, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Colorado, Kentucky, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Utah. Hawaii, Missouri, and Texas are considering laws that would add televisions to their current laws, which only cover computer recycling.

The states which have passed e-waste recycling laws are:

2003 California
2004 Maine
2005 Maryland
2006 Washington
2007 Connecticut, Minnesota, Oregon, Texas, North Carolina
2008 New Jersey, New York City, Oklahoma, Virginia, West Virginia, Missouri, Hawaii, Rhode Island Illinois and Michigan
2009 Indiana

Earlier this week, Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) was praised for instituting the ‘highest standard’ on e-waste, banning the export of non-working electronics to developing countries

Fulfillment services are the top choice of companies in managing their businesses these days. They have become the trusted business strategy of all since they give a lot of benefits. With the help of outsourcing companies you can focus more on thinking on how to improve your business. This guarantees the satisfaction of your customers and the success of your business.

Time is an important factor when you have a business. You need to allot time to keep your business running but this is hardly feasible especially if you are doing most of the work. But there’s an easy way out for this kind of situation and that is through ecommerce fulfillment. Outsourcing your business helps you save time because instead of getting busy with the operations these companies will do you the favor of packing ordered items and shipping them to your customers. The postal process is time-consuming and you definitely do not want to waste a lot of time waiting for your products to get delivered. In relation to that, they are also in charge of handling the returns from your customers. What’s left for you to do is refund their money while they are the ones who receive and inspect the returned items and fix your inventory.

Money also plays a huge role when you have a business. As much as possible you need to save money for the purpose of improving your business. A Fulfillment company can definitely give you a hand in saving money. You no longer need to rent a much bigger working space because they have a facility that is made specially to store your items. In addition to that, you no longer need a lot of employees to take care of the shipping, returns, inventory and others because they also got this covered. You can actually save a lot when you hire an outsourcing company because they can decrease your monthly overhead instantly.

Outsourcing companies can definitely share a lot of benefits to business owners. They can reward you with more time to plan the necessary improvements of your business and money that you can use in the further development of your business. Having these kinds of benefits will surely keep your business running and you have greater chances of beating other competitors.

Courtesy of calijudy.com

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Significance of Logistics Management and Ecommerce Fulfillment

E-commerce websites can have a huge positive impact on a business’ revenue. E-commerce offers the unique opportunity of enlarging your clientele while lowering costs. This unbeatable combination requires a lot more effort than just putting up an e-commerce website. An internet site will not improve your business prospects unless supported with well-planned, and bold marketing and advertising.

The success of an e-commerce solution would depend on how effectively you attract website visitors, prevent them from leaving quickly, convert their visit into a sale, and impel them to return. These details are covered in greater detail below.

Grow website traffic

Driving traffic to your e-commerce web site is a crucial first step. A few effective strategies for pulling in more prospects to the website are:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of the website

SEO refers to the optimization of web content by including significant keywords that are most used by internet surfers on search engines and making the website search engine friendly by planning good navigation and meta tags. SEO of your e-commerce website will increase the website’s ranking in searches.

Strategic positioning internet advertisements

Internet ads can be strategically inserted in relevant websites. You can also pay to have your advertisement appear in relevant search engine results.

Cross promote with the brick-and-mortar store

Businesses that operate both a brick and mortar and an e-commerce solution can benefit by cross-promotional strategies. Customers that shop at the store should be encouraged to use the e-commerce outlet to avail discounts or to make additional purchases. By introducing them to your e-commerce website, you are also shielding your business against competing e-commerce businesses that can attract your clients.

Engage the interest of website users

When a prospect is on your e-commerce website, its design and content should hold her interest and keep her browsing the site. This can be achieved by:

Intriguing headlines

The website content should be easy to understand and succinct. Forceful captions should be used to entice shoppers into browsing through the offers and deals on the e-commerce website.

Display offers prominently

Deals and promotions should be showcased prominently on the website so that they catch a prospect’s eye immediately. Offers should include deadlines to make customers act faster.

Get prospects to buy

The main purpose of an e-commerce website is to sell products. You can funnel prospects towards a sale by:

Make persuasive offers

Discounts and combo offers can make visitors finalize purchases. Offering gifts and deals on spending a minimum amount also makes people add items to the shopping cart.

Make products easy to find

E-commerce website design should make access to products simple. Shoppers should be able to easily browse, quickly add items to the shopping cart, and pay without any trouble or delay.

Make checkout straightforward and fast

Tiresome forms and long winded checkout processes make customers ditch the shopping cart in the middle of finalizing an order. This can be avoided by rectifying the checkout process by requiring minimal information to enter and clicks to complete a purchase.

Encourage customers for repeat visits

Customers need some attraction to make a repeat purchase at your website. Following are some inducements to make it happen:

Reward points for repeat customers

Customers who purchase from the e-commerce website regularly should be rewarded with reductions and faster shipping.

Excellent fulfillment service

E-commerce websites should use the best fulfillment services. They should also offer good customer service, promptly take care of customer issues and any problems related to orders.

Our new Electronics Recycling program has been getting some press.  Here is the article.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2010/07/21/4913238.htm

Here is a link to more info about the new Indiana state law regarding electronics disposal and recycling.

http://www.ecycleclearinghouse.org/content.aspx?pageid=25

One of the best ways to make the most of your valuable working time is to use outsourcing as a way of completing some of the essential tasks of your E-Commerce business. Whether you are buying or selling office supplies, performing services, or running a clothing business, you are sure to need vendors who can fulfill your orders in a timely, professional and exceptional manner. The process of selecting an order fulfillment company is equally important to selecting managers for helping to run a company’s business. They will be the pillar of your Ecommerce business.
When your Ecommerce business has grown to a point where you are ending up spending too much time on fulfilling the customer’s orders, packing and shipping them, it is about time for one to invest in an Ecommerce order fulfillment company. Not only do they provide great help in the shipping process, they can also assist in liquidating inventory in your office space, making for more room and organization for your business. Not only will they do the packing and shipping for you, but fulfillment companies will often take care to monitor your inventory as well as keep you up to date on your Internet sales. Most Ecommerce order fulfillment companies feature top of the line services and twenty four hour guarantees. Thus when deciding to move a step forward in doing business with an Ecommerce company you may have set up successfully, one should be judicious and choose only those vendors who will best fulfill your needs for your E-commerce order fulfillment.
Since order fulfillment is a fundamental aspect of running a successful and respected Ecommerce business, you should choose a well developed and widely respected Ecommerce order fulfillment company. Start by making a list of the features that you want your fulfillment center to incorporate. Once you determine which companies will meet your business’ needs today and in the future, do research on the companies that you find. Choose a company with an exceptionally short turnover time. It should never take longer than twenty four hours, in most cases, for orders to be fulfilled. Many reputable Ecommerce order fulfillment companies will guarantee their processing times, ensuring customer satisfaction.
Always opt for a company that will allow you to store all of your merchandise on their property. For small business owners, being able to store inventory offsite means more availability and more products since there are no storage space limitations. Make sure that the fulfillment vendor you choose offers real-time tracking of your orders. Both you and the vendor should be able to view the status of the order through the Internet at all times.
When you choose the best vendor possible for your Ecommerce order fulfillment, you are creating more time to spend on the nuts and bolts of your Internet based business. You can spend your time enhancing your website, promoting your product or service or even adding valuable products to your inventory. If you choose the right one, your Ecommerce order fulfillment company will help you in more ways than you can imagine!

When your eCommerce business grows to the point where you can no longer package and ship the orders yourself, its time to begin outsourcing your order fulfillment. Although all order fulfillment centers offer the same basic services, their individual methods and costs will help you choose one over the other. When selecting an order fulfillment service, keep the following in mind:

Location

Order fulfillment warehouses are located all over the country. Its more important to select a warehouse that is close in proximity to your customers than to select one that is close to your business. For example, if your warehouse is located in California, and most of your customers are located on the East coast, your shipping rates will be higher than if you had a warehouse located in Kansas. Fulfillment centers located in the middle of the country will be able to ship to both the east and west coast for similar prices.

Size

Fulfillment warehouses range from small business with just a few employees to large companies such as UPS. Select a fulfillment service that can meet your daily order fulfillment needs. Do you have consistent orders each day or do your orders spike? If you have orders that spike, be sure to choose a fulfillment center that can handle the extra workload and still ship the orders within the agreed timeline.

Shipping Options

Most fulfillment centers offer a variety of shipping options. Make sure the fulfillment service you select offers all of the shipping options you currently offer your customers and the shipping options that you may want to offer in the future.

Turn-around Time

Each fulfillment warehouse has its own policy regarding order processing. For example some fulfillment centers will ship all orders that arrive before 1pm on the same business day. If you miss the 1pm deadline, the order is shipped the next business day. This could impact your customers if a next-day order is placed after 1pm. In this case, next day shipping turns out to be two-day shipping.

Order Entry

Order entry methods can be very important when considering a fulfillment service. The most common methods include:

• Forwarding individual order invoices to the warehouse
• Entering each order on the fulfillment centers web-based system
• Emailing an Excel spreadsheet with all order once a day

Each method has a different affect on your business. For example, you may save money by manually entering orders into a web-based application, but it can be tedious if your business grows to the point where you have more orders than you have time to enter. You may pay a higher price to automatically email each individual invoice to the warehouse, but it may be worth the extra costs to have orders may be shipped as they arrive. Same day shipping could give you the edge over your competitor. On the other hand, if you have a high volume of orders, you wont want to individually enter each order into a web-based system and may not want to pay the extra charge of having individual orders emailed to the warehouse. If you dont mind shipping the next business day, you can send an Excel spreadsheet containing all of your orders once a day. Choose a warehouse that offers an order entry method that meets your business needs and fits your budget.

Communication

Communication is an important part of every business. There will be times when you need to contact the fulfillment center to modify a customers address or cancel an order. Select a fulfillment center that is available via phone and email. You should not have to wait more than a few hours for a return email or call from the fulfillment center.

Error Rate

Mistakes will happen. Some customers will receive the wrong items or the items will be shipped to the billing address rather than the shipping address. When interviewing potential fulfillment centers, ask about their error rate and their process for remedying the situation. For example, do they issue UPS call tags to pick up the incorrect item and pay to ship a replacement item? Will they ship the replacement item at a faster rate to compensate the customer?

Costs

By Danna Henderson

Each fulfillment center operates under a different payment schedule. Some use sliding scales and require contracts while others charge per order or per item with no contracts. You will also be charged a base fee to store your inventory at the warehouse and an additional fee per pallet or per item. Be sure you have a clear understanding of the fulfillment centers costs and any contracts.

When choosing a fulfillment center, create a checklist of the features you would like. Interview a member of the warehouse staff, as well as, their references to make sure the warehouse will meet the needs of your growing eCommerce business. When you outsource order fulfillment, the time that you normally spend packaging orders, managing inventory, and dealing with returns, can now be focused on growing your business. Use this time to expand your product line, enhance your online image, promote your business or expand into new markets.

Copyright Danna Henderson

A totally new, reusable retail package design that looks like a book and acts as a permanent storage device for multi-component products portends to add value for product manufacturers and retailers, while being good for the environment because the customer hangs onto this retail packaging and reuses it indefinitely–saving it from the waste stream.

Already utilized by some early-adopting manufacturers (such as Leap Frog) and importers, this new approach to custom packaging looks to become a standard for staying competitive in an increasingly environmentally-sensitive market.

This book-style, reusable retail packaging (RRP) achieves its purpose with two sections joined by a spine and folded into a book or album-like structure. Since this outside cover is formed by transparent plastic, windows can be built into it so that the products within can be clearly displayed for easy examination by a prospective purchaser, just like traditional vacuum forming, clamshell packaging or blister packaging. Ample advertising space is available on the exterior and interior surfaces on a layer of printed matter.

This kind of contract packaging appears especially apropos to products that have multiple components that need to kept together such as compact disks, books, audiotape cassettes, digital photo disks, pen and pencil sets, etc., or products that have manuals or other literature that will be referred to at a later date. Yet, this custom packaging goes one step further in terms of convenience, as it can incorporate extra storage space for other, similarly sized items.

While the reusable retail package design can include an integral “J” hook for peg displays, it further distinguishes itself from traditional blister packaging, vacuum forming, or clamshell packaging and thermoforming by virtue of its flat surface on the bottom that allows it to stand upright for shelf displays.

Since the book is secured shut with tamper-resistant tape that can’t be removed by a prying fingernail, this custom packaging shares the security of typical blister packaging, clamshell packaging or thermoforming packaging. Except that it only takes a quick slice with a knife to open at home, and the book covers re-close to repeatedly house the contents.

This retail package design was created and patented by contract packaging innovator AVC Corp.–a vertically-integrated custom packaging company housed under one roof in Torrance, California. As such, AVC is able to provide all design and pre-press functions as well as tooling, vacuum forming, thermoforming, media replication (such as CDs) and printing for this contract packaging design and others.

“The book-style has a high level of sophistication and a ‘freshness’ about it,” explains Vos Peter Vos, 00004000 principal partner of Forrester & Vos, a Long Beach, California-based supplier of reading glasses. “It is reusable in a way that you can store the glasses. There is also more print room for writing about the reasons why you might need our glasses. The retail package stands up by itself. And everybody understands that it works like a book. We’re now shipping our glasses to all the Sam’s Clubs as a new product. The fact that this custom packaging is environmentally-friendly helps gives us a marketing edge.”