Common problems during the procurement phase

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Supply phase and supply chain management are among the factors that play an important role in e-commerce companies to do their jobs effectively. Good management of the procurement process is one of the issues that should be emphasized in terms of customer satisfaction while controlling costs. However, there are some problems experienced by e-commerce companies in this process. Knowing what these problems are also allows you to work to solve them.

Quality of customer support services

Since the procurement phase is a process that is shaped according to the needs of the customers, you need to increase the quality of your customer support services. It is important that you provide consumers with detailed information about their orders, offer alternatives to solve their problems in case of a possible delivery problem, and manage the delivery process well.

There are many problems arising from poor management of the procurement process. When these problems are reflected on the consumer, customer satisfaction drops seriously and you seriously damage your brand image. For this reason, it is very important in this process that you provide the best service to your customers by increasing the quality of your customer support services in supply chain management.

Cost problems

One of the common problems related to the procurement phase is the ability to control costs. Due to the economic recession and troubles experienced today, the costs of raw materials, production, workers and similar expenses are increasing and this causes the costs to get out of control during the production or product supply process.

In the supply chain, every time you touch the product, there is an additional cost. In the procurement process, your product may go through the following stages:

Loading the product from the supplier> Delivery of the product to the warehouse> Performing the controls> Placing the product in the warehouse> Withdrawing the product from the stock after the received order> Performing the controls> Packaging> Shipping the product> Customer delivery.

Every step here costs you, which increases your expenses. It is very important to calculate and plan what improvements you will need to reduce these expenses.

Untrained or inadequate staff

One of the problems with the procurement phase is those related to personnel. Let us also point out that when we say uneducated personnel, we are not talking about education or diploma. You need to train your staff on subjects such as warehouse and stock management, order process tracking, product packaging and cargo delivery. Failure to explain the necessary processes and procedures to them will result in staff working on their own initiative. Lack of a certain system may cause disruption of the works and increase your costs.

Besides, it can be a problem that there are not enough personnel to manage your procurement process through web design company new york. A certain workforce is required to manage the warehouse and stock, to prepare orders quickly and make them ready for delivery. Setting up a certain team according to the capacity of your company and the number of daily orders is among the works you need to do in this process.

Working with too many or too few suppliers

Another problem with the procurement phase is working with too many or too few suppliers. When you work with too many suppliers, your costs may increase and product tracking becomes difficult. This means extra workload. You may be working with different suppliers for different product groups, but having too many suppliers for the same product can cause control and management issues.

When you have a small number of suppliers, you may experience problems in stock raising. When you do not have enough stock, you will not be able to sell and this will cause you a loss. It would be a better approach to work with a number of suppliers that can effectively manage your stock and provide continuous product supply.

Delays to anticipation

Especially during the pandemic period, many companies started to have problems with the procurement phase. Processes such as economic recessions, curfews and layoffs directly affected the production capacity or the supply chain. Such unexpected delays also put e-commerce companies in trouble.

In order not to meet such problems or to see the least impact from such situations, you need to create your backup plans and put into a procedure how you will provide your customer support services in case of unexpected delays and what actions you need to do to keep customer satisfaction high.