1. What is order fulfillment service?

Order fulfillment service is a service that helps fulfill your orders, including supplying, packing, and shipping ordered products to your end customers.

This service is now very popular with e-commerce sellers as it allows them to cut the order fulfillment step, which is very complicated, from the whole online selling process.

2. Who offers order fulfillment service?

In e-commerce, especially dropshipping, order fulfillment service often comes from a third-party company called supplier. Most dropshipping suppliers are based in China. There are also some others coming from the US or EU but most sellers pick Chinese ones because of low product prices and low service fees.

3. How does a supplier perform order fulfillment service?

Let’s say you’re a dropshipper and already have a supplier for your business, the order fulfillment service will be performed as follows:

Once an order is made on your website, the order details will be forwarded to your supplier. Then, the supplier will get the ordered products from its warehouse or source them from a product supply partner that it works with.

Next, the supplier will have the products packed (often in a carton box) and shipped to your end customer by a logistics company. A tracking number will be provided to you and your customers to track the shipping process and get notified once the shipment arrives at your customer’s place.

The service provision officially ends when your customer successfully gets what he/she orders and the supplier gets the service fee from you. However, in fact, the fee isn’t charged right after an order is successfully fulfilled. It’s often paid on a monthly or yearly basis according to an agreed-upon partnership between supplier and dropshipper.