Online shopping revolves around placing an order, processing the payments, and waiting for it to be delivered. Though it’s seem easy peasy to place an order from your end, it’s not that much easy for the other end to cover all the stages between an order fulfillment and shipping process.
This is because after you have placed an order, the company adds it to their awaiting processing and shipping list. From there onwards, your order goes through various stages of shipping.
One such stage is the ‘Awaiting fulfillment.’ So, if you are someone who placed an order recently and your order status is now showing this term, then we are sure you must be interested to know what it is and what it says about your placed order. Hop on below to learn about it.
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Part 1. What Does Awaiting Fulfillment Mean?
‘Awaiting fulfillment’ refers to the order stage where your placed order is under processing before it is shipped off to the intended recipient. Then, your order, like every other item at the facility, would be packed into its desired box to be shipped off.
The completion of this entire awaiting fulfillment process will depend majorly on what your order size is and how effective the logistic company processing your order is at work. When the awaiting fulfillment process is completed, users will receive a confirmation email, and their order status will then eventually upgrade to the next stage, which will be ‘awaiting shipment.’
Part 2. How Long Does Awaiting Fulfillment Take?
The next question we are sure must be looming through your head as someone who doesn’t work in the e-commerce industry is how long does this particular awaiting fulfillment process take? Well, the simple answer to this is 48 to 72 hours or two to three days.
When your awaiting fulfillment process is over, users will receive an email that their order fulfillment process is complete and their order has been shipped off. Along with this, they will also receive a tracking link, which will help them track the position of their order.
Part 3. Order Status Explanation
The awaiting fulfillment process is not the only stage that your order will go through. In fact, there are many other different statuses that an order passes through before it makes its way to your doorstep. Want to gain an insight on all these order statuses? We have a step-by-step guide on each of the significant statuses below:
· Submitted for Fulfillment
When a customer has completed placing their order and processed it through their payments, their order status enters the ‘submitting for fulfillment’ stage. In this particular stage, your order is in line to be entered into the system in use by your chosen online retailer’s fulfillment company.
Though it has not been wholly accepted; the submitted fulfillment is a significant stage that has been completed from the customer’s end. However, the online retailer has yet to approve the acceptance and delivery of the order.
· Pending Fulfillment
Also known as the order awaiting fulfillment, the pending fulfillment refers to the stage where the company has received and accepted your placed order for fulfillment. However, the order is still in the queue for fulfillment. What does this mean?
Well, in a company, the orders are lined up in a queue based on their size and placement dates and then are picked and packed. Hence, during the pending fulfillment, your order has been accepted, but its picking and packing process has not yet been completed.
· Shipped
The ‘shipped’ status is probably every customer’s favorite notification. This stage of order means that your order has been shipped from the online retailer’s harbor and sent off to the capable hands of a courier company and, hence, will soon be delivered to you.
During this stage, users will also receive a confirmation email that their order is on its way, along with tracking information or a link, which will help you follow up with your order. At the same time, it is on its way to your doorstep in order to ensure that you do not miss it when the courier company comes to deliver it.
· Delivered
The delivered status is self-explanatory, and it means that an individual has received their order, or it is waiting for them outside their place of residence. However, at times, the courier service may press the ‘delivered’ button a little too early, and you may not receive your order. In such cases, you do not have to worry, as you will receive the order in a few hours.
If the delivered status has been showing for a day or two, and you still have not received your order, it is a good idea to check it up with the carrier or business through which you placed your order. This is because, at times, orders can be mistakenly delivered to the wrong address, and hence, you should always check back on it.
Part 4. Awaiting Fulfillment vs. Pending Fulfillment vs. Awaiting Shipment
When reading up online, many users might get confused between the two terms ‘awaiting fulfillment’ and ‘pending fulfillment.’ If you are someone in the same boat and want to understand what the difference between these, then hear us out.
‘Awaiting fulfillment’ and ‘pending fulfillment’ both do not have any difference between them as both refer to the same status. During this status, an individual’s order has been accepted by the online retailer business but has not yet been packed or processed to be shipped off. At this stage, it just lies alongside the long queue of orders that must be packed and shipped off.
The term ‘awaiting fulfillment’, on the other hand, is a different status or stage from both terms. This status means that the order is ready to be shipped by the business retailer. However, the designated carrier company has not picked it up yet, or the retailer has not yet dropped off the packed order to the courier it is supposed to go to.
Part 5. How to Improve Your Order Fulfillment Process?
Are you an online business retailer that is trying to improve their overall order fulfillment process but wants to know the best ways through which you can do this? We have a few great ideas listed for you below:
NextSmartShip
The best way for any online retailer to improve their order fulfillment process is by trusting NextSmartShip with their fulfillment. Why so? Well, this is because NextSmartShip offers all its clients a simple, fast, and affordable way to make their e-commerce fulfillment easier through the means of its best technology and its incredible and passionate team.
Get Custom Solutions
So, while you focus on growing your business, NextSmartShip will handle all the heavy lifting and packing for you.
Automatic Warehouse
Many businesses, despite knowing that their work ethic does have inefficiencies, do not adapt to new means of working. We understand that drastic changes in any workforce can be daunting; however, automating your warehouses is the best decision that you can make for your business to improve the order fulfillment process.
By automation, we certainly do not mean that your workers will see robots running around the warehouse by next week. Still, this term refers to the elimination of all those time-consuming manual steps that are prone to cause human errors.
Conclusion
Are you someone who came across the term ‘awaiting fulfillment‘ when they hopped over to check their order status and had no clue what it was? Well, then, we hope this article was helpful for you to understand it in detail. If you are an online retailing business company that wants to improve its order fulfillment process, then we suggest you look into NextSmartShip and its exceptional services.
