Fulfilment Centres

Put simply, fulfilment centres handle every stage of the delivery process for online orders. They receive and store stock from retailers, then arrange the incoming orders on the sellers’ behalf, by picking, packing and shipping products. Their aim is to complete shipments as quickly and efficiently as possible, awarding the retailers themselves some peace of mind

Different fulfilment centres have a variety of services, but usually all centres will handle storing, packing, labelling and posting. Some also allow for custom packaging. The main benefit of employing a fulfilment centre is that it deals with all of the logistical tasks for shipping orders to customers at every stage. At Gonini, this is done through an intricate AI-led system that automatises our processes to ensure effective and speedy delivery.

You can think of a distribution centre as a large-scale fulfilment centre. However, the latter focuses on delivering goods quickly to customers, while a distribution centre has the capability of disseminating items in bulk, which is usually appropriate for larger businesses that are trying to dispense their products to retailers. Normally, a distribution house will hand over items to a fulfilment centre to deliver to individuals –– so the two services complement each other.

While both fulfilment centres and warehouses are large buildings that store goods for retailers, their purpose is quite different. A warehouse exists to keep a considerable quantity of products for extended periods of time. Contrastingly, a fulfilment centre does stockpile inventory, but its purpose is to efficiently distribute it to customers.