Cross dock services mean many things to ecommerce businesses, product manufacturers, and order fulfillment services, but they only mean one thing to customers – speed. And that, as it happens, is one of the most vital things to get right in ecommerce. Speedy delivery is far from the preserve of the large ecommerce sites like Amazon or eBay. Rather, it is something expected by all customers, so failing to deliver it is one sure way to fall behind. Cross dock services can be one of the tools to help you achieve this.

What Are Cross Dock Services

Most broadly defined, cross dock services refer to a system of product shipping that cuts out the warehousing middleman. Whenever an order is placed with your ecommerce company, you need to ship the product to a particular address. However, before it can arrive at your customer’s door, it needs to come from the manufacturer or storage location to a transport hub close enough to the recipient’s address and, from there, out in a delivery van to the recipient.

Sometimes the product is coming straight from the manufacturer, in which case it usually goes to a warehouse for a period too. Cross dock services allow the product to spend no time at these stopping points, instead being transferred from one vehicle to another – in the vehicle dock – and then swiftly on its way along the next stage of the journey.

Naturally, cross dock services are a complicated matter and if you are selling products that come from a manufacturer, then it’s more likely you will want to make use of cross dock services.

How to Decide if Cross Dock Services are Right for Me?

As mentioned, you need to consider how your products get from A to B (to C to D to E…) before you consider cross dock services.  With cross dock services, your product will move faster, and you are bound to save money on warehousing or storage costs. Nevertheless, do bear in mind that it only works well when you have a lot of products heading out every day and which would be suffering a build-up in your storage facilities otherwise. This is why ecommerce fulfillment experts Shipping and Handling of Texas recommend that it’s not best used with much smaller ecommerce ventures, entities that usually have their products in a warehouse – or at home – until an order is placed and the shipping process can begin.

Nonetheless, even medium-sized ecommerce ventures with a high enough product turnover will benefit from cross docking. If you fit that bill, it is much advised.

Why Cross Dock Services?

So, to further help you decide if cross docking is for you, here are some situations in which it is certainly a good idea:

There Are High Fluctuations in Demand

If demand for a particular product is changing all the time (e.g., seasonal products, items sensitive to fashion, and so on) then storing them for excessive periods of time can be costly. With cross docking, you can efficiently distribute such products only when the demand is high.

For Maximum Shipping Speed

Sometimes, the very fastest delivery is required. With cross docking, you reduce the time needed to only the time it takes to actually transport the products.

You Have Multiple Suppliers

With cross docking, you can combine products coming in from multiple suppliers at the cross-dock facility, allowing you to consolidate your product locations in the quickest possible way.

Ultimately, you can think of cross dock services as one the checkpoints on the way to success – the type of checkpoint that sees you moving much faster after you’ve passed it.