Fulfilment services

Driven by skyrocketing ecommerce sales, the world is demanding ever-faster fulfilment of goods. Yet shorter delivery times can only be supported by moving inventory closer to consumers and with competition for warehouse space at an all-time high, spreading that inventory over a large number of separate warehouses.

The result is limited or zero visibility into the movement and storage of goods.

Historically, third party logistics have been a part of a very fragmented industry, with technology developments focused on the individual warehouse, 3PL, or transport service provider.

As a result, manufacturers, retailers and other logistics services customers have reduced the number of service providers in the hope that IT integrations and semi-manual operations require limited resources and provide some visibility into the supply chain.

What Stowga is doing is designing and building an entirely new logistics infrastructure so that on-demand fulfilment can happen faster, cheaper and at the scale required by modern businesses - a network of supply chain networks. We connect manufacturers and vendors with the best available fulfilment partners.

For retailers this brings an automated distribution function not only far closer to online consumers, but also closer to stores, enabling much more efficient restocking and creating supply chain flexibility and speed that was never before possible.

Enabled by technology, traditional warehouses are now being replaced by a new wave of fulfilment centres, which layer services on top of traditional storage where incoming ecommerce orders are received, processed and filled, in some cases dispatching the goods directly to local consumers.

It’s no longer enough to be a passive provider of storage space. Warehouses must now offer quality services in parallel and we are seeing this trend take hold through a shift across supply chain verticals where 3PLs are increasingly occupying space on behalf of retailers and manufacturers that want to reach customers directly.

Building a one-stop shop for full supply chain solutions

The concept of on-demand logistics is also designed to support multichannel retailing, which streamlines and automates the end-to-end fulfilment process for orders regardless of which sales channel they come in through.

By partnering with companies like warehouse services provider Goodwill Solutions, Stowga is focusing on further building out a many-to-many offering for service providers and customers to access a marketplace of warehousing, supply chain, and logistics services.

The Stowga network and its partners provide a one-stop shop for the sourcing of complete logistics solutions, using advanced functionality to connect customers with warehouse operators, 3PLs, and service providers that meet their needs. The marketplace will go beyond simple match-making capabilities to support management of ongoing client operations and service a rich pipeline of customers seeking on-demand logistics.

The goal is to help customers achieve supply chain resilience, through:

• The ability to split and manage inventory across multiple logistics and fulfilment centres
• The ability to partnering with multiple 3PL suppliers and carriers from a single portal
• The availability of aggregated data and insights to forecast demand, optimise stock control and prioritise fulfilment

The Stowga marketplace enables organisations to search for, and connects businesses that need additional flexible warehousing services with suppliers that meet their chosen requirements.

Stowga has already digitised the entire process of searching for and booking warehousing services, so the process takes only a fraction of the time normally taken. Further development will demonstrate how the end-to-end flow of physical products can be orchestrated via the platform, with everything from control tower to performance management in a single interface.

While all the sites available on the marketplace offer a storage solution, some sites offer fulfilment and additional services such as: pallet handling, picking, packing, shipping nationally and internationally, managing returns, and custom logistics services that might be required to construct a supply chain solution.

And using the Stowga marketplace it's easy, simply search for the warehouse and logistics services you need using the filters available, and connect with warehouse operators directly to discuss the specifics of your requirements.