The Benefits of Kitting in Order Fulfilment

Online sellers are always looking for new ways to improve speed and cut costs. An option that is available to reduce costs in order fulfilment is called kitting. Kitting is the jargon used in the fulfilment industry for the assembly of individual products into ready-to-ship packages, or kits.

In the manufacturing procedure, kitting is another way of saying assembly and it can mean to group unfinished materials together in order to create a finished product or assembling two or more finished products into a bigger group.

Is Kiting Your Best Option?

There are a variety of items that can be kitted, including media kits, product samples and new product launches. Kitting should be used when you are commonly fulfilling orders with multiple items that are identical. For example, an ideal project for kitting is when you have 3 individual items that will often be grouped together.

Your fulfilment provider would assemble a kit that includes all three videos and it would have a unique SKU number to tell it apart from the individual videos. It would also be stocked and tracked as a single unit.

Top Three Benefits of Kitting

There benefits of kiting include speedier assembly, reduced shipping errors and superior packaging. These benefits often translate into cost savings for merchants:

Speedier Assembly. When kitting is done in bulk, versus each time an order comes in, it becomes more of a streamlined operation. This translates to products that can be kitted more quickly. This will save you money because your pick/pack costs will be reduced because each kit will be counted as one SKU, as opposed to paying for pick/pack of each single item.

Reduced Shipping Errors. Shipping items in kit form reduces the chance for error with order fulfilment and it allows your fulfilment house to pre-print shipping labels, eliminating the need to weigh and label individual items.

Superior Packaging. Kitting can offer postal savings due to more efficient and cost-effective packaging. Developing a custom box for popular kits can reduce the size and weight of your packages as opposed to packing individual items into a standard-sized box.

Kitting Options through Manufacturers

As an ecommerce seller, you may have more than one option when it comes to kitting. It is often possible for ecommerce sellers to work in tandem with their manufacturers to kit products, prior to those items being shipped to you or your fulfilment company.

When making a final decision on kitting, it can be a good idea to talk with your manufacturers and your fulfilment company. Depending on your order history and any new or promotional products you plan to offer, kitting is a great option to help your reduce costs.