Before the coronavirus pandemic stalled economies across the globe, few people knew or cared much about supply chains. But as toilet paper ran low and online orders took longer than expected to arrive, the critical role of supply chains to the functioning of today's society became more apparent to everyday consumers.
Rick Nelson has been doing his part to keep supply chains up and running. As president and founder of The Fulfillment Lab in Tampa, he has helped ship e-commerce orders to customers around the world.
“We consider ourselves to be a fulfillment marketing company,” Nelson said. For Nelson, it’s not good enough to put a product in a box and ship it out to a customer. Opening the box is “the first experience a company has with its customers.” For that reason, he says, it’s important to tailor customer experience through customized packaging that boosts brand recognition and strengthens brand loyalty.
Nelson founded The Fulfillment Lab in 2012 after he and his wife opened a successful after-school center. Since then he said the company has grown through word-of-mouth. The company now has around 35 full-time employees, two domestic warehouses and 12 international warehouses, including in the United Kingdom, Panama, Australia, Hong Kong and Brazil.
Nelson recognizes his company’s key role in maintaining supply chains.
“Everybody loses everything if you’re not efficiently shipping products out,” he said. The Fulfillment Lab ships around 300,000-400,000 orders per month during the slow season, according to Nelson, and those numbers can double or even triple during holiday seasons.
The Fulfillment Lab charges around 95 cents for each individual order and adds an additional 25 cents for each piece after that. The company had a revenue of $14 million last year, according to Nelson, who projects revenue will be up by about 40% this year.
When the coronavirus first arrived, it posed a series of challenges that have since become familiar to many businesses.
“We’ve had to respect social distancing,” he said. “There were tight quarters [in our warehouses]. We’ve spread everything out now but that was a pretty daunting task. Operationally it hurt to figure that out.”
Still, the increase in e-commerce sales as a result of stay-at-home orders has had a positive impact on The Fulfillment Lab, according to Nelson.
“I love the volume but also love that we’re able to help get things delivered to the people who need them,” he said.
