Ready-made instructions for processing orders and shipping. What to do if the processing time for an aliexpress order is running out. Typical situations requiring flexibility

For companies providing services around the clock, special meaning has timely processing of requests from the website from clients. Online business makes it possible to order goods or services through a website at any time of the day.

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However, organizations cannot always process orders from the website online. It is necessary to hire a separate employee, and not even just one, who would monitor incoming orders. Requests that are not processed in a timely manner threaten the loss of customers and a decrease in sales, especially in a competitive market.

Why clients choose us

For each project, a project manager is allocated, who is the link between the contact center and the customer. The project manager studies the specifics of the Customer’s business and draws up a script for communication between the contact center operator and the Customer’s clients. This is necessary to ensure that each message is processed efficiently.

Contact center operators will process requests from your website online, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year! The customer will be provided with statistics on the number of messages processed. All dialogues are saved, and, if necessary, you can view and analyze them.

You receive the following benefits:

transferring the work of processing applications from the website to outsourcing reduces the burden on staff;
there is no need to specifically select employees;
force majeure circumstances are excluded - contact center operators are always in touch with customers;
increase in sales volume;
increasing the customer base.

We offer:

a team of highly qualified specialists who short term master the features of your project;
integration of the contact center with the Customer’s systems;
optimal prices.

High-quality and timely processing of applications from the website is the key to the success of any business!

How is the cost of the service calculated?

The price of the service depends on:

message reception times: 24 hours a day, only during the day, only during after hours(weekends, holidays);
number of completed orders;
number of channels through which employees receive messages ( social media, chats, applications Viber, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc.);
the need to integrate the customer’s CRM system with contact center software, set up remote access or other services.

Magazine "Warehouse Complex", No. 8, 2007 // August, 2007

Many warehouse performance indicators are associated with the picking process, commercial department, the customer service process as a whole. The quality of order fulfillment creates a certain image of the company in the market and provides it with one or another level of competitiveness.

The warehouse operation in the process of fulfilling orders costs greatest number resources. Therefore, the more accurately resource planning occurs, the faster and better the warehouse does its job of picking customer orders.

In the process of fulfilling customer orders, there are several stages in which optimization is possible. But before considering optimization methods, let’s look at the stages of the order fulfillment process itself.

As a rule, customer orders are received and processed by employees of the commercial department, passing them on to the warehouse, where the orders are transformed into a task for selecting goods and preparing the order for shipment. In the process of registering an order, the customer service manager uses information about the balance of goods in the warehouse, product range, batches, series, and expiration dates.

After registering a customer's order in the Corporate Information System (CIS), the order arrives at the warehouse automated control system. The warehouse operator creates a task for selecting goods and transfers the task to the pickers.

The goods are selected and transferred to the control and packaging area. The order is then completed and ready to ship to customers and placed in the shipping area.

According to the experience of implementing AXELOT projects, there are 4 main areas of optimization of the process under consideration (Fig. 1):

1. Order acceptance and processing stage

2. Exchange of information between the warehouse and the sales department

3. Planning the selection operation and issuing tasks to pickers

4. Transfer of the selected order to the control zone. Checking and packaging of goods

Rice. 1. Problem areas during the order picking process

Receiving and processing customer orders

There are three factors that can affect the stability of the warehouse at the stage of placing an order by the client: the urgency of orders, the unevenness of the receipt of orders and the placement of additional orders by one client on the same shipment date.

Many people are familiar with the situation when the bulk of orders arrive in the evening, and goods are expected to be shipped in the morning. However, urgent orders may arrive in the morning and must be selected and packaged before the morning shipment begins. This problem is primarily relevant for distribution centers(suppliers of retail stores), as well as for warehouses finished products food production. For a warehouse, this dynamic results in emergency work and the need to organize a night shift.

Often Retail Stores place multiple orders throughout the day depending on changes in current demand for goods. This, in turn, increases the time it takes for operators to process orders, as well as the total time it takes to complete orders in the warehouse. Few companies go to the extent of establishing a clear schedule for placing orders, and the problem of uneven receipt of orders is usually solved by organizing a second shift (in the afternoon or night).

The placement of rush orders or multiple additional orders can be reduced by developing a special pricing policy. For example, do not provide discounts for additional and urgent orders or introduce a surcharge factor. However, this method does not completely eliminate the problem of additional orders. Therefore, before orders are transferred to the warehouse for picking, it is recommended to further process them in order to combine orders to one delivery address (Fig. 2).

Until orders are transferred as tasks for goods selection, they are accumulated in the CIS database or warehouse automated control system, where their automatic processing is possible.

Incoming orders from a client with the same parameters (customer, delivery address, contract number, order category, shipment date) must be combined into one order. In this case, the total number of identical goods is calculated. The criteria must be checked immediately after the next order is entered into the information system. This will reduce total orders, and hence the time to complete them.

Rice. 2. Order combining algorithm

Exchange of information between warehouse and commercial department information systems

Table 1 shows the main types of information that is used by various departments of the enterprise in the process of completing customer orders.

Table 1.

Type of information	A source of information	Information consumer
Quantity of product, batch, series	To ensure the reliability of information about a product, it is necessary to register all operations involving the movement of goods in the warehouse automated control system and conduct timely inventories, especially if shortages and mis-grading are identified in warehouse cells	The commercial department manager promptly informs the client about the availability or absence of goods in stock Warehouse employees, when working on customer complaints, use information about the availability and movement of goods in the warehouse to confirm the validity of the claim and identify who is responsible for the error.
Number of basic units (pieces) in transport or production containers	When accepting goods, information about the types of transport units is entered into the warehouse automated control system	When accepting an order, the manager of the commercial department guides the buyer to the quantity of the product, which is a multiple of the packaging. Thus, the need to open boxes and entire packages is reduced, which, in turn, leads to a reduction in packaging time and errors in ordering
Order Fulfillment Status	At all stages of the order passing through the company’s divisions, employees form various internal documents and assign them statuses (for example, planned, in progress, completed)	Customer service managers can track the status of the order, timely coordinate with the client the time of shipment or, for example, possible changes in the order
Total order volume, number of packages, overall characteristics of packages	Information is entered into the warehouse automated control system after order packaging is completed.	Subsequently used by employees of the transport department when planning routes, flights, vehicles

Planning the selection operation and issuing tasks to pickers

Optimization of the selection planning operation is mainly related to the capabilities of modern warehouse management systems. The systems that AXELOT uses in its work provide two blocks of functions. Firstly, the information system works as a repository of a huge amount of information about products, their series, batches, required storage conditions, expiration dates, packaging sizes, investment levels, etc. Secondly, the embedded placement and selection algorithms can perform a control function, allowing the warehouse operator to automatically generate tasks and distribute them among storekeepers, loaders, and drivers of high-altitude equipment.

Sometimes, in the process of fulfilling customer orders, the sales manager practices reserving a certain product. This can lead to an increase in inventory levels, since usually more goods are reserved than are then shipped. A situation may also arise where illiquid goods with expiring or expired expiration dates may arise, since any sales manager will first of all strive to provide his customer with the best product.

It is recommended to reserve goods for customer orders automatically when planning a selection operation, according to the algorithm laid down in the warehouse automated control system. The fundamental rule in this algorithm is the predetermined procedure for selecting goods in a warehouse by batch or series:

1. FIFO (first-in, first-out) - “first in, first out” - goods are shipped from the batch that arrived at the warehouse earlier than others.

2. LIFO (last-in, first-out) - “last in, first out” - goods from the batch that arrived at the warehouse later than others have high priority during shipment.

3. FEFO (first-ended, first-out) - “first to end, first to go out.” As a rule, shelf life is used as a criterion for determining shipment priority: goods with a shorter remaining shelf life are shipped first.

4. LEFO (last-ended, first-out) - “last ends - first out” - goods with the longest remaining shelf life are shipped first.

The warehouse is tasked with selecting goods from storage locations into the order taking into account the above rules. Mostly, when shipping to customers, the selection procedure is FIFO (non-food group of goods) or FEFO (pharmaceuticals, groceries, other goods with limited shelf life).

In addition to batches and series, when planning selection, the following are taken into account:

Type of transport unit of goods. In warehouses where shipping in small packages and individual items is practiced, as a rule, there is a single-piece selection area. In this case, shipment of whole pallets occurs from the reserve (wholesale) area of the warehouse.

The area where goods are placed in a warehouse. If the warehouse is located in a multi-storey building or in a warehouse where there are several premises with different storage conditions, it is advisable to divide the items in the order into several selection tasks in accordance with existing areas.

Picker's route. When creating a selection task, it is advisable to sort the lines in accordance with the order in which the order picker walks around the storage locations. The routes for movement of equipment and personnel around the warehouse are determined at the stage of developing the layout of the warehouse complex. In the warehouse automated control system, the route is specified by assigning a cell rating. Picker routes are constructed according to the rules below.

General rules for forming a picker route:

The picker's route must follow the shortest path bypassing the places where goods are selected and eliminating unnecessary movements of the employee, including for the use of improvised means (stepladders, stackers).
It is advisable to organize traffic in such a way that pickers do not have to go through the same aisle twice.
The beginning and end of the pickers' route should also be optimally oriented relative to the location of the loading expedition zone.
The warehouse management information system should allow you to build a picker route regardless of the designation of storage locations in the warehouse.
If part of the order items is subject to selection from all tiers of the selection zone, including hard-to-reach ones, it is necessary to separate selection from hard-to-reach tiers into a separate task. Hard-to-reach tiers mean the upper tiers of racks, goods from which the picker can select only with the help of auxiliary means or mechanisms. Thus, the picker travels along the route twice, first selecting goods from the lower tiers, and then a second time selecting goods from the upper tiers using a stepladder or stacker. The total time for selecting goods per order is reduced.

Transfer of the selected order to the control zone. Checking and packaging of goods

In order to reduce the risk of shortages or mis-grading in customer orders, the warehouse uses the output control function. After selection is completed, orders are transferred to teams of inspectors and packers, who check the compliance of the selected goods with the data in the order, pack the orders, form cargo packages, and, if necessary, label the goods and/or orders. Typically, the order checking and packaging area is located in close proximity to the shipping area.

If, during the inspection of the selected goods, the inspector identifies a discrepancy with the ordered quantity (shortage, surplus, mis-grading), the warehouse operator should create a task for inventorying the cells in which the product of this name is located, and then create a task for placing the surplus in the warehouse and selecting the missing quantity according to order.

Despite the fact that temporarily blocking cells and carrying out inventory may slow down the work of the warehouse, AXELOT consultants strongly recommend carrying out these operations. Otherwise, it is impossible to ensure the availability of up-to-date and reliable information on the quantity of goods in the warehouse.

To quickly complete the control operation, it is recommended to indicate in the selection task to which control table the selected product must be moved.

If the order is divided into several tasks, indicating the control table number will allow you to consolidate all parts of the order at this stage.

Even if the order is not divided into several parts, marking the number of the control table to which the goods need to be moved will help distribute orders evenly between controllers. To do this, the warehouse automated control system must accumulate information about the total amount of work performed by inspectors for the current shift.

The speed of control of selected orders depends on the order volume, the number of lines in the order, the number of packages in the order, and the weight of the order. To analyze the amount of work performed by the controller, it is usually sufficient to use one parameter - the order volume.

The basic principle embedded in the algorithm for distributing orders in the control zone is the following: the next selected order should be placed on the control table with the smallest total volume of previously received orders (Fig. 3.).

In addition to uniform load distribution and consolidation of parts of the order, fast and high-quality work of the controller will be ensured by equipped and well-lit workplace. It is important that sufficient packaging material is always available.

Fig.3. Uniform distribution of orders to control tables

In conclusion, I would like to say a few words about the problem of compliance with safety regulations. Unfortunately, when visiting warehouses, you can often observe how warehouse employees, while picking orders, climb to the upper tiers of racks, standing on stacker forks, or climb up racks using horizontal beams as ladder steps. This sooner or later leads to tragic consequences. Therefore, when developing the warehouse layout and technology for performing warehouse operations, it is necessary to ensure the prevention of such cases. The following measures will contribute to this:

Isolation of the active selection zone with boxes, packages, pieces in the lower tiers of pallet racks, or organization of a separate selection zone with low-height shelf racks
Timely replenishment of goods in the selection area
Using the upper, hard-to-reach tiers only for storing goods and selecting goods in whole pallets using a stacker
Separation in time of operations performed by the stacker and performed manually by the picker, which will eliminate the possibility of people and equipment working in the same passage

Thus, in order to ensure high efficiency of the order picking process, it is necessary, firstly, a competent and thorough approach to the design of warehouse areas and the development technological operations, and secondly, maximum use of opportunities modern means automation.

The functioning of a warehouse complex, designed taking into account the characteristics of goods and the specifics of the enterprise, will require fewer resources for cargo processing, provided that stable and safe work of warehouse personnel is maintained.

A properly selected warehouse management system will allow for timely exchange of accurate and complete information between company departments, automate the process of accepting many management decisions. But, regardless of whether these tasks are solved by the company’s employees, or with the involvement of consultants process design and automation of warehouses, it is necessary to take into account what exactly A complex approach will allow you to get tangible results for the enterprise as a whole.

Olga Kaverina, consultant warehouse logistics AXELOT

The client finds an excellent online store on the World Wide Web, selects a product and places an order. After this, the store manager’s work begins on processing previously issued goods. The efficiency of the company’s employees will determine whether the this client repeat purchase or leave in search of better service. High-quality customer support at all stages of order processing, including post-sales service, will make you want to visit the online store again.

Processing an order on Aliexpress

Aliexpress is the largest online hypermarket, attracting people with wholesale prices and a truly huge range of products.

Purchases on this Chinese portal are made using a prepayment system. There is nothing to worry about; if problems arise, you can open a dispute and protect your interests. Lots of offers with free shipping to the nearest post office will not leave you indifferent, and constant sales and promotions will only increase the desire to order some goods for yourself.

Order processing time

The time it takes to process an order depends on the specific online store, as well as its distance from the buyer. In your city, for example, you can receive a parcel via courier delivery already on the day of application. So, after confirming the purchase, the manager will call a few minutes later to verify the data and pass the baton to the logistics service.

The situation is completely different with foreign online portals. For example, Aliexpress:

after paying for the order, the payment is verified (usually a day or less);
the seller has time to process the application (information about this can be read in the product description). This usually takes 7-10 days, during which the seller collects, packages and ships the goods to the buyer.

Delivery time from foreign Internet hypermarkets takes approximately 10 days to several months. After this period, you can request a refund.

Order processing service

When an online store is just beginning to develop and receives a small number of applications, you can handle order processing on your own. If volumes increase, then CRM systems come to the rescue.

Let's look at how this works using the example of EasyBusiness, an order processing outsourcing service for online stores:

The online store ships the goods to the warehouse of the outsourcing company (you can track their movement and status through your personal account);
Managers process requests received from the customer’s website and offer additional services to customers. The professionalism of our employees allows us to bring a high percentage of transactions to the “completed and paid” status;
parcels are sent to recipients by cash on delivery or together with a courier;
the money is transferred to the customer’s personal account, from where he withdraws it at any convenient time.

When ordering a product, you may encounter a “Processing time will expire in...” notification on the Aliexpress website. What is it and what should I do if the order processing time is running out?

What is "processing time" on Aliexpress?

After selecting a product and completing the payment procedure in the Aliexpress store, the payment is verified and then confirmed. After confirmation you will see new status“Order Processing” and countdown time. For example, the message “Days remaining: ” may appear on the page.

The order processing time for Aliexpress is the period of time during which the seller must accept, process, collect the parcel and transfer it to the buyer for mailing. Since most products are stored in warehouses, it takes a lot of time for sellers to ship and pack them.

The preparation procedure on Aliexpress is called “order processing”, and the corresponding status is displayed next to the information on the product you have selected.

When these preparation stages are completed and the order is shipped, you will receive information with a tracking code that allows you to track the parcel. Order processing time can last from 3 to 10 days. Please note that during this period the seller may write to you to clarify any information regarding the product.

Also, while the above status is visible, you can cancel the order without losing money. Those. you may not pay for an erroneous purchase if the time has not run out.

What happens after the order processing period ends?

If the time specified on Aliexpress expires, but the seller does not confirm the shipment, then your purchase will be automatically canceled and the money will be fully refunded.
As a rule, this period can be quite long, since it is set exclusively by the seller. If you are not ready to wait a long time, you need to pay attention to this point before paying for a particular product.

What determines the duration of preparation of products for shipment? Quite often this is due to the fact that sellers wait until they have several orders (for example, in a month) in order to save their time and money.

How to extend order processing time?

Why extend the processing period before it has time to pass? There are situations in which sellers on Aliexpress notice the buyer's request late, so they may ask him to extend the order processing time. Therefore, if you receive a letter from the seller with a corresponding request, and you have such an opportunity, then you can extend this period.

What should you do to extend the time if you still want to receive the goods?

Go to the section with your orders.
Proceed to the details of the required order.
Click on the special button (you will see it below in the image).

Ready! You have extended the request processing period.

What is the delivery time related to?

At first glance, it may seem that the process of delivering goods is quite simple. However, in reality, the delivery process consists of several stages:

At a postal warehouse in China (or at the office of the service used by the seller), goods are prepared for sending to customs.
After checks, the parcel is sent to transport warehouses.
It is then sent via air mail to the customer's country.
Next, the parcel is checked at customs in the buyer’s country, and only then sent to the address.

Each of these stages can last several days. That is why sometimes you have to wait a long time for the ordered goods. But if you don't want to wait a long time, you can use paid delivery services.

Benefits of the feature for buyers

In fact, you do not need to contact the seller directly to renew. This function is performed unilaterally if you are in doubt about the order you have made and want to cancel it at any time. On the other hand, the seller is obliged to invest within the deadlines set by the buyer, and will not be able to increase them in any way without your knowledge.

It is worth mentioning separately that it is impossible to reduce the processing time. If you want the goods to be sent to the specified address as quickly as possible, you need to contact the seller and discuss this point with him.

Can I cancel a purchase while my order is being processed?

Before the seller has sent the item, you have the right to refuse it. To do this, you need to go to the “My Orders” section, and opposite the desired item, click the “Cancel Order” button. Marketplace is designed in such a way that you must indicate why you are canceling the purchase. Write a competent description of the reason to speed up your refund as much as possible. . Never blame the sender for being slow in processing the purchase. It is best to simply point out that you made a mistake with the color or style of the product. It will be much faster this way.

After you provide a reason, a dialog box will appear where you can report the seller. The complaint depends only on your desire to annoy the seller who was not pleased with the product or the timing of its shipment.