Since its announcement at JTL-Connect 2016, the JTL-Fulfillment Network (FFN) has been making waves in the German eCommerce industry. At some of the past JTL regulars’ tables and several events, we have already provided further information about our planned fulfillment solution in a small circle. To put an end to the guesswork, we will now give you an overview of the current status of development.
What is the JTL-Fulfillment Network?
Let’s start with the basics – the JTL-FFN is a standardized interface for fulfilment service providers and customers. This means that online retailers and fulfillment service providers can use it to network with each other. Fulfillment service providers can offer their range of services to retailers, just as retailers can choose the fulfillment provider according to their own wishes.
Our free JTL-Wawi ERP system forms the basis for the network. The system exchanges all processes, such as delivery notifications, customer orders or stock movements, with the system of the respective partner almost in real time via the FFN.
What are the advantages of the JTL-Fulfillment Network?
Some of you may be wondering what the specific advantages and reasons for using FFN are. Quite simply, we want our customers to be able to concentrate on selling and designing their listings in a fast-moving business. With the help of FFN, even small and inexperienced retailers can offer options such as Next Day Delivery and the like – thanks to competent logistics partners such as DHL. Another important factor: those who sell via fulfillment do not need their own warehouse or at least a much smaller one, thus saving costs, especially in terms of personnel and storage space. This allows online retailers to significantly reduce their entrepreneurial risk and focus on purchasing and sales.
If you want to play with the big players, you can’t avoid offering options such as same-day delivery or click and collect. This requires a strategic distribution of your goods across the shipping area. The JTL-Fulfillment Network will also support you with this in the future – we are already working on partnerships and the technical implementation for this.
Selling abroad is also easier. Large European eCommerce markets such as the United Kingdom and France can become additional sales markets. With a suitable fulfillment partner, the hurdles of otherwise long delivery times can also be overcome there.
One of the biggest obstacles that has so far prevented many retailers from using a fulfillment solution is clearly the cost factor. Adding to the system of a fulfillment service provider alone usually means initial costs in the four to five-digit range. Our approach to direct networking remedies this situation – the costs are eliminated and the use of FFN for online retailers is free of charge from JTL’s side.
Just some of the advantages at a glance:
DHL as a strong partner
In DHL, we already have a major partner whose services cover an important part of the JTL-Fulfillment Network. Above, for example, we mentioned the possibility of offering Next Day Delivery. To do this, the respective online retailer must store their goods in DHL’s warehouse in Staufenberg. Thanks to its central integration with the DHL depot, the logistics service provider has the internal option of feeding orders into the system by 8 pm. This in turn means that you can guarantee your customers next-day delivery even for late orders.
DHL recognized the advantages of the JTL-Fulfillment Network early on and has therefore already integrated itself into the network. The interface is also currently in a test phase.
“With the JTL integration, we are fulfilling our mission “DHL Fulfillment makes entrepreneurship easier” for JTL customers. Together with JTL, we offer easy and reliable access to excellent fulfillment services with the familiar DHL parcel recipient options. In the future, we are working on the possibility of offering our joint customers a Europe-wide fulfillment solution – specifically, we are currently working on additional locations in the UK, NL and PL,” comments Richard Lange, VP Product Management DHL Fulfillment on the cooperation with JTL.
How does it work?
As you can already see, JTL-Wawi is an essential part of the JTL-Fulfillment Network. However, users are actually free to choose how they want to process their orders. However, the preferred and smoothest way is undoubtedly via our own products. But here is an overview of who can be integrated and how:
You can find a more detailed explanation in the following video from the JTL-Partner Convention 2017, where our developer Georg explains the basics, functionality and use of the FFN using concrete examples:
We are looking for you!
Perhaps some of you are already itching to become part of the FFN. We have already received numerous inquiries about this in recent weeks and months. And we are indeed looking for your help!
The JTL-Fulfillment Network is currently in the closed beta phase – this means that we are only connecting selected merchants and fulfillment service providers to the network. Together with them, we are putting the entire network through its paces to ensure optimal performance upon release. If you are interested in being part of this group of early testers, please get in touch with us. The most important requirement at the moment is that you use both JTL-Wawi and JTL-WMS as a fulfillment service provider and at least JTL-Wawi as an online retailer.
You can log in to the ongoing closed beta here:
In the next phases of the closed beta, we will also address fulfillment service providers and online retailers that integrate with FFN via REST API. Once these test phases have been completed, we are planning an extended open beta test phase in which all interested parties can participate.
You will find the current status of the beta phase here in future:
https://fulfillment.jtl-software.com/
Conclusion
With an external fulfillment service provider, retailers can easily enter the online retail market without having to build up their own resources beforehand. External fulfillment also has financial advantages, as a large service provider can benefit from good synergy effects in the form of short picking times and lower logistics costs due to the large number of sales orders processed. More importantly, the Good shipping conditions offered by fulfillers enable a particularly high shipping frequency. Instead of sending 100 parcels a day, thousands can be handled. These are the points that we particularly want to address with the solution and offer an alternative to previous fulfillment solutions.
We will of course keep you up to date on further steps in the development of JTL fulfillment, new phases in the closed beta and the start of the public beta phase.
Further information about the JTL-Fulfillment Network is available here:
