At James and James, our dedicated kitting and assembly teams can relieve you of that burden while you get on with what’s important – growing your business.
Kitting and assembly refers to the process of taking multiple units and compiling them into a single SKU before they are ordered from the customer. Many eCommerce businesses sell products that are compiled from individual components – a chocolate hamper, for example, might contain chocolates from a variety of suppliers.
A fulfilment provider that offers kitting and assembly services (like James and James) will take those chocolates and bundle them into one SKU, which in this case is a hamper, and place them into storage ready to be ordered.
While the two terms are often used interchangeably, there’s a minor – yet important – difference between them.
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Kitting is the process of gathering different items from multiple suppliers and bundling them into one SKU. Kitting is popular in industries that have gift sets, such as health and beauty, food and drink, and subscription boxes.
Because ‘kits’ are treated as a single SKU, it’s important to order the same amount of individual units that make up the SKU, and only use those ordered units as part of the ‘kit’, or bundle.
For example, if you want to sell 100 health and beauty gift boxes, you’ll need to make sure you order 100 bottles of shampoo, 100 bottles of conditioner, and 100 bottles of hairspray, and only use those individual items inside the kit.
With assembly, rather than consolidating unique products into a single SKU, an assembler takes components / parts and builds them to make a SKU. An example of assembly would be in the computer industry, where consumers purchase custom-built PCs and the assembler takes different hardware components to create the PC.
At James and James, we have a dedicated kitting and assembly team that can provide this service for you. It’s incredibly easy for you to make an assembly order through our award-winning inventory management platform, ControlPort.
In just a few clicks (seriously, it takes less than 5 minutes), you can create master SKUs that are assembled from individual units, and our assembly team will pick and assemble your kit and place it into storage, ready to be ordered.
ControlPort offers a tonne of clarity, flexibility and control over how orders are assembled, which SKUs should be made into a kit, and the ability to list un-assembled SKUs to be sold individually.
To find out more about our kitting and assembly fulfilment service, feel free to book a free demo with one of our fulfilment experts.
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There’s a lot of manual work that goes into kitting and assembly, and to assemble goods as quickly as possible, it’s important to have the right equipment, technology, and processes in place.
As a 3PL with over a decade of experience in kitting and assembly, James and James can save you a tonne of time and take care of your assemblies with a smooth, highly optimised operation.
We make it simple for you to manage assemblies and all of your other SKUs with our inventory management platform, ControlPort. You can create assembly instructions in just a few clicks, and let us know how many you want to create, as well as the BBE date of the kit.
Assembly management is just a fraction of what ControlPort can do. Manage your inventory across all channels in real-time, reduce wastage, minimise stockouts, optimise storage costs, and so much more.
The nature of kits means that you’ll likely need a large area to keep your products safe and secure. Unless you’ve got ample space on-site to store your goods, you’ll need to keep them in a different location which is anything but efficient.
Not only will we assemble your kits for you, but also keep components and the finished SKUs in storage until the orders start rolling through. With clear cost breakdowns, we’ll only ever charge you for the exact amount of storage you use, and have plenty of additional capacity to be filled as you grow.
We’d love to hear about your business, and talk to you about how our fulfilment experts can take care of your kitting and assembly needs, as well as your wider fulfilment operation.
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