What is E-Commerce? The Side of Online Shopping You Never See

Every day, millions of people across the U.S. make purchases online. In all likelihood, you’ve made one of these purchases recently. In fact, the Pew Research Center found that 79 percent of Americans surveyed have made an online purchase, and of those who do shop online, 43 percent do it at least a few times a month.

There’s no question online shopping is a powerful driver of business—2016 e-commerce retail sales topped $322 billion, and that number is not likely to drop any time soon. All of this business activity leads to thousands of packages arriving on the doorsteps of customers daily.

You certainly appreciate the convenience of online shopping, but do you understand what goes on behind the scenes to make it all happen? There’s a pretty incredible operation running at all hours of the day to get your order picked, packed, and shipped on time to your doorstep.

How does online shopping delivery work?

Online retailers—from tiny mom-and-pop shops to global behemoths- all generally follow the same process for order fulfillment and shipping of products purchased online. This process can be broken down into three categories:

• Picking – the process of finding and verifying the right item to ship in a retailer’s inventory

• Packing – the process of finding the right box, container or packaging to safely and efficiently transport items

• Shipping – the process of actually sending your goods from point A to point B

Every one of these areas is under pressure to ensure orders are quickly fulfilled—and with that comes innovation, investment, and a lot of manpower.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these order fulfillment focus areas to get a better idea of how they work and the innovations that are helping them keep up with the consumer demand for faster delivery.