How to Improve Prep Center Turnaround Time
What experienced sellers do differently to get shipments processed faster.
Turnaround time is driven as much by what the seller provides up front as by the provider's own speed.
A prep center's stated turnaround time usually assumes they already have everything they need on arrival. Every piece of missing information - a SKU mapping that has to be built from scratch, a label file that hasn't been sent yet - adds time before the clock on the actual physical work even starts.
What speeds things up
- Pre-alerts
- Complete files
- SKU mapping
- Carton-level detail
- Forecast sharing
- Batching
What quietly slows things down
- Sending label files after the shipment has already arrived.
- Providing SKU details only when asked.
- Sending shipments in small, irregular batches instead of consolidating.
- Not flagging urgent shipments as urgent up front.
Scenario
Two sellers send the same volume to the same prep center. One sends a pre-alert with SKU mapping and label files two days before the truck arrives; their shipment is processed the same day it's received. The other sends nothing until the truck shows up, so the prep center has to build the SKU mapping from scratch before work can even start - adding a day or two before labeling begins, even though the physical work takes the same amount of time either way.
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