Whether you’re an online-only outlet or you offer brick and mortar as well as internet sales, e-commerce fulfillment is an issue that nearly every retail store will face in the modern sales environment.

ecommerce can take many forms – direct-to-customer sales, fulfillment from an online outlet, shipment between different retail locations. No matter how you fulfill online sales, or how you take online sales in the first place, eCommerce requires a certain agility and discipline that sets it apart from more traditional retail fulfillment strategies.

Whatever your approach to ecommerce, here’s three rules to keep in mind to better fulfill your orders, streamline your processes, and keep both your workers and customers happy:

Rule #1: Ensure Seamless Flow of Everything

When we say everything, we mean everything. Internally you need to make sure you have a strong fulfillment strategy for getting your product from your warehouse shelves onto outbound trucks, to keep ecommerce orders on top of your priorities and fulfilled as quickly as possible.

But there’s more to it than that. Information needs to flow as smoothly as your products to make sure your customers are always aware of where their orders are, how they were paid for, and what to do in the event of a return. This information will help internally as well, ensuring that every order is tracked, ranked, and monitored correctly in case any of the orders need to be reviewed later on. Keep your data management services robust and flexible, and make sure your entire workforce is trained on proper data management and usage – otherwise you’re in for a world of lost data, lost orders, and lost customers.

Rule #2: Maintain A Strong Relationship With All Partners

This is pretty sound business advice in the first place – after all, nobody is going to want to deal with your business long if you’re a jerk – but in the fast-moving world of ecommerce it’s even more important.

Keep a strong partnership with all item fulfillment vendors in the event of a product shortage or the sudden need to restock a popular item, make sure to keep open communication with your delivery partners to help expedite items and get better communication along the delivery route, and if you work with any retail outlets or delivery centers, always be transparent with them about when to expect delivery and any issues you might encounter along the supply chain to make sure they’re kept in the loop. This will keep both your partners and your customers happy, and make sure you don’t lose any business due to miscommunication or a perceived lack of trust.

Rule #3: Be As Transparent As Possible

In the world of ecommerce, customers will expect better communication than ever before so they can understand where their order is, what status it’s under, when they can expect it to arrive, and what they can do in the event of an issue with their order.

Several systems need to work together for this to happen: your warehouse needs to have a frequently-updated and always-accurate log of current inventory, your shipping and receiving departments need to have a procedure in place to ship orders and communicate order status to the customer, and your tracking system needs to be easy to use so the customer knows when to expect their package.

With these rules your ecommerce processes should help your customers stick around and keep your warehouse working as efficiently as possible.