Rakuten Super Logistics, or RSL for short, was founded in 2001 and prides itself on being “committed to providing the best eCommerce fulfillment and logistics services worldwide.” RSL is a division of the much-larger Rakuten, Inc. and its services include order fulfillment, return management, kitting, subscriptions, freight services, and more. The service aims to boost clients’ sales and make order management and eCommerce as simple yet successful as possible.
RSL uses its SmartSuite cloud-based technology to help users save time, analyze the strengths and weaknesses of their current eCommerce processes, and use insights to improve their businesses and generate more revenue. Using the SmartFill dashboard, users have many management tools to work with that will help them see the information and status of processing and completed orders as well as analyze costs that will help make critical business decisions.
These days, eCommerce has boomed to an all-time high and many businesses will need to find solutions that will keep them afloat in a competitive economy. Many clients state that RSL is an excellent tool because it has very desirable integrations including Amazon, eBay, Jet, PayPal, Shopify, ChannelAdvisor and many more. Integrations also include USPS, UPS, DHL, FedEx, and other shipment carriers.
All of these integrations are quite impressive and very attractive to business managers who use a variety of the biggest marketplaces and shipping services. Having a solid, reliable fulfillment service will help reduce fulfillment overheads and let users get more done. RSL can also take care of backorder management, order entries, order tracking, returns management, and special orders.
Businesses of all sizes can benefit from RSL, especially those that do not have a sufficient in-house fulfillment process. In-house fulfillment can be extremely time consuming and take business owners away from running their businesses, gaining new customers, and promoting their brands. Instead of having to staff and run a warehouse, manage a transportation fleet, and implement their own systems, RSL can do it for them.
RSL requires a minimum of 250 orders in a month and can handle over 10,000 with a specialized plan.
In general, the RSL process has four steps. First, a consumer places an order on an RSL client’s online store. Second, the RSL software will sync the order with the closest warehouse. From there, RSL will process the order and ship the product through one of the shipping partners. If necessary, the fourth step includes RSL obtaining returns and following a process pre-agreed on with the client.
The analytics that RSL’s platform provides are extremely helpful because they can help business managers see trends such as which products are best-sellers, which items are returned the most, which areas of the U.S. or world products get shipped to most, and so on. From there, marketing and sales processes can be tweaked to adapt to whatever recommendations and insights have been gathered from the data.
Companies that are new to international shipping can greatly benefit from RSL, seeing as RSL is well-versed in customs and freight taxes, which can be a real hassle for business owners. RSL will deal with regulatory compliance issues for its clients, which can alleviate a lot of stress when dealing with global sales and shipments.
Another positive of RSL is that the service offers access to live, human agents instead of a database of FAQs and instant messaging with a bot, which can both lead to less answers and more confusion. The client support team is dedicated to providing responses to inquiries within three hours.
RSL also invites clients to visit the warehouse and see how things get done. It also offers webinars and document trainings to help clients learn how to use the platform to get the most out of it as possible.
As stated, RSL ships both domestically and internationally. The service promotes its 2-day domestic ground shipping through its “2-Day Delivery Network,” stating that 98% of shipments get delivered in 2 days. However, many users have reported deliveries actually took longer than that, and sometimes much longer. Of course, technical issues and problems with integrations have plagued users at times as well.
2-Day Ground Shipping via Rakuten Super Logistics’ Nationwide Fulfillment Network!Unfortunately, the company is not transparent at all regarding pricing. If you’re interested in using RSL for your business, you’ll have to reach out to the company and request a quote, as RSL uses a customized, tiered pricing model. Prices will vary based on the weight of clients’ products and what packaging they use (e.g. envelope versus heavy box), business size, integrations that will be utilized, and technological tool needs. A storage charge is implemented after 30 days and, based on the business, Rakuten will offer month-to-month contracts or annual contracts.
I’ve been using Rakuten for a few months now and like it for the most part. I’ve had a few issues but gotten them all straightened out now. I’m sure there’s startup issues with any fulfillment center. The most important thing to me is that they are responsive and helpful.