icon27 Feb, 2023

5 3PL Services to Help Your Ecommerce Business Thrive

For Ecommerce businesses just starting out, personally handling logistics management is doable. Order volumes are manageable and that allows you to keep logistics costs in check. But what happens when you start to grow, or if you’re pushing for growth and don’t have the time to personally invest in getting products from Point A (the supplier) to Point B (you) to Point C (the customer)? A 3PL for Ecommerce businesses can help take operations to the next level and offer many benefits.

Which 3PL Services Should Your Ecommerce Business Take Advantage of to Grow and Scale?

1. Ecommerce Order Fulfillment

Ecommerce order fulfillment is not so hard when order volumes are low. It gets more complicated as order volumes increase, and it gets harder to get it right every time, too.

Ecommerce order fulfillment services offered by 3PLs often include receiving freight, storing it until it’s ready to go to customers, picking and packing orders, and getting the product onto a truck so it can move on to its next destination. For practicality’s sake, 3PL inventory management often goes along with order fulfillment.

The 3PL oftentimes provides the technology (usually a warehouse management system, often referred to as a WMS) that’s necessary to facilitate the fulfillment of Ecommerce orders, as well as security to help ensure inventory stays safe and undamaged.

2. Other 3PL Warehousing Services

Some of the biggest Ecommerce retailers in the world started out of someone’s garage, but what happens when you run out of room (or you need a place to park your car)? If you just need a space to store your overstock or out-of-season items but don’t need order fulfillment, 3PL services can still help you.

Some additional 3PL warehousing services for Ecommerce retailers might include:

• Kitting, where individual items are put together into one saleable product
• Repackaging
• Import/export compliance to ensure products can be safely and legally shipped internationally
• Materials sourcing so you don’t have to worry about ordering or storing boxes, envelopes, filler, or tape

3. Transportation: Ground, Air, and Ocean

Shipping is expensive regardless of industry or mode of transportation, but for Ecommerce retailers who must get each individual order to a customer’s doorstep, shipping costs can majorly eat into profit margins.

3PLs can help Ecommerce retailers ship their products faster, more efficiently, and for less money using a variety of methods.

First, 3PLs are often able to find cheaper shipping thanks to the power of scale. Because they ship a lot of products by various means, they are able to contract lower rates with carriers and can pass those savings on to their customers.

Second, 3PL’s wealth of experience often gives them a unique take on shipping. A good 3PL may be able to devise a more cost-effective way to get products where they need to go on time. For example, they may consolidate various customers’ shipments that are headed in the same direction onto one truck to get packages closer to their destination, saving money on final mile shipping costs.

Third, 3PLs use the logistics networks they have built to gain a competitive advantage. They aren’t just working with the national parcel carriers; they’re working with local and regional last mile carriers along with LTL and FTL carriers, ocean carriers, and air freight service providers to find the best value while getting the product into your customers’ hands as fast as possible.

4. Reverse Logistics

Reverse logistics, also known as returns, can be expensive and time-consuming, but they’re inevitable. One survey by WooSuite showed that more than 16% of Ecommerce orders in 2021 were returned. That same research showed that 58% of consumers expect a no questions asked return policy and that 49% of Ecommerce retailers provide free shipping on returns. That means that to keep up with the competition, a generous returns policy is almost a must.

Executing those returns isn’t quite as easy as offering customers what they want and it can take a long time, creating customer satisfaction issues, but passing reverse logistics off to a 3PL can allay those problems. A 3PL will receive the returned product, restock or dispose of it, and get a replacement to the customer if applicable with very little effort from the retailer. Bonus: they can often manage the entire reverse logistics process for all the reasons 3PLs ship more efficiently.

5. Logistics Consultations

The vast majority of Ecommerce retailers have little to no professional experience in logistics. It’s something that comes with the territory, not their main goal. That’s totally okay! You want to sell cool stuff on the internet, not store it, fill way more orders than you have hands or time for, and set up shipping.

Many 3PLs offer consultations to help you streamline your logistics operations and reduce logistics spend, and these consultations can be helpful whether you choose to utilize other services offered by the 3PL or not.

Some 3PLs even offer managed logistics services, where they handle all the logistics functions of a business, taking it completely off the plate of the retailer. Managed logistics is an ideal solution for companies that are looking to invest their capital (cash, time, and brain power) into the growth of their core business, and managed logistics can come in handy when an Ecommerce retailer is making a big growth push.

If you’re looking for a logistics partner to provide one or all of these services, reach out to the team at NEWL. We can customize 3PL service offerings to meet your Ecommerce business’s needs and keep your budget in check.