Are you looking for a nice reliable logistics and fulfillment partner? Sick of the confinements of your living room warehouse? Then you probably have a list of all the services you would like your 3PL provider to have, fast, organized, efficient, easy to work with. Although those are very important, if that’s all you have, you are missing a very important and impactful aspect to a successful 3PL.
Multiple warehouse locations aren’t emphasized as this incredibly vital or game changer of a service. Its unfortunate because using a 3PL with more than once location and being able to leverage inventory through a variety of strategic facilities can bring a lot of important, profit-driving benefits.
Faster and Cheaper Shipping
Getting the better shipping options starts when you expand your shipping network. This is because of the shipping zones that are geographic areas the shipping carriers use to determine shipping rates and delivery times.
It is cheaper to ship a package to the next town vs if you send a package on the other side of the country. The package that is going further is going through many shipping zones making it more expensive to ship. It would be using more resources like gas, time and manpower than the package being sent to the next town.
If you have multiple warehouses with your products in it, there would all around have less shipping zones. All of this translates to having better service and happier customers. Isn’t that one of the most important things needed to scale your company?
Efficient Inventory Management
Inventory management is one of the most challenging aspects of order fulfillment. Even seasoned pros find inventory to be a huge headache. Splitting up your inventory may seem counterintuitive but is a very smart move, especially when you have the customer data to back it up.
If your product does better in Tennessee than it does in Washington state, you might as well split your inventory up and send some of your products to the warehouse closer to Tennessee to make shipping easier and cheaper. You don’t need to be close to all your product at your 3PL warehouse. If you choose the right 3PL provider to be on your side, you will feel confident they will receive and fulfill your orders and deliver it to your exact specifications.
Improved Returns Processing
Returns are basically unavoidable. Making sure you have a plan for them within your overall strategy is necessary. With both inbound and outbound being a part of shipping, the benefits of fast and cheap shipping will lead to having faster processing times and that leads to happier customers.
Conclusion
Now this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to leave the 3PL provider that you’ve been working with. If you are still getting your bearings staying with a smaller 3PL until you feel you have outgrown them wouldn’t be bad. And that said 3PL could also scale with you. But if you’ve been growing like crazy, trying to find the right 3PL for your growth might be a necessity.
Here at Launch, we have 2 warehouses, one in American Fork, Utah and one in Louisville, Kentucky, with many more in the works. We are growing right along with our clients and their needs. We are so excited to continue to grow. We have a lot of plans, and we cannot wait to share them with everyone.