How Can the Benefits of a 3PL Grow Your FBA Business?
The benefits of a 3PL includes saved time, money, and risk for newer sellers. Newer sellers have enough to worry about in growing their brand. This article explores the how the benefits of a 3PL can bring value to your e-commerce store.
Basic Benefits of a 3PL
Save Time: Supplychain research is labor intensive. Understanding different stages, researching partners in each stage, and vetting them costs time. A benefit of a 3PL is the time saved in building the back end of your business and instead building out the front end – i.e. branding, marketing, promotions etc…
Save Money: Scaling your in-house prep operation is costly! You got into e-commerce to sell products – not prep them. Unless you have a background in warehousing, the start up costs of your own prep operation can be prohibitive. Alternatively, a 3PL can package, ship, and manage inventory all for one price, and it could be lower than doing it all in-house.
Expert Benefits of a 3PL
Trust Experts: You probably do not have a background in logistics or warehousing. That’s okay! It takes time to learn. But it’s best to learn from experts instead of your own mistakes. One of the benefits of a 3PL is partnering with professionals who can be held accountable. This provides a safety net and transparency for any mishaps that may occur throughout your supply chain.
Industry Technology: Most sellers use basic platforms to manage inventory and fulfill orders. These can cost subscription fees and consume time if managed by a seller. Alternatively, other benefits of a 3PL are access to the latest technology in the logistics industry. This includes access to their inventory management, order management, reverse logistics management, CRM, and shipping management software technology. This don’t re-invent the wheel in-house by trying to manage these yourself.
Order Fulfillment Advantages
Fulfillment Quality: Are you doing it yourself? An in-house order fulfilment operation is not immune from error. In fact, if you are swamped with life and other tasks for your brand, order fulfilment can be too easy to screw up. The last thing your reviews need as angry customer who didn’t receive an order because you missed an apartment number on the shipping label. A benefit of a 3PL is the fail safes in place via order management systems to protect your fulfillment quality.
Fulfillment Customization: Every brand is different. Different parent products, varying SKU’s, mixed case dimensions etc…As such, sellers often need a custom solution to meet the need of their order fulfillment. A benefit of 3PLs is access to a team who can customize a solution to meet a sellers fulfillment needs. This includes solutions for warehousing, shipping, and distribution.
Industry Software: There are three basic genres of software which offer benefits to a 3PL. 3PLs specialize in curating software related to the following:
- Warehouse Management Systems (WMS)
- Order Management System (OMS)
- Supplychain Management Systems (SMS)
Hiring a 3PL gives you access to the best software and other integrative technology that you might not get on your own.
Risk Reduction
3PL Industry Partners: A 3PL provider has a network of partners, including shipping carriers and other providers, to ensure that you get the best services at the lowest rate possible.
Risk Reduction: By outsourcing your company’s operational logistics, you don’t have to worry about things like labor risk and the financial risk of investing in equipment and storage facilities.