Who is that elusive partner that is going to tick all the boxes, support you and help your business thrive? Only you know the answer to that!
When creating a 3PL wish list you'll need to include 1. your current fulfilment and shipping needs and 2. your future needs as you see them. It might be useful to have a look at your business plan for the next 1, 3 and 5 years and think about what shipping and fulfilment capabilities will be needed to fulfil those aims and use that to construct your wish list.
The first step to creating your wish list is to ask yourself key questions about your business as it is and what sorts of logistical needs you might have. Below is a list of prompt questions to ask yourself. Your answers will help you created a structured list of needs and desires:
It is important to consider what your minimum and maximum delivery times are from the moment of order for all the regions you operate in as well as if you want to offer specific types of delivery such as Express or Standard.
Anything from Shopify to inventory management integrations
You might ask yourself if there is any analytics data that you would like to have access to help you keep track of costs or supply chain performance.
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Does my product need to be repackaged, cleaned, or disposed of?
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Can the 3PL generate returns labels that my customers can access and easily post their order?
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Can the 3PL effectively receive returns back into inventory?
- What are the customs rules for my target regions?
- Can I make use of customs bonded warehousing?
- Will I have to pay import duties/taxes?
- Do my products need to be temperature-controlled across long distances?
- Do my products have a shelf life?
- What sort of packaging do my products need?
- Do I utilize bundles, have mostly multi-product orders or need specialist/sustainable packaging?
- Do my products need to be FDA approved for sale in the US?
- Are my products valuable and fragile?
- Do my products need to be stored and transported in a special way?
- Are my products insured, or do I want my 3PL to handle insurance?
Are you an ethical/sustainable retailer in search for a 3PL with ethical and more sustainable practices? Perhaps you want your provider to use electric vehicles or to carbon offset their emissions.
The answers to these questions will serve as your guideline when you begin looking for a new 3PL or start renegotiating with your existing one. Once you've established your logistics framework for success, it's time to start looking for and interviewing potential 3PL candidates.
Some additional questions to ask a potential 3PL might be:
