Firing The Man Finding a Third Party Logistics Company (3PL) for Amazon Fulfillment
Episode 38
In today’s episode, we will be sharing our story with the audience on how Ken and I found a third-party logistics company to fulfill our Amazon orders (or expand into other marketplaces like Walmart). The background of this episode comes from a conversation that Ken and I had a few weeks ago where we both admitted that finding a 3PL for our Amazon businesses had been on both of our to-do lists for a few months. We decided that we would hold each other accountable for achieving this task by the beginning of Q4. As we started this process, we decided to document our journey and make a podcast episode to share our stories.
Let’s dive right into this episode and be sure to stay tuned for a strategy...
[00:01 - 12:00] The significance of finding the right 3PL
- We give some background on why we want a 3PL
- What is 3PL and why is it important for eCommerce business owners
- The downside of Amazon Fulfilment
- The significant increase of storage fees in Q4
- Two days shipping and the size of the warehouse
- We talk about the significance of shipping zones in 3PL companies
- Steps on how we crowdsource the 3PL recommendation list
- Post questions on 3 related Facebook Groups
- Emailing all of our connections and colleagues for any recommendation
[12:01 - 24:54] Questions to ask the 3PL company
- How is the order being processed
- What costs are involved
- Total packages
- What are my total fulfillment fees for products that stay for months
- Numbers of the fulfillment centers
- How quickly can they ship the orders
- How will the order be packed
- Large order volumes
- Shipping discounts
- How long does it take to receive and process products
- Can they handle international shipping
[24:55 - 30:31] Finding the Best 3PL for Your Products
- Finding the best 3PL will depends on what kind of product you sell
- Do your own due diligence, because what is best for other companies might not be the best for yours
- Transparency on pricing is not on most of these companies website
- We talk about the crowdsource of 3PL prospect funnel lists
- See below for links mentioned
- Find the downloadable pdf of questions and templates at firingtheman.com/3plchecklist
- Final words
Resources Mentioned:
- FedEx Fulfillment
- E-Fulfillment service
- Ship my orders
- Warehousing and fulfillment
- Speed-commerce
- 3pl solution.co.uk
- direct-outbound.com
- Newgistics and deliverer
- firingtheman.com/3plchecklist
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