Choosing The Right Fulfillment Center

I'm Salem and wanted to give you tons of value in this message about how you can choose the right fulfillment center for your e-commerce business.

This is from 4 years of experience of running two fulfillment centers across Canada and I'm giving it to you for free. Before I get into some do-nots I want to remind you that trusting another company with your inventory isn't easy, and neither is it easy to trust them to handle your customers' orders that cost an arm and a leg to acquire from ads. So we know.

Lower prices don't mean good stuff. You own a business and you know that. If you chose poor quality materials for your product, versus if you chose high quality materials... enough said. And higher quality costs more. Now it doesn't mean you just look for the most expensive or something, but stay keen. 

Does ten dollars a pallet storage per month really make sense? If you're in Canada, and you're not out in the middle of nowhere with your warehouse, there's higher rent prices. You don't want your stuff in some remote area. You want a 3PL with a good location. If not, sometimes your customers' already-fulfilled orders might not be picked up by the carriers of that 3PL because it's isolated or something. 

That's slower shipping times for your end customer. Higher chance of getting another one of those "Where's my order?" customer email. There's more reasons but that's another time...

Fifty cents a pick? Just not possible if you have good employees that the fulfillment center pays to pack your orders. Good labor costs money. I'm sure you want your stuff handled by trained experts... not someone getting paid pennies. However - we can keep the "enterprise clients" in another convo. If you're doing a couple thousand units a month and you negotiated a good deal with your 3PL it's another story....

There's average market numbers for a reason. Two to three dollars per order pretty much is the average. That's fulfillment fees. Then shipping (if under 2 or 3 pounds) you're probably looking at ten bucks or under across Canada. 

It's your products and your inventory. Unless it's extremely busy inside during working conditions, you should be able to walk in and take a look. If your 3PL has a problem with that, it's a red flag. A trustworthy legitimate 3PL will always have their doors open for you to take a look at their products or inventory or the fulfillment process of their items. If you need to take a few units home, there shouldn't be a problem with that. 

At my current warehouses in Toronto and Vancouver, you're always welcome in. An appointment should be made of course, but, a 3PL should be transparent with their handling of your goods and orders.