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3PL can be a key to growth, but only if the solution fits your business. Here are the most important considerations before choosing a logistics partner.
When you are looking for a 3PL, it is not just about warehouse space and picking prices. It is about whether your future setup can support your growth, customer experience and need for control across systems, carriers and markets.
Here are six things you should pay particular attention to when evaluating a 3PL.
1. Can the setup scale with you?
Scalability is one of the first things you should evaluate. A 3PL should not only be able to manage your current order volume. It should also be able to keep up when volume increases, when seasons peak or when you enter new markets.
This applies to warehouse capacity, staffing, processes and shipping setup. If the setup cannot keep up, you risk bottlenecks moving over to your new partner instead of disappearing.
That is why it is worth asking whether the 3PL can:
- Scale up quickly during campaigns and peak season?
- Support you entering more and new markets, using more carriers and getting more products?
- Support more complex needs, such as dutiable shipments or special requirements for products and delivery?
A good 3PL setup should be able to keep pace with you without compromising the quality of delivery and operations.
2. Are systems, data and order flows connected?
When you outsource logistics, you should also minimise manual workflows. Orders need to flow smoothly between webshop, ERP, WMS and warehouse. Otherwise, you quickly lose some of the efficiency that was the point of choosing a 3PL in the first place.
That is why it is important to examine how the 3PL works with integrations and how modern their technical setup is. Can they work with your existing systems? Do you continuously get data back on order status, stock movements and shipments? And are the integrations built to last when complexity increases?
You should have access to the data that makes it possible to monitor developments and act in time. This could include the status of orders and shipments, picking errors, return data and other error patterns.
This is precisely where it can be an advantage if your 3PL works with Shipmondo. Shipmondo makes it possible to integrate with webshops, ERP and accounting systems and automate freight booking, so order and shipment information is imported automatically and adapted to your and their workflow. At the same time, it becomes easier to gather shipping data in one place with our analytics tool and maintain an overview. Even as the setup grows.
3. Do you have freedom in your shipping setup?
Your choice of 3PL also affects your shipping setup. If your partner only works with a few carriers or locks you into specific agreements, it can limit both the customer experience and your opportunities to optimise across countries.
It is worth clarifying:
- Can you use your own shipping agreements?
- Does the 3PL work with several carriers?
- Can they manage both national and international deliveries?
- Do you have enough flexibility to adapt the delivery method to the customer, market and product type?
If you want to retain flexibility in your shipping setup, it can be an advantage to work with a solution that brings several carriers together in one place.
That is one of the roles Shipmondo plays for many companies and 3PLs, where shipping can be managed across carriers and combined with your own agreements, without compromising the overview.
4. Is the financial setup transparent?
A 3PL agreement should be easy to understand.
The pricing structure can quickly become complex if it consists of storage rent, picking and packing, packaging, return handling, special services and various surcharges. That is why you should have a clear picture of how the costs are calculated and what triggers extra fees.
It is not only about finding the lowest price, but also about being able to understand the total financial picture and avoid unpleasant surprises when volume, products or requirements change.
Therefore, ask questions such as:
- What do you pay a fixed fee for?
- What is billed per order, per item or per activity?
- What does return handling, special packaging or unforeseen issues cost?
- How do costs develop if your volume changes?
The more transparent the setup with the 3PL is, the easier it is to forecast and manage logistics as a real part of the business.
5. Do they match your products and special flows?
Not all 3PLs are built to manage the same needs. That is why you need to make sure the partner matches your specific product requirements and workflows.
This is especially relevant if you work with products or flows that have special requirements. This could include dangerous goods, products that require customs documents, batch management, temperature-sensitive products, branded packaging or special return flows.
Therefore, ask whether the 3PL:
- Can manage the product types you work with
- Can support special requirements for labelling, packaging or documentation
- Has experience with return flows, B2B deliveries or international shipments
- Is built for standardisation or can also manage special flows
The better the match between your products and their processes, the lower the risk that logistics will become a limitation for growth.
6. Do you get a collaboration that works in practice?
Even the best setup on paper can be challenged in reality. That is why it is worth evaluating how the 3PL works when changes occur or when there is a need for new flows.
Do you have a dedicated contact person? Is the dialogue transparent? Are they proactive? And do you experience them as a partner who understands your business, or as an external supplier who only reacts when something goes wrong?
If your 3PL also works in a setup with Shipmondo, it can make the collaboration simpler because freight booking, integrations and carrier selection are gathered in a more consistent structure. This often provides a better foundation for operations, support and ongoing development.
Choose a 3PL that gives you more than warehouse space
A 3PL should not only relieve you, but also make your logistics more scalable, more transparent and easier to develop.
That is why you should not only look at price and capacity when choosing a partner. You should also assess whether the setup gives you the right integrations, the right selection of carriers and delivery options, the necessary insight and a collaboration that can last as your business develops.
And that is exactly why it can be an advantage to choose a 3PL that works with Shipmondo. When freight booking, integrations and carriers are gathered in one setup, it becomes easier to create coherence between warehouse, order flow and delivery, and easier to maintain an overview as complexity increases.
At Shipmondo, we help companies and logistics partners gather shipping across carriers, connect systems and create a more flexible shipping setup.
