5 Key Questions Brands Should Ask Before Signing a 3PL for Fulfillment This Peak Season

While holiday shopping sprees are still months away, it’s prime time for brands to evaluate their fulfillment needs. Whether a brand is in the market for a new third-party logistics (3PL) partner or plans to bring on additional fulfillment support to manage peak season, it’s critical they conduct their due diligence now.

Before diving head first into a new partnership, here are five questions brands should ask before signing with a 3PL:

Question 1: How Can You Help Our Brand Manage Inventory and Increased Demand?

To be prepared, a brand should start with seasonal forecasting and identify its anticipated inventory, fulfillment, shipping and return needs throughout the duration of peak season. With this data-backed, critical information on hand, brands can then ask their 3PL partners if they have the capacity — i.e., the staffing, infrastructure and systems in place — to manage heightened volume and demand.

The key here is ensuring fulfillment partners not only have adequate manpower and warehouse space, but are also adaptable and flexible to a brand’s needs. Take, for example, a 3PL holding a brand’s inventory in centralized warehouses across the country. From these locations, a partner could manage increased online order fulfillment and efficiently pick, pack and ship orders while being able to replenish needed inventory at nearby brick-and-mortar storefronts.

Question 2: How Will You Help Our Brand Meet and Exceed High Customer Service Expectations?

Fulfillment partnerships go well beyond warehousing and order processing. They play a critical role in a brand’s ability to enhance the customer experience throughout an order’s lifespan, from the time something is purchased to when it’s packed and delivered. That’s why it’s key brands vet a 3PL’s ability to exceed shopper expectations in often stressful, emotionally charged times.

Worldwide, some 73 percent of shoppers said customer experience plays a role in their purchasing decisions, yet less than half found companies actually succeed in delivering good experiences.

With the right 3PL partner, brands can ensure the critical last touches along the buying journey — from order fulfillment to status updates and last-mile deliveries — leave shoppers satisfied.

When things go wrong, 3PL partners should also be able to quickly connect with a brand’s customer support team to provide up-to-date data to identify and solve customer issues.

Question 3: How Can Your In-House Technology Elevate the Fulfillment of Our Peak Season Orders?

Evolution is a critical element of any 3PL operation. However, not all logistics providers have equally embraced the technologies and systems that can deliver greater efficiency and visibility into every aspect of their operation. From warehousing to last-mile delivery, data and technology can help 3PLs deliver more efficient processes and communications year-round.

If a 3PL has invested in data-backed platforms such as order, warehouse and transportation management systems, it can optimize every facet of its supply chain performance. How? By syncing up with a brand’s front-end order system, streamlining its fulfillment operations, and efficiently overseeing its logistics operations and fleet. The ability to ensure the accuracy and efficiency of each order fulfillment and delivery — including real-time inventory management, error reporting, delivery tracking and more — is crucial to peak season success.

Question 4: Do You Collect and Provide Data to Help Brands Improve Their Fulfillment Operations?

There's a vast range of metrics 3PLs collect that can help brands gauge the performance of their fulfillment and last-mile delivery operations. These include order fill rate, pick accuracy, order cycle time, on-time shipping rate, on-time in-full, delivery success rate and customer satisfaction scores. Gathering this data is just one piece of the partnership puzzle.

For brands to capture a complete picture of their end-to-end logistics operation, 3PLs also need to provide access to this data. By analyzing such data, brands can work with their 3PL partners to consistently and collaboratively keep an eye on how their logistics operation is functioning in order to make critical decisions and pivots during peak season and beyond.

Question 5: Do You Operate With a Diversified Carrier Fleet to Navigate Shifts and Disruptions?

One of the greatest strengths of a 3PL partner is its ability to stay nimble and make swift changes when seasonal demands shift and unforeseen disruptions surface. One way brands can avoid order delays and maintain customer satisfaction this peak season is ensuring their 3PL is diversifying their shipping partnerships. It’s key that brands ask their 3PLs about which shipping partners and contracts they have in place that can help fulfill their shipping needs during exceptionally busy times. It’s also beneficial if the 3PL has its own delivery fleet it can rely on.

With peak season knocking on the door, brands need to act now to ensure they have nimble, cooperative and reliable fulfillment partners in place. Asking the right questions today can give brands valuable insights into their current, and potential, 3PL partner’s future ability to handle peak season’s increased demand, ensuring order accuracy and delivery efficiency, gathering critical data, and guaranteeing shoppers are satisfied at each step of their buying journey.

Mark Ang is the CEO and co-founder of GoBolt, a technology company building the first sustainable and vertically integrated supply chain network.