Optimize your ecommerce fulfillment with a third-party logistics provider

When you partner with a 3PL, the first step in the ecommerce fulfillment process is to send your inventory from your manufacturers or suppliers to storage facilities—warehouses, distribution centers, or fulfillment centers—in your 3PL provider’s network. That way, you can ensure you have enough stock on hand to satisfy customer demand.

Some 3PLs, like Amazon Supply Chain Services (ASCS)—a complete E2E supply chain solution that includes a suite of services from inbound transportation to, warehousing, fulfillment, and last-mile shipping, can work with you to ship your inventory to their storage facilities.

Once your shipment arrives at those facilities, your 3PL will work to minimize “dock-to-stock” time (the amount of time it takes for your inbound shipment to be received by your 3PL, entered into their inventory management system, and stored in their facilities), The goal is to get your products on the shelf and ready to be shipped out to customers as fast as possible. Inventory, after all, is a cost for your business, and the sooner you can convert that cost into revenue, the better.

The second step in the ecommerce order fulfillment process is to store your inventory within your 3PL’s network of storage facilities until it’s ready to be sold to customers. The key to successful warehouse storage is to keep just the right amount of stock in the right locations at the right times—so that you can meet demand, prevent stockouts, and minimize inventory costs.

If you’re looking for short-term storage for products that you would like made available for sale immediately or in the near future, you would probably want to store your goods in your 3PL’s fulfillment centers to ensure that when the orders come in, your products are ready to be shipped out immediately.

On the other hand, if you need to stockpile and store your inventory for an extended period of time—so that you can use it to fulfill customer orders during the holiday season or other peak periods, or in case of unexpected demand spikes, you might opt to keep your stock in your 3PL’s upstream warehouses.

No matter which of your 3PL’s facilities you use to store your inventory, you will want to ensure that your 3PL offers storage options as part of their ecommerce order fulfillment services that are:

• Accurate: Your 3PL should have a robust warehouse management system in place, which will give you real-time visibility and control over inventory levels in their facilities and ensure the accuracy of inventory counts and checks.
• Cost-effective: 3PLs utilize different pricing models for storage—some (like ASCS and its Multichannel Fulfillment service) charge by cubic foot, while others charge by bin or pallet, stock keeping unit (SKU), or a combination of these or other metrics.

Also, some 3PLs, like ASCS, offer a flexible, pay-as-you-go arrangement for storage, while other 3PLs require you to enter into long-term contracts.

It’s critical that when selecting a 3PL, you do the research and find a provider that offers a cost structure for storage and other ecommerce fulfillment services that suits the needs of your business.

You should also look for a 3PL provider that has an extensive network of warehouses and fulfillment centers in those locations where your customers are based. This will enable them to strategically position your inventory so it’s as close as possible to your customers—thereby reducing shipping times and operation costs. ASCS, for example, has a robust network of fulfillment centers around the world that you can utilize to store your goods.

The next step in the ecommerce fulfillment process is order processing. Once an online order has been placed by a customer, your 3PL will process the order, which involves:

• Picking: Your 3PL will physically pick the products ordered off the warehouse shelves using either warehouse staff or automation tools and technologies like robots. They’ll then be transported to order packing stations.
• Packing: Your 3PL’s team will pack your products in the right packaging so the order is ready to be shipped out to the customer. Your 3PL will strive to ensure your products are packed in a manner that meets your company’s requirements, reduces the risk of damage during shipping, and minimizes the size of the parcel (and the cost of shipping it).
• Shipping: After your orders are picked and packed, they’re ready to be shipped to your customers’ doorsteps. Some 3PLs, like ASCS, can provide shipping services, while others can connect you with carriers and often help you to negotiate discounted shipping rates.
  
  You’ll want to make sure that the 3PL you are working with offers fast, reliable shipping services. ASCS’ Multichannel Fulfillment (MCF) service, for example, can help deliver your orders as quickly as one day after their ship date.
  
  The importance of shipping speed and reliability to the growth of your ecommerce business cannot be overstated—according to recent research, consumers ranked on-time delivery as the most important factor in their delivery satisfaction, higher even than fast delivery.

Throughout the order processing phase, a strong 3PL partner will help you optimize the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of your picking, packing, and shipping operations—so that you can give your customers a first-class delivery experience.

The final step in the ecommerce fulfillment process is one which in most cases is not necessary: reverse logistics (or returns management). For ecommerce companies, effectively handling returns is critical factor in preserving customer trust and loyalty. Your 3PL can help you streamline the entire reverse logistics process – from providing customer service to handling the shipping of returns to evaluating returned goods and determining if they should be added back into your inventory pool or disposed of.

By leveraging the deep expertise and experiences of your 3PL’s team as well as their logistics network and resources, you can boost the speed, efficiency, and accuracy of your end-to-end order fulfillment process and drive greater operational excellence. With a 3PL like ASCS as your provider, you’ll have access to the complete suite of its services, so you can add additional support like ground freight or warehousing to help you scale with ease and improve efficiency without the operational headache of managing an additional vendor relationship.

By entrusting your fulfillment operations to a 3PL, you can improve the efficiency of your business in other areas by allowing your team to focus on your core competencies, such as product development and sales and marketing.

Some 3PLs utilize the latest and greatest warehouse automation and robotics technologies that can automate and optimize your order fulfillment operations and the most sophisticated software systems for inventory management, order processing and tracking, returns management, and analytics and reporting. ASCS, for example, has access to a fleet of industrial robots as well as real-time supply chain intelligence and advanced inventory forecasting technology. By working with providers that use the latest and most advanced technology, you gain access to these systems as well.

Your 3PL will work with you to seamlessly integrate their back-end systems with your ecommerce sales channels, order management systems, and other back-end systems you use—so your ecommerce order fulfillment process runs swiftly and smoothly

Partnering with a 3PL can help you improve your performance across all your key performance indicators (KPIs) for order fulfillment including click-to-delivery speed, on-time performance, undamaged package delivery rate, inventory and order picking accuracy, cost per unit shipped, dock-to-stock time, and more. ASCS’ MCF service, for example, has a 96.4% average on-time delivery rate for all MCF orders worldwide,¹ and offers deliveries seven days a week.

¹_{Based on all orders placed and delivered between October 2024 and September 2025, and measuring the percentage of orders that were delivered on or before the estimated delivery date generated upon order confirmation.}

By enlisting the ecommerce fulfillment services of a 3PL provider, you can increase your bottom line by:

• Eliminating the need to hire in-house logistics experts and make capital-intensive investments in logistics infrastructure (such as warehouses) and equipment (such as forklifts)—and thereby reducing overhead costs.
• Driving efficiency across your fulfillment operations—and thereby cutting storage, shipping, and other costs. For example, by working with ASCS’ MCF service, beverage retailer Poppi decreased its order fulfillment costs by 30%.

Partnering with a 3PL can enable you to ensure an exceptional experience for your customers from online checkout to delivery, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and increased retention rates.

A 3PL can help you create a consistent customer experience across the various channels that you sell through. If, for example, you want to offer customers the same Amazon Prime shopping benefits they know and love, like fast, free delivery and a seamless checkout experience, on your DTC site, then you can do so by using Buy with Prime, a feature of MCF.

Also, by enabling you to offer faster shipping speeds, a 3PL can actually help you increase customer conversion across all your online sales channels. Research shows that 22% of abandoned online shopping carts are due to the fact that shoppers thought the shipping options were too slow.

Engaging a 3PL to handle your ecommerce fulfillment can help you power the long-term growth of your business and scale as you reach new markets. Your 3PL partner will work with you to handle supply chain volatility and spikes in demand during peak shopping periods and will also assist you in identifying and pursuing opportunities for expansion across new sales channels, product lines, and markets.

With ASCS as your 3PL partner, for example, you’ll have access to Amazon’s global fulfillment network, which features hundreds of warehouses and fulfillment centers around the world, so you can strategically place your inventory where it’s closest to your customer base—or position you to expand into new markets. Wherever your ecommerce business journey takes you, your 3PL provider will be there with you every step of the way.