What is a 3PL?

What is a 3PL?

In this blog we will explore what a 3PL means and how this type of innovative business has been utilized inside the online boutique clothing business.

3PL stands for third party logistics, however this definition doesn't encompass all of the things that a 3PL does in this day and age.

3PL businesses can perform all the following business functions:

  • Warehousing
  • Inventory Management
  • Order Processing
  • Logistics
  • Shipping and receiving
  • Packaging
  • Customer Service
  • Strategy

So basically a 3PL is an entire business? We'll not quite, but that's the idea! The point of a 3PL is to help a business by relieving them of any possible business function, leaving them to concentrate on the most important aspects of their business like sales and marketing, which in turn helps to maximize the profits.

Why Businesses Use 3PL's

1. Cost savings is a specific feature that the 3PL industry promotes. If you're a boutique that has tremendous overhead (Warehouse, employees, customer service) a 3PL might be able to do all of these aspects of your business at 30-50% cheaper. They are able to do this because they aren't just fulfilling your business operations but dozens of others in a mass/bulk cost savings operation.

2. Rapid growth is a great problem to have as an entrepreneur but being great a sales and marketing is one thing and having the business acumen is another thing. The specialists at a 3PL business can slot themselves in and allow anentrepreneur to focus on continually growing the business while they take care of the business side of it.

Companies That Use 3PL

3PL's are used for all types of business but they are ubiquitous in the influencer community where thousands of Youtuber's and Tiktoker's looking to profit off their popularity team up with 3PL companies to help develop, sell and ship merchandise that they promote.

Boutiques and 3PL

Now that you know all about a 3PL you can probably see how a 3PL company can greatly add value to a boutique by fulfilling just about all the behind-the-scenes business functions while the boutique's concentrate on sourcing styles, social media and other marketing and selling duties.

Do You Need To Sell A lot To Work with A 3PL?

Not at all, the price of a 3PL cost is proportion to how much you sell and how many duties you want the 3PL to perform for your boutique. You can utilize a 3PL for just inventory management and shipping if you like and in that case you would pay them for the space your merchandise takes up and how many items you would ship.

What Are Some Good 3PL Companies?

After some research I was able to find four great 3PL companies that I think would best suite a clothing boutique owner looking to outsource some business functionality.

Rush Order

Uphance

Shiphype

Shipwizard

Is a 3PL Right For You?

Every business is uniquely different and there really is no way of knowing wether you would benefit from a 3PL servicer. If you're interested in learning more or discussing wether a 3PL would be right for you feel free to reach out to us by email and we can talk more!

by Anna M – August 28, 2024

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