Your 3PL Is Not A Set-It-And-Forget-It Partner

Choosing a 3PL looks pretty straightforward from a distance.

Your brand needs somewhere to store inventory, pick and pack orders, ship to retailers, and handle the physical side of fulfillment. So the team gets a few quotes, compares rates, checks locations, and tries to find a partner that can move product at a reasonable cost..

But it’s never that simple. How does the 3PL charge for receiving? What counts as a special project? Can they handle wholesale routing requirements? Are they strong with DTC orders, wholesale orders, or both? How quickly can they turn orders in high season? What information do they need from the brand to plan labor? How often should the brand check in? What happens when a retailer has specific shipping rules?

Clearly, when you drill down, it gets complicated.

What's more, fulfillment is one of the places where wholesale promises become reality, so the right partner is important. A rep can write the order. A buyer can submit the PO. Inventory can technically be available. But if the order gets stuck, ships late, misses routing requirements, or arrives after a key selling window, the retailer feels the pain.

Grant Mahan from Sunski talked about this on the Between The Drops podcast. Grant runs sales operations for Sunski, which means he is close to the systems, orders, fulfillment partners, sales team, and retailer expectations that keep the brand moving. Sunski works across wholesale, DTC, drop ship, group sales, corporate buying, and other special order channels. For Grant, fulfillment is not a side issue, it's part of the operating model.

“Our sales director, Fernando, always drilled into me: ‘We can’t miss weekends in high season.’ And what it comes down to is making sure you’re getting orders out as quickly as possible so the retailers don’t miss out on selling stuff.” Grant says. “At the end of the day, the goal for me is that retailers can depend on us when they hand that PO over to us, and they know it’s going to get out on time and accurately. That’s the most important thing.”

That's why choosing a 3PL is more than just a logistics decision. It's also a wholesale relationship decision that has a huge impact on your retailers. So what does that mean for your brand? Let’s take a look at the traps you may face when treating your 3PL as a simple fire-and-forget service, and what we can learn from how Grant and the crew at Sunski overcame those pitfalls.

3PL Pricing Can Get Complicated Quickly

Pricing is usually one of the first things brands look at when evaluating a 3PL. It's a logical place to start! Fulfillment costs affect margin, cash flow, and customer experience. Your brand needs to understand the financial impact. Unfortunately, comparing 3PL pricing isn't really as simple as looking at one rate sheet.

Grant talked about how difficult it can be to understand “getting a quote and pricing and all the nuances of how they charge you and bill you.” The base pick-and-pack fee may look fine, but the true cost depends on all the other details around storage, receiving, labeling, kitting, special handling, returns, account requirements, and rush work.

Those details are especially important for wholesale brands to understand. A footwear company shipping to specialty retailers may need case packs, carton labels, routing compliance, or order consolidation. An apparel brand may have seasonal preorder waves, split shipments, or account-specific packaging needs. A brand selling both DTC and wholesale may have two very different cost profiles running through the same warehouse.

Before choosing a partner, brands should ask how the 3PL bills for the workflows that actually happen in their business. It is also worth asking what tends to create surprise charges. A good 3PL will explain the pricing clearly and help the brand understand where complexity turns into cost.

DTC and Wholesale Fulfillment Require Different Strengths

Grant smartly points out that brands have to look for a 3PL that specializes in the type of fulfillment they need, because direct-to-consumer (DTC) fulfillment and wholesale fulfillment are different operating muscles.

“Make sure they specialize in the type of fulfillment, direct to consumer versus wholesale.” Grant says. “We’ve, over the years, had a hard time finding one that does both really well. Right now we have two partners that do wholesale well and one does direct well. And it’s also a component of diversification because of the COVID era, and having redundancy and backups, and working with different partners in different states.”

DTC fulfillment is usually built around shipping individual orders quickly to consumers. The volume may be high, but the order structure is often more predictable. A customer buys one or two items, the warehouse picks the product, packs it, and ships it.

Wholesale fulfillment has different demands. Orders may be larger, more complex, and tied to retailer-specific requirements. A retailer may need certain labels, shipping windows, routing instructions, or order documentation. A key account may have penalties if requirements are missed. A late wholesale order can also affect an entire store’s selling window, not just one consumer delivery.

This is a critical lesson for growing brands: A 3PL that works well for wholesale may not be the right fit for DTC, and the inverse applies as well. Some partners can do both, but brands should not assume that is true until they see how the 3PL handles each channel.

This becomes critical for outdoor, footwear, and apparel brands, because wholesale and DTC often run side by side. The same inventory may support independent retailers, key accounts, e-commerce, marketplaces, and drop ship. If fulfillment partners are not set up around the realities of each channel, the brand can end up creating extra work for sales ops, customer service, and operations.

The Right 3PL Gives the Business Room to Respond

A strong 3PL strategy can also reduce risk, so Sunski works with different partners in different places, which gives the business more flexibility when something goes wrong. That kind of setup can help if a warehouse has capacity issues, a regional disruption affects fulfillment, or one channel suddenly needs more support.

This does not mean every brand needs multiple 3PLs right away. For many smaller brands, one strong fulfillment partner may be the right starting point. But as a brand grows, it should think carefully about where fulfillment risk lives.

If every order depends on one warehouse, one process, or one partner, the business has limited room to maneuver. That may be fine during normal weeks, but it's going to be much harder when a high-volume season hits, a system connection breaks, or a large account needs urgent support. Ultimately, your 3PL should give your brand more confidence, not more fragility.

For a footwear brand, that could mean knowing the 3PL can handle large seasonal order waves without losing track of account requirements. For an apparel brand, it could mean having a fulfillment partner that understands preorder timing, in-season replenishment, and the importance of shipping before key retail weekends.

That is exactly how retailers experience fulfillment. If product arrives too late, the sales opportunity is likely already gone.

A 3PL Needs Active Management

Grant warns that it can be easy to assume that your 3PL provider will just do what they were supposed to do without much day-to-day involvement from the brand. But that’s a mistake.

As he put it, the mindset was: “Earlier on in my position, I was a little naive in how you manage the 3PL. A lot of it was like, they should just do what they’re supposed to do and you don’t need to talk to them very often. … We currently have standing meetings every other week with our 3PLs. They could be five minutes. They could be 30 minutes, with whatever’s going on. … The more information you give them accurately, the better that they can be, because they know what’s coming from a forecasting perspective.”

These regular check-ins create an opportunity to talk about upcoming volume, order issues, retailer requirements, seasonal timing, inventory questions, and process improvements. They also help both sides build trust before a problem becomes urgent.

For brands evaluating a 3PL, this is worth discussing early. Ask how the partner communicates. Ask who owns the relationship. Ask how often account reviews happen. Ask what the escalation path looks like when something goes wrong.

A 3PL that only communicates when there is a problem isn't going to leave your brand any room to maneuver when trouble hits.

Forecasting Helps Your 3PL Do Its Job Better

Forecasting is one of the most useful things a brand can give its 3PL. Grant was clear about this, and worked hard with Gina, Sunski’s Head of Operations, to improve their forecasting process. “She and I worked on a process to get forecasts to the 3PLs based on the channel that they’re fulfilling for.” Says Grant. “ So it took some time, but now we’re in a really good cadence. You do it quarterly and then you re-forecast when things change.”

A forecast does not need to be perfect to help the warehouse. The idea is simply to give the 3PL a better view of what is coming, especially around seasonal wholesale volume, product launches, replenishment needs, and major account orders. When your predictions for what is coming changes, you update your 3PL with the new information, so channel fulfillment remains smooth and reliable.

Good forecasting also helps the brand have better conversations internally. Sales, operations, inventory planning, and fulfillment can work from the same expectations instead of responding to surprises after they happen.

Read: How Better Forecasting Helps Make Wholesale More Flexible

This is why it’s so important to make sure that the systems running your wholesale channel actually talk to each other through a centralized platform. Grant makes that clear when he says,“I go to people and say, ‘I want this connected to our ERP.’ And they look at me like, ‘Why won’t you just connect it directly to your 3PL?’ It’s like, well, that doesn’t give us any flexibility to manage the order. What if it needs to go to a different 3PL? It needs to funnel through one platform, that central hub.”

A B2B wholesale platform, connected to your ERP, inventory system, and fulfillment workflow, should make it easier to see what has been ordered, what is available, what needs to ship, and where demand is building. The cleaner that information is, the easier it is to share useful directions with fulfillment partners.

Look for A Partner Who Understands Your Real Workflow

Before choosing a 3PL, your brand should think beyond the sales pitch they deliver and focus on the reality of your actual operating model.

• How does your brand sell?
• What channels does the 3PL need to support?
• What types of orders create the most complexity?
• What does a busy season look like?
• Which retailer requirements create risk?
• How much forecasting visibility can you provide?
• How often will your team communicate with the partner?

Create a set of questions that are specific to how your brand works. The answers any 3PL provider gives you will matter more than a generic fulfillment checklist.

A brand with mostly DTC orders should evaluate speed, consumer shipping experience, return handling, and e-commerce platform connections. A wholesale-heavy brand should look harder at routing compliance, account requirements, order accuracy, carton-level processes, and the 3PL’s ability to manage seasonal volume. A brand doing both needs to be honest about whether one partner can support both channels well.

Grant’s experience at Sunski is a good reminder that 3PL selection is not just about outsourcing warehouse work. It is about choosing a partner that can support the way the business actually sells.

The wrong partner creates hidden work for the team, but the right partner makes the entire wholesale operation more reliable.

Your 3PL Should Be a Partner, Not a Purchase

A 3PL can be a major advantage for a growing brand. It can create capacity, add expertise, improve shipping performance, and help the business scale beyond what an internal team can manage alone.

But the relationship still needs ownership.

Your brand needs to understand pricing, match the partner to the channel, share forecasts, communicate regularly, and keep improving the workflow over time. That is especially true for wholesale brands, where fulfillment has a direct impact on rep trust, retailer confidence, and sales performance.

Grant’s comments point to a simple conclusion: a 3PL works best when the brand treats it like an active operating partner.

When fulfillment runs well, retailers notice. Orders arrive accurately, replenishment moves faster, sales reps spend less time chasing problems, and in the end operations has fewer fires to put out.

That does not happen by accident.

A good 3PL helps move the business forward. A strong brand makes sure the partner has the information, communication, and process clarity needed to do the job well.

Listen to the entire Between The Drops podcast with Grant here!

FAQ: Choosing a 3PL for Wholesale Brands

What is a 3PL?

A 3PL, or third-party logistics provider, is a partner that handles fulfillment services such as warehousing, receiving, picking, packing, shipping, returns, and sometimes special projects like kitting or labeling. Wholesale brands often use 3PLs to manage inventory and ship orders to retailers, distributors, or consumers.

Why is choosing a 3PL important for wholesale brands?

Choosing a 3PL is important because fulfillment affects the retailer experience. If orders ship late, arrive inaccurately, or miss retailer requirements, the brand relationship can suffer. A strong 3PL helps wholesale brands deliver orders more reliably and support retailers during important selling windows.

What should brands look for in a wholesale 3PL?

Brands should look for a 3PL that understands wholesale order complexity, retailer routing requirements, seasonal volume, account-specific needs, inventory accuracy, and communication. Price matters, but the partner also needs to fit the way the brand actually sells.

Can one 3PL handle both DTC and wholesale fulfillment?

Some 3PLs can handle both, but brands should evaluate this carefully. DTC fulfillment and wholesale fulfillment require different strengths. DTC often focuses on individual consumer orders, while wholesale may involve larger orders, routing rules, account requirements, and seasonal shipping windows.

How often should a brand communicate with its 3PL?

A brand should communicate with its 3PL regularly, especially during busy seasons or before major launches. Sunski uses standing meetings with its 3PL partners every other week, and the meetings can be short when there is not much to review. The point is to keep the relationship active before issues become urgent.

Why does forecasting matter for 3PL fulfillment?

Forecasting helps a 3PL prepare for incoming volume, labor needs, product launches, seasonal order waves, and key account requirements. Forecasts do not need to be perfect to be useful. They give fulfillment partners a better starting point so they can plan ahead.

What are common 3PL mistakes brands should avoid?

Common mistakes include choosing based only on price, assuming DTC and wholesale fulfillment are the same, failing to share forecasts, skipping regular check-ins, overlooking billing complexity, and treating the 3PL relationship as something that can run on autopilot.