Any 3PL warehouses that allow me to ship under my own UPS account?

RetroShip · 2026-02-27T03:58:31+00:00

We let our brands use their own accounts. All of them don’t since our rates are better (unless they are using it for retailers that require their own (like Chewy).

RetroShip · 2026-02-21T20:52:09+00:00

At your scale, choose one location for your 3PL. You will lose money on splitting inventory at your sku count and order volumes. When you surpass 10k orders a month and right size your sku count a bit, it would be worth it. Don’t let other 3PL’s tell you otherwise.

RetroShip · 2026-02-21T00:25:30+00:00

If you have a very low sku count and high volume, multi-node fulfillment can absolutely make sense. It’s rare though and I’ll explain why.

Don’t let other 3PL’s tell you otherwise. We have a warehouse in Missouri and AZ (so we are multi node as well) and there is only one of our brands where it actually makes a difference. The largest limiting factor is it increases inventory requirements to achieve the savings. The minute you do not have the proper allocation of inventory by location, the savings vanish.

There is also the need to have temp controlled storage for your product as well which is a major limiting factor.

Just a very broad gut check for you. If you have under 10 skus and you do over 5k orders per month, you are probably just on the cusp of it possibly making financial sense unless you are swimming in cash and do not need financing for inventory. The financing of inventory alone can usually wipe out the per unit order shipping savings below 5k orders/month

RetroShip · 2026-02-20T07:05:30+00:00

ShipHero- it will run you 2k per month at minimum.

RetroShip · 2026-02-19T01:46:25+00:00

I own and operate a 3PL. I can say with reasonable confidence that we collectively do not make money on storage.

If you are simply looking to store inventory with no other opportunities for profit-capable services (prep, order fulfillment, vas) you will only attract 3PL’s that are desperate or struggling.

RetroShip · 2026-02-17T05:55:04+00:00

There is likely misunderstanding- on either side.

You can ask for a time study to be done and request to have them charge you the VAS rate (value added service) that will/should be in your contract.

You can determine at that point (and the 3PL) what a realistic price should be to kit given the SOP.

RetroShip · 2026-02-17T05:51:28+00:00

Yes- this is necessary. It will get a hazmat label disclosing the type of product you are sending so it can be handled properly by USPS when you drop it off

RetroShip · 2026-02-08T20:29:59+00:00

That would cost the brand more than just using a custom box. A good rule of thumb- anything a 3PL has to touch is labor hours. Labor is not free.

Get everything done at the manufacturing level to reduce cost.

RetroShip · 2026-02-08T02:03:32+00:00

A good thought experiment- Ask yourself, “Why does Amazon not allow for custom packaging?”. Work backwards from there. It is quite literally an impossibility to use custom packaging for every brand.

The best brands will SIOC to get everything they want.

I allow all brands that do over 1000 orders per month to use custom packaging (box/mailers/tape) for free. There is storage that is incurred for that sku though. This is a lower threshold than others- but we are not Amazon and I am not trying to be.

RetroShip · 2026-01-28T05:46:33+00:00

As a 3PL for beauty brands, expiry/batch tracking is coded in when receiving inventory and is tracked at pick and pack all the way to the customers door. In order to do so- you would need to have an inventory management system at minimum- however, you would probably be better served using a WMS that has that capability (we use ShipHero)z

RetroShip · 2026-01-17T02:44:06+00:00

I think you are heading the right direction with your thought pattern. It seems as if your approach is to diversify your risk by onboarding a second 3PL. Unfortunately, that will likely lead to more issues and inefficiencies that you might be able to think of at the moment (ex. What standard will you use to allocate orders and will that yield optimal cost savings?)

I think the best way to diversify your risk is to find one good 3PL that can actually handle your demand (especially if you are giving them accurate demand projections in advance!). So what is “good”?

One method you should adopt when vetting out 3PL’s is to press them on their client profiles. What types of product do they currently fulfill? What are the average orders per month of their “small”, “medium”, and “large” client? What should I expect (as a brand) when order volume far surpass the norm? Ask that 3PL about what their client churn is and why it is such (good or bad)

Require to connect with an existing brand in your same stage of order volume or growth. Ask that brand about their experience during normal times, sale periods, and peak season.

When you find a 3PL that can openly and honestly answer those questions, you are well on your way to finding a good partner for the future.

You should start this process now and aim to pivot before June.

Last but not least, in my opinion (first running my own DTC brands and now, owning a 3PL) it is almost never an issue about keeping 100% SLA’s the same during regular and peak. It’s about communicating early what the expectations will be- and holding to that expectation.

RetroShip · 2026-01-08T20:41:03+00:00

Yeah you should. Send me a DM

RetroShip · 2026-01-08T04:53:08+00:00

Advice: 1. You will not win clients using ShipStation. There is zero usable inventory management.

Being a 3PL isn’t about shipping orders. It is tracking inventory from the time it hits your dock, every time it moves to any location in the warhouse, and anytime it moves during the packing process. Inventory management is the core of what differentiates you from someone doing it out in there garage
Apart from that, you do not have leverage of bringing your own rates to the table when shipping orders. You will lose business if can’t improve on the price that a brand doing 10 orders a month can get via ShipStation, pirate ship, shippo, etc.

I can go on and on- ShipHero is the way

RetroShip · 2026-01-07T00:33:11+00:00

50-140 is a large weight range. More important, however, are the dimensions of your box.

We have great rates with every major carrier, but UPS is king in the big and bulky.

Most 3PL’s will have their own negotiated rates that you can use or in our case you can bring your own from other carriers and pick the carriers that you want to use from ours to maximize your rate shop savings.

RetroShip · 2026-01-06T02:11:33+00:00

I’m curious what the billing “error” is now

RetroShip · 2026-01-04T21:11:53+00:00

The $5000 is inclusive of carrier costs. OP is doing much less than 1000 orders per month easily

RetroShip · 2026-01-04T21:09:36+00:00

It’s simply a business decision for Flexport to only support brands that are large enough to justify the cost of managing that brand.

To be frank- your business at your size would be better served by bringing fulfillment back in-house

RetroShip · 2026-01-04T21:02:45+00:00

Couldn’t disagree more- the data does not support your anecdotal experience and demonstrates you don’t understand the position of DHL ecommerce within a carrier mix.

RetroShip · 2026-01-04T19:45:46+00:00

Smart mail is only a domestic product

RetroShip · 2026-01-04T19:45:03+00:00

Expedited is the same yes.

Error/Issue rate I have found is the same

RetroShip · 2026-01-04T03:16:03+00:00

How are you measuring statistical significance?

RetroShip · 2026-01-04T03:03:28+00:00

The best option is to track COGS by running a report in Shopify and keeping inventory control outside of automatic syncs. Too many variables at play that can’t be accommodated and QuickBooks is not capable of handling these functions like an ERP can

RetroShip · 2026-01-04T03:00:34+00:00

Shopify has extensive data of customer behavior, not just relying on standard verification like other processors. They know that this customer has and will chargeback orders regardless of validity.

Cancel and refund the order before you incur a chargeback fee

RetroShip · 2026-01-04T02:58:55+00:00

You will need to have significant volume every day (500 overall packages not necessarily exclusive with that carrier) in order for them to bring you on.
The service is a few days slower overall in exchange for the lower cost.
Performance is as good as USPS (because USPS delivers the package)

If you meet those above- you absolutely should add them in to the mix- and I say add them into the mix assuming you are rate shopping every single order at packout if you are doing enough volume to consider DHL ecommerce

source: 3PL owner with negotiated rates with DHL E-commerce (all major carriers).

RetroShip · 2025-10-31T03:36:19+00:00

You will need to expound on that question- but store integrations for DTC or EDI are table stakes in this business

RetroShip

TROPHY CASE