How To Find A High-Quality 3PL Partner With Low Storage Fees

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3PL Fees

3PL fees are one of the biggest reasons why people don’t invest in their businesses. There’s fear of not knowing what qualities to look for in a 3PL partner. Fear of not knowing who is legit and who isn’t. Who is truly dedicated to high-quality and who just says that they are? There’s fear of investing in a 3PL company – handing over a large chunk of your business – and having it fall apart right in front of your very eyes.

So how can you find a 3PL partner that you can trust? One that you feel comfortable investing your money in, so that you can grow your business and satisfy your customers? One that can provide A+ services but doesn’t cost a fortune?

We’ll help you get started.

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Look for business transparency

When companies are valued by their customers and when companies know they provide exceptional services, they have no need to overcharge on 3PL fees. They have nothing to prove.

And by creating loyal and trusting relationships with their clients and customers, they know they will always have consistent business.

So if they’re truly as exceptional as they claim they are, they’ll have nothing to hide. Thus, ask for full transparency. Ask about services provided and coinciding rates, and be sure they have the resources to cater to your specific business needs. If they’re a business that practices what they preach, they’ll be ready, able, and willing to provide you with everything you need.

Go ahead, vet their reputation. Read up on customer reviews to get a real perspective on their value.

Compare costs

We’re going in here with a focus on comparing costs and 3PL fees with Amazon storage, to make our explanation streamlined and easier to follow. But you can do this with any partner you’re considering.

With USA Fulfillment, it’s easy to compare costs, because our pricing structure is formatted just like Amazon’s.

But we’ll go ahead and give you a hypothetical scenario just to show you what it looks like.

Let’s say you purchased 10,000 units for 10% ($2.50/unit) of the MSRP of $25 and expect to sell 300 units per month on Amazon. At that rate, it will take 34 months to sell through the inventory. Your costs will include Amazon’s selling fees plus storage fees during peak and non-peak times. You could leave the inventory in Amazon for that full time period, or you could pull product out just before peak time and send back in at the most cost-effective time.

What’s the difference?

If you leave the products in Amazon, you will lose $15,000 over the 34 months on the product for which they paid 10 cents on the dollar.
If you move inventory to USA to avoid long term storage and send it back at the most advantageous time, you can save $90,000 and show a $75,000 profit over the same 34 months.

Better yet, if you were to drop the retail price to $20 per unit and sell 500 per month, using the USA alternative would boost your profit to $58,000 in merely 20 months’ time. Either way, our long-time storage alternative provides rich returns, indeed, on your investment.

So, if you’re interested in saving money, give us a call. We’d love to help!