Why your 3PL is failing you — and how to fix it in 30 days
Late orders, inventory mismatches, mystery costs. The 30-day diagnosis-and-fix playbook for switching 3PLs without losing a shipment.
The five symptoms you're feeling right now
If your 3PL is failing you, you already know the feeling: orders shipping a day late, customers emailing about wrong items, a monthly invoice with five line items you can't reconcile, and an account manager who answers in 48 hours.
- Same-day cutoff missed twice a week
- Inventory variance > 1%
- Hidden fees over 8% of warehousing line
- No on-demand reporting
- Carrier choice baked-in (no rate shopping)
Days 1–7 — Audit the leak
Pull the last 90 days of orders, the last 3 monthly invoices, and your inventory snapshots from the WMS. Reconcile shipped × promised SLA. The number you want is the SLA-miss rate — if it's above 1.5%, you have a real problem. Then map every line item on the invoice to a service. The items you can't map are usually 4–11% of total spend.
"Most brands losing money to their 3PL don't have a bad 3PL — they have a 3PL whose incentives don't match theirs."
Days 8–21 — Shortlist + diligence
Three candidates, twelve questions each. Ask for SLA-miss numbers, inventory accuracy methodology, the rate-shopping engine they use, billing line-item glossary, and a sample export of monthly reporting. The 3PL that can produce these in one business day is the one that's run before.
Days 22–30 — Cutover
Receive inventory at the new warehouse 7 days before flipping channels. Run parallel for 48 hours on Shopify orders only. Cut TikTok, Amazon, Walmart in waves. Keep the old 3PL's stock for 21 days as backup. Total down-time: 0.
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Free fulfillment quote, no contract, no commitment. Inventory live in our Miami warehouse in 7 days.