Mind the Gap: How Brands Can Use 3PLs to Fill in the Missing Pieces
Following the global challenges of the past few years, a wave of new businesses emerged, reaching unprecedented sales volumes and underscoring the resilience of brands. Now, a few years later, many of these brands are experiencing continued success, driven by loyal shoppers and robust retail sales. Nonetheless, their path to success is not without its obstacles.
Consumer demands have reached new heights with convenience, omnichannel options, multiple fulfillment choices, real-time order tracking, and easy returns. Meeting these expectations places considerable pressure on emerging as well as established brands. Additionally, as brands handle higher order volumes, explore new product lines or enter new geographies, they encounter new challenges, which can distract decision-makers from core business objectives.
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This is where collaboration with a third-party logistics provider (3PL) becomes a strategic advantage. By partnering with a 3PL, a brand can offload the burden of managing new markets, data analytics and fulfillment challenges, paving the way for scalability and growth opportunities. Leveraging the 3PL’s proficiency in handling fulfillment across various stages of a brand lifecycle, brands and 3PLs can work together to establish flexible, customer-centric fulfillment strategies that align with the brand’s expansion plans. With operations entrusted to a dependable 3PL partner, brands can confidently navigate the intricate shifts of the market, while the 3PL dedicates its focus to ensuring exceptional customer experiences and fulfilling brand promises.
Data analytics assistance for omnichannel success
Data analytics plays a crucial role in ensuring omnichannel success for brands, but it also comes with challenges. The constant data flow from daily customer interactions can be overwhelming for brands, leading to a risk of missing or misusing valuable insights. In the ever-evolving retail industry, where demand peaks and troughs, this data overload can be costly.
Brands are gearing up for a peak holiday season where 67 percent of retail executives forecast that a hunt for discounts will drive the holiday shopping season, according to June’s CNBC Supply Chain Survey. The more accurately brands can predict and order inventory to meet these seasonal changes, the easier it is to control costs. Partnering with a 3PL can be a game-changer in this regard.
A 3PL can assist brands in analyzing their own data and filling in the gaps or adjusting for skewed pandemic sales with insights across a broader view of clients in similar verticals. With predictive analytics, 3PLs can transform real-time data into comprehensive reports and insights, empower brands to make informed decisions and take control of order operations. No matter how market-savvy a founder or CEO may be, predicting future demand remains a challenging task without a crystal ball. However, partnering with a 3PL can serve as a valuable “crystal sidekick.” Utilizing their expertise, a 3PL can inform brands about popular items, ensure accurate store stocking, and efficiently manage inventory to meet customer demands.
Mastering the delivery challenge
In today’s retail climate, speed of delivery has become a critical customer expectation. Over 90 percent of consumers expect two to three-day shipping, while 30 percent expect same-day delivery, according to the Retail Industry Leaders Association. This speed can be costly for brands. Fulfillment and transportation comprise significant buckets of retail operational costs, especially during times of economic uncertainty, supply chain challenges, or major shifts in a business strategy.
The unpredictable nature of consumer demands necessitates that brands have the agility, resources, and flexibility to scale staffing and operations to meet surges. Many brands are stretched too thin to fund and staff additional capacity for peak, with retail jobs down by the thousands June. Offloading this burden to a fulfillment partner can mitigate financial risk and assure the brand that its customer needs will be met no matter what the holiday season brings.
A 3PL has a vast network of fulfillment centers and employees to allow for rapid scaling in response to volume spikes. By tapping into that existing infrastructure, brands can reap the benefits of economies of scale without making costly investments on their own. Brands are able to optimize fulfillment and delivery times in a flexible manner, adjusting to fluctuating demand. Long gone are the days of recruiting your mom to help with last-minute packaging or post-office runs as brands may have done at start-up.
Boosting flexibility for packaging and sustainability
The increasing awareness of the environmental impact of plastic packaging, has prompted consumers to prioritize sustainability when making purchasing decisions. Brands are now realizing that being transparent about their product materials and manufacturing processes is crucial for retaining customer loyalty. However, for brands just starting out, finding sustainable packaging solutions that fit their budget can be a daunting task.
Eco-friendly packaging, right-sized boxes or mailers, and shipping materials made from renewable materials that are compostable, matter to the customer during the unboxing experience and are all options that can be achieved when collaborating with a 3PL. By incorporating sustainable packaging practices, brands can significantly enhance the customer experience while aligning themselves with environmentally conscious customers.
A helping hand when stretching to the next step
Times have changed from the days when consumers mailed in order forms from a catalog and patiently waited several weeks for the brand to receive that order, process the payment, and fulfill it. The rise of major online eCommerce brands has revolutionized customer expectations, putting pressure on mid-level and emerging brands to follow suit. Fortunately, partnering with a 3PL can relieve decision-makers of analytical, financial, and ethical burdens, allowing them to focus on crucial big-picture issues for long-term success.
Whether a brand is just starting or well-established, a 3PL can be a game-changer in achieving customer-driven success. By understanding each brand’s unique needs, a 3PL can offer tailored solutions to optimize fulfillment, enhance the unboxing experience, and embrace environmentally conscious practices.
In this rapidly evolving market, a 3PL serves as a valuable ally, empowering brands to navigate consumer demands and scale operations with ease. With the logistics efficiently managed, brands can dedicate resources to cultivating brand loyalty, refining products, and delivering exceptional customer experiences that set them apart from the competition.
Laura Ritchey is EVP and COO at Radial, the industry’s largest 3PL provider that offers integrated payment, fraud detection, and omnichannel solutions to mid-market and enterprise brands.
