Why you should add a 3PL to your shipping plan.

If you're running your own warehouse — say, on the West Coast — you probably feel like you've got fulfillment handled. Your team knows the products, the workflows are dialed in, and packages go out on time. So why would you pay someone else to ship for you?

Because you're almost certainly overpaying on freight for a huge chunk of your orders. And the fix isn't replacing your warehouse — it's adding a second one.

The single-warehouse problem.

Shipping carriers price by zone — the distance between your warehouse and the customer's address. The further the package travels, the more it costs. If you're shipping out of a single location on the West Coast, every order going to the Southeast, the Midwest, or the East Coast is crossing 4-6 zones. That's the most expensive tier of ground shipping.

And it's not just about money. Those cross-country shipments take 5-7 business days by ground, which means you're either eating the cost of expedited shipping or losing customers to competitors who deliver faster.

Here's the thing: roughly 60% of the US population lives east of the Mississippi River. If your warehouse is in California, the majority of your customers are in the most expensive shipping zones.

How a second node changes the math.

Adding a 3PL partner in the central or eastern US doesn't replace your existing operation — it supplements it. You keep shipping West Coast orders from your warehouse where it's fast and cheap. But east-bound orders route through the 3PL, cutting 2-4 zones off every shipment.

The savings compound fast. Here's what a typical split looks like for a brand shipping 5,000 orders per month from LA:

That's a potential savings of $20,000 - $22,500 per month on freight alone. Even after factoring in the 3PL's pick and pack fees, most brands come out significantly ahead — and their customers get faster delivery on top of it.

What actually gets faster.

Zone reduction doesn't just save money — it compresses transit times. When you split fulfillment between West Coast and Central US locations, the math changes dramatically:

• Orders to Atlanta, Nashville, Dallas, Houston: drop from 5-6 days to 1-2 days
• Orders to Chicago, Miami, Charlotte, Denver: drop from 4-5 days to 2-3 days
• Orders to New York, Boston: drop from 5-7 days to 3-4 days
• West Coast orders stay the same — still shipping from your warehouse

Faster delivery means fewer "where's my order" tickets, fewer returns from impatient customers, and better conversion rates on your website. Customers who see 2-3 day shipping are significantly more likely to complete checkout than customers who see 5-7 days.

You don't have to go all in.

One of the biggest misconceptions about adding a 3PL is that you have to move everything. You don't. The smartest approach is a gradual rollout:

• Start with your top SKUs. Send your fastest-moving products to the 3PL. These generate the most shipments, so they produce the most freight savings.
• Route by geography. Use simple zone-based routing: if the customer is west of the Mississippi, ship from your warehouse. East of the Mississippi, ship from the 3PL.
• Keep inventory lean. You don't need to mirror your full catalog at the 3PL. Start with 20-30% of your SKUs that make up 70-80% of your volume.
• Test for 90 days. Compare your freight costs, delivery times, and customer satisfaction scores before and after. The data will tell you whether to expand.

What to look for in a 3PL partner.

Not every 3PL makes sense as a second node. Here's what matters most when you're supplementing an existing operation:

• Central location. You already have the West Coast covered. Your 3PL should be in the central or southeastern US to maximize zone reduction. A warehouse in Mississippi, Tennessee, or Texas covers the most ground.
• No order minimums. You're testing a new strategy, not committing your entire business. Find a partner that lets you scale at your own pace without locking you into volume commitments.
• Platform integrations. Your 3PL needs to plug into Shopify, Amazon, or whatever platform you're running. Routing rules should be easy to configure so orders automatically flow to the right warehouse.
• Transparent pricing. You need to model the math accurately. If a 3PL won't give you clear per-pick, per-pack, and storage pricing upfront, keep looking.

The bottom line.

Running your own warehouse isn't a reason not to use a 3PL. It's actually the best starting position — you already understand your fulfillment operations, you know your volumes, and you have a baseline to measure against. Adding a second fulfillment node in the right location turns your biggest expense (cross-country freight) into your biggest savings opportunity.

The brands that scale efficiently don't pick one fulfillment strategy and stick with it forever. They build a network. Your warehouse handles what it handles best, and a 3PL partner covers the geography you can't reach cheaply on your own.