Top 3PL Companies for Ecommerce Shipping
Partnering with a 3PL offers a range of benefits for ecommerce brands looking to scale. The problem is knowing which 3PL company is best for your specific needs.
This page will look at some of the top 3PL companies and the services they offer, along with tips for selecting the right 3PL.
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Top 11 3PL companies compared
Here’s how several 3PL companies stack up against one another at a glance.
| Warehouses | Simple Software | Partners | Shipping Discounts | Integrations | Customer Service | Best for Type of Business | |
| ShipBob | 30+ | Yes | Many | Yes | Many | Email, chat, and phone support | Small, medium, and large businesses |
| Red Stag | 2 | Yes | No | Yes | Many | Phone support only | Small businesses, heavy products |
| FedEx | 17 | Yes | Many | Yes | Limited | Phone support only | Large businesses |
| Fulfyld | 8 | Yes | Limited | Yes | Many | Phone support only | Small businesses |
| FBA | 73 | Yes | Limited | Yes | Yes | Phone support only | Amazon merchants |
| Walmart Fulfilment Services | 20 | Yes | Limited | Yes | Limited | Handled by Walmart | Walmart.com sellers |
| Radial | 12 | Yes | Limited | Yes | Limited | Large apparel brands | |
| Cold Cart | 4 | Yes | Limited | Yes | Limited | Email and phone | Perishable food items |
| Mantoria | 3 | Yes | Many | Yes | Limited | High SKU counts, Canadian sellers | |
| Printful | 3 | Yes | Many | Yes | Many | Email and chat | Print-on-demand needs |
| Fulex | 5 | Yes | Several | Yes | Several | B2B fulfilment |
Learn more about what makes ShipBob the top fulfilment provider for growing DTC brands here.
Read more about ShipBob and other fulfilment companies below.
1. ShipBob
ShipBob is a global omnifulfillment platform that partners with ecommerce brands of all sizes. ShipBob not only picks, packs, and ships orders, but allows merchants to manage inventory, forecast demand, reduce transit times, and meet (and exceed) customer expectations.
We own and operate a network of fulfilment centres across the globe. Our proprietary software integrates with leading ecommerce stores and is extremely intuitive and easy to use.
Warehouses
ShipBob has coast-to-coast warehouses throughout the US and multiple fulfilment centres worldwide (UK, Europe, Canada, and Australia), so your packages can get to customers faster than ever. ShipBob’s global network of over 50 fulfilment centres allows you to distribute your inventory intelligently, reducing shipping costs and delivery times. You can start in one warehouse and expand into additional ones as your order volume increases, or as you enter new markets.
“Because ShipBob has multiple fulfilment centres across the US, we’re able to store and ship our products close to our customers, which helps us bring down shipping costs regardless of where we’re shipping throughout the country.”
Kayleigh Christina, Co-Founder and CMO of CLEARSTEM
Software and analytics
ShipBob’s software is easy and intuitive, which makes it simple to see logistics and business performance and necessary data. More advanced reporting allows you to dig deeper into your supply chain management and fulfilment operations to see how quickly products are selling, inventory days on hand, a breakdown of transit times andaverage cart valueby shipping method selected, and more.
“The ShipBob dashboard is great for real-time information with their built-in reporting. It’s one of the things that really separates ShipBob from the rest of the solutions on the market. I’ve oftentimes leveraged the data and analytics ShipBob provides when I’m preparing for sales meetings. I can see what our top selling states are, what our average fulfilment time and cost is, how much inventory we have on hand at each fulfilment centre – a lot of different metrics that are very helpful when you’re selling B2B. ShipBob has all of that information ready for us at any time.”
Tyler McCann, Co-Founder of Taste Salud
Partners
ShipBob has partners in marketing services, taxes, freight, financing, returns, customer support, packaging, and much more to help your ecommerce business grow, expand, generate more revenue, and improve everything from your website to your customer experience. See a full list of our partners here.
Discounts
ShipBob has negotiated shipping discounts with USPS, FedEx, UPS, and DHL to cover all your domestic and international shipping needs. If you work with ShipBob, your overall shipping costs will be lower than if you tried to ship through these couriers by yourself.
“We’re saving hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, just in postage. When we first got started, we estimated over $400,000 in savings. ShipBob has helped us save 40% on total fulfilment costs.”
Adam LaGesse, Global Warehousing Director at Spikeball
Integrations
ShipBob integrates with all top ecommerce platforms and sales channels including Shopify, BigCommerce, NetSuite, TikTok Shop, and many more. Custom integrations are available via our Developer API.
Customer support
ShipBob offers comprehensive implementation upon onboarding. After, ShipBob has chat, phone, and email support to help merchants resolve any issues that may arise. ShipBob also gives mid to large-sized merchants a dedicated account manager for more strategic guidance.
“ShipBob has always worked to support our business – not to just keep it. Despite any challenges we’ve faced, we have always felt like ShipBob prioritized our business, rather than theirs. They look to actually solve our problems, and as we continue to grow and scale, it’s been helpful to know we have a partner that’s on our side.”
Tyler Stelter, COO at Storelli Sports
Who does ShipBob works best for?
ShipBob works best for ecommerce businesses that want to utilise a scalable, all-in-one fulfilment platform. Brands of all sizes can benefit from having ShipBob as a fulfilment partner, no matter if you’re shipping 300 orders per month or millions, ShipBob can help you grow.
2. Red Stag
Red Stag Fulfilment is a US-based ecommerce order fulfilment services provider. They specialize in shipping heavy items that require special handling.
Warehouses
Red Stag has two warehouse locations in the central United States.
Software
Like most leading 3PL services, Red Stag has software that’s a cloud-based system, allowing you to access your data and reports from any device at any time.
Partners
Red Stag works with several leading ecommerce platforms. They also have a deal with FedEx to slightly reduce the cost of shipping heavier items.
Discounts
Red Stag has shipping discounts available for different couriers, especially those specializing in oversized shipping.
Integrations
Red Stag integrates with leading ecommerce platforms including Shopify, Amazon, eBay and more. Custom integrations are available via an API.
Customer service
Red Stag offers phone support with some limited email support.
Who does Red Stag works best for?
Small businesses that ship heavy packages. Due to the care and costs involved with managing heavier products, Red Stag is good for businesses selling products that are outside of a small or lightweight scope.
3. FedEx
FedEx is the largest company on this list. As one of the major shipping couriers in the US, they own and operate a network of warehouses to help you get orders to customers quickly. They mainly work with large enterprise brands due to the size of their network. Small and medium-sized businesses likely won’t work with FedEx, outside of using them as a shipping courier.
Warehouses
FedEx’s warehouse network is the most diverse in the US. With a large array of warehouses spread throughout the country, FedEx uses both their warehouses and courier sorting facilities to their advantage.
Software
FedEx’s software is fairly easy to use but is more of a large enterprise platform.
Partners
FedEx has a large network of partners to choose from in addition to their in-house transportation services.
Discounts
FedEx offers discounts on shipping through FedEx’s network. There are no discounts available for other shipping couriers.
Integration
FedEx has only limited integrations available for ecommerce merchants. Brands using FedEx will need to work with a developer to integrate FedEx’s API to their ecommerce platform.
Customer service
FedEx provides phone support only through specific working hours. Email support is available but limited.
Who does FedEx work best for?
FedEx is best for very large businesses, such as Fortune 500 companies. Unless you’re making billions of dollars of revenue a year, FedEx is not the most cost-effective logistics solution for small to mid-sized merchants.
4. Fulfyld
Fulfyld was started in 2016 and focuses on ecommerce fulfilment to help brands fulfil orders in a cost-effective manner.
Warehouses
Fulfyld has 8 locations in the US, all concentrated in the Southeastern region of the US.
Software
Like most third-party logistics companies, Fulfyld’s software is fairly easy to use and integrates with your ecommerce platform.
Partners
Fulfyld is still relatively new, so its partner network is limited but growing. They currently have 12 partners, including UPS, USPS, SPS Commerce, and Quickbooks Commerce.
Discounts
Discounts are available for different couriers like FedEx, UPS, USPS, and a few other couriers.
Integrations
Fulfyld integrates with most top ecommerce platforms including Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, eBay, and others.
Customer service
Phone support is the main support option. Limited email support is also available.
Who does Fulfyld work best for?
Fulfyld could be a good option for new, small brands. With affordable pricing, you can work out a deal to help make fulfilment manageable. But as you grow, you may need to partner with a larger 3PL that specializes in scalability.
5. Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA)
Amazon offers a fulfilment service for their marketplace sellers to help ship products as they’re sold.
Warehouses
With over 70 fulfilment locations, Amazon has the largest warehouse network in the US and it’s growing every year.
Software
Amazon’s fulfilment software is fairly easy to use.
Partners
Amazon has a large partner network to work with.
Discounts
Discounts are available for different couriers including FedEx, USPS, UPS, DHL, and other couriers. In addition, Amazon’s focus on creating Amazon Shipping, their own courier network, should lead to more manageable shipping costs.
Integrations
Because of Amazon’s large partner network, some companies have built out integrations for the FBA platform to make it even easier to manage.
Customer service
Amazon offers phone, email, and live chat support.
Who does FBA work best for?
FBA works best for merchants selling through Amazon and wants to showcase the Prime badge on their listings. While there is support for other platforms, Amazon’s FBA is focused on providing the best services to merchants that heavily prioritize them. If you want to make your own website the main source of sales for your business, Amazon is not the best fit.
6. Walmart Fulfilment Services (WFS)
Brands that are selling on Walmart Marketplace can use Walmart Fulfilment Services (WFS) to ship orders to customers. WFS will also fulfil orders for items that are not sold through Walmart.
Warehouses
Walmart has many warehouses across their international markets: US, Canada, Mexico, and Chile.
Software
Walmart Fulfilment Services has a cloud-based dashboard that brands can use to track inventory, orders, deliveries, and more.
Partners
Walmart has a network of partners.
Discounts
Discounts are available for different couriers. A major selling point for Walmart Fulfilment Services is that brands can take advantage of Walmart’s large scale and supply chain.
Integrations
Walmart has an API that brands can integrate with to build their necessary tech stack.
Customer service
WFS has a Seller Centre that is designed to help brands get the support and answers they need. For more specialized support, brands can submit a case that is escalated to WFS.
Who does Walmart Fulfilment Services work best for?
Brands that want to tap into Walmart’s scale, supply chain, and ability to leverage “Fulfilled By Walmart” tags, may be interested in Walmart Fulfilment Services.
What to look for in a 3PL company
Choosing a fulfilment partner is a major undertaking. It’s important to carefully vet and select the provider that can fit your needs and help you scale.
A great 3PL should be able to check off all of these boxes:
Global network of fulfilment centres
If you plan to scale, choosing a fulfilment partner with multiple warehouses (domestically and globally) is an important factor. One of the biggest benefits of using a 3PL is being able to strategically place your inventory in their warehouses so your brand can grow.
When researching 3PLs, you will want to consider the size, scale, and locations of their fulfilment centres. One might be good enough for you now, but what about where you hope to be in a year from now — or three years from now?
To better serve customers across the world, you will want your ecommerce inventory stored closest to where your customers reside. With a global warehouse network, you can ensure coverage across the world to provide faster, cheaper shipping options. However, they need to be fulfilment experts. Unlike on-demand warehousing solutions, a 3PL should actually have experience managing fulfilment centres.
A 3PL not only needs multiple warehouses, but they should help you identify the locations that make the most sense for your customer base. If a customer in California places an order, the order should be fulfilled at a warehouse in or closest to California — not the East Coast. This reduces shipping costs and allows orders to reach customers quicker.
Intuitive software
Ease of use for 3PL software is key. Since you’re outsourcing fulfilment to another company, you should be able to get real-time updates on your orders processing, inventory, shipping costs, and more.
We’re not just talking about a basic integration and screen with a few details — find a 3PL that provides in-depth order management and inventory management, data and analytics, and easy-to-understand software that powers their network of fulfilment centres.
A vast partner network
Ecommerce fulfilment is a complex beast that affects other areas of your business. Your fulfilment provider should have partners in a handful of industries that can help you with custom packaging, inventory, finance, marketing, branding, and more.
Pre-vetted recommendations can go a long way especially when the 3PL has thousands of customers that have already faced similar challenges and used these solutions.
Shipping discounts
A 3PL shipping millions of packages a year will negotiate shipping discounts on your behalf. Since you will likely ship through major couriers like FedEx, UPS, USPS, and DHL, a well-prepared 3PL will have better shipping rates than if you were to ship by yourself. These bulk discounts help merchants reduce shipping costs (especially for expedited, 2-day, and international shipping).
It’s also recommended to do research to understand your total fulfilment cost. Some 3PLs have hidden or add-on fees, whereas others only charge for basic line items like receiving inventory, warehousing, shipping, and then any other additional services like kitting.
Integrations and APIs
Integrations are important because they automatically send order information to the 3PL and its ecommerce warehouses. Between ecommerce platforms (Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, etc.) sales channels, and marketplaces (Ebay, Amazon, Walmart, Facebook Shops and more), a tech-savvy 3PL will be building up its third-party integrations and host open APIs to allow you to build something custom.
Customer service
There are a variety of customer service approaches. With your options including email, live chat, and phone support, look for a 3PL that provides support in a way that makes sense for you and your team. Customer service should be available to help and if you’re shipping a large volume of orders, see what options you have for a dedicated point person, like an account manager.
2-day shipping
The best way to stay ahead of the competition while reducing cart abandonment is by providing 2-day shipping on orders. Some 3PLs offer 2-day ground shipping for orders being shipped close to where inventory is stored. With this solution, ecommerce businesses can add a 2-day shipping option to their store’s shopping cart. This option can be made dynamic by only displaying once a customer enters their postcode.
Returns
A 3PL can make ecommerce returns easier. By automating inventory management, you’re able to speed up the returns process and simplify it for your customers. You can provide customers with prepaid return labels and share return tracking information.
Some 3PL’s technology even supports integrations that automatically text returns updates to customers. Find the option that works best for you — whether the 3PL provides advanced services such as ironing or refurbishing or simply lets returns be mailed back to you so you can inspect them yourself.
Why ShipBob is the #1 3PL for growing DTC brands
ShipBob is the industry-leading 3PL with a global fulfilment network, specializing in DTC and B2B fulfilment. Read on for some of the ways ShipBob stands out from other 3PL companies.
Tech-enabled, from start to finish
From the proprietary warehouse management system used in every ShipBob fulfilment centre to the merchant dashboard all customers get at no cost, ShipBob’s built the best-in-class technology stack.
ShipBob’s built-in order, inventory, and shipment management tools help brands manage real-time stock levels, set reorder notification points to prevent stockouts, automatically send order tracking updates to customers, facilitate 2-day shipping, and much more.
ShipBob’s dashboard integrates with all leading ecommerce platforms, marketplaces, returns software, inventory and order management software, customer service tools, and many other ecommerce tools.
ShipBob provides data and analytics to shed light on shipping costs and transit times, sales at the SKU level, the ideal distribution model for which locations to stock to save the most money and speed up shipments, and more.
Distribute inventory to offer faster, cheaper shipping
ShipBob has 50+ fulfilment centres throughout the world. Our robust network lets you split inventory across fulfilment centres, so ShipBob’s powerful algorithms route each order to the optimal fulfilment centre that’s closest to your customer to optimise for time and money.
ShipBob’s Inventory Placement Program automatically distributes inventory throughout our US fulfilment network on your behalf, saving you time and money.
Simple pricing structure
ShipBob takes a simplified pricing structure compared to most 3PLs, bundling, packing, packaging materials, and shipping into one fee for each order. The total included free picks for each order vary by country of fulfilment and when you start fulfilling with ShipBob. You can find more information here. ShipBob does not charge for packaging materials.
“What we love about ShipBob is we have fulfilment pricing information so much ahead of time that we know exactly how much to build into our COGS. We couldn’t do this with our prior fulfilment providers. We’ve been able to build a proper pricing forecast and models, and do so much cost analysis because ShipBob makes it easy to calculate what our actual costs will be, which helps us continue to run profitably.”
Kayleigh Christina, Co-Founder and CMO at CLEARSTEM
Dimensional weight applies (taking a package’s dimensions into account to determine shipping rates, and not just weight). ShipBob also charges a monthly storage fee for each SKU in each location, as well as receiving inbound inventory as it arrives at the fulfilment centre.
There is also a one-time implementation fee for customers who don’t go through ShipBob’s startup fulfilment Growth Plan to self-onboard. Additional costs for value-added services such as kitting, returns, and B2B orders also apply and can be shared by requesting a quote.
International fulfilment
ShipBob has locations in the US, Canada, the EU, the UK, and Australia. This allows ecommerce brands to utilise a unified system to manage all inventory, orders, and customers in one platform while staying up-to-date on real-time data.
Shipping orders domestically from more countries can help drastically reduce transit times and shipping costs (as well as duties and taxes), while preventing orders from getting held up at customs. This also prevents surprise duties when customers receive orders from overseas.
App store full of integrations with your favorite tools
ShipBob’s ever-expanding app store features integrations with all leading tools, from a variety of sales channels and EDI partners, to robust order and inventory tools and returns management platforms. You can see a list of all ShipBob partners here.
ShipBob: a 3PL company that ecommerce businesses deserve
Now that you know about the top 3PL providers, you can decide which one is best for your brand. As a growing ecommerce business, you need a third-party logistics providers that can manage fulfilment for your growing business with years of experience and fulfilment solutions.
Connect with a ShipBob fulfilment expert to learn more about our scalable solution.
Request a Quote From ShipBobfrequently asked questions
3PL Company FAQs
Here are answers to commonly asked questions about 3PLs.
What are 3PL companies?
3PL companies provide services including inventory management, warehousing, and fulfilment. 3PL companies allow ecommerce merchants to accomplish more, with the tools and infrastructure to automate fulfilment.
What are the benefits of companies using a 3PL?
There are several benefits to using a 3PL. A 3PL partner can help you grow your business by giving you access to a robust fulfilment infrastructure, technology, and expertise. 3PLs take care of all your logistics needs, from inventory management to shipping, to save you time, energy, and money in the long run. With access to shipping discounts, data and analytics, and affordable warehousing, partnering with a 3PL is worth the investment.
How much do 3PL companies charge?
It all depends! But a 3PL company should provide transparent and upfront pricing. When sourcing a 3PL, be aware of hidden fees. ShipBob is a 3PL that offers transparent pricing so you know exactly what your fulfilment costs will be, including receiving, storage, pick and pack, standard packaging, and shipping. Check out ShipBob’s pricing model here.
What are the differences between 3PL and 4PL providers?
Third-party logistics companies, or 3PLs, are order fulfilment providers that pick, pack, and ship orders for brands. They have anywhere from one to several warehouses where inventory is stored, and orders are prepared for shipment. 3PLs also offer inventory and order management services for their customers.
Fourth-party logistics providers, or 4PLs, manage more of the supply chain process for brands than 3PLs. 4PLs manage relationships with and oversee functions of fulfilment partners (3PLs), freight forwarders, and last-mile logistics on behalf of the brand.
Can 3PL companies help with international shipping?
Yes! Fulfilment providers can help brands scale globally with international shipping. Working with a 3PL like ShipBob simplifies the process, as they will assist with navigating taxes, duties, and other global shipping complexities. Offering international shipping allows brands to unlock additional revenue and reach millions of potential new customers.
