Name: Taking control of your logistics without the 3PL drama
Uploaded: 2025-02-19T18:46:08.498Z
Duration: 30 min 8 s
Description: Taking control of your logistics without the 3PL drama

Transcript for "Taking control of your logistics without the 3PL drama": Hello, everyone, and welcome to our webinar. This is part of the Saltbox one zero one series. And today, we're talking all about taking control of your logistics without the three p l drama. A little bit of housekeeping before we get started. We would love you to light up the chat. We really like engagement. We like to know that there's still a pulse out there. So So if you could just start by, chatting where you're joining us from, maybe shout out your brands, that would be awesome. Kick us off there. And throughout the presentation, as you have questions, please put those in the q and a section or in the chat, and we will make sure to address those at the end. The slides and the recording will be shared out with all people that registered, and you can feel free to share that with other members of your team and have it on hand for later. And so let's dive in. Alright. So today's agenda, we're gonna talk about why traditional three p l's are not necessarily the best fit for small businesses. We're gonna talk a bit about cost and some of the challenges with traditional three PLs. We'll talk about alternative solutions to help you maintain control and a little bit more about Saltbox and what we provide. Your speakers today are me. I am our VP of marketing here at Saltbox. My background is actually in software as a service, and there are a lot of parallels with SaaS and ecommerce. So I often approach that from that lens. And, of course, I'm a marketing wizard being in marketing for over ten years. And then my colleague, Monica, is our content marketing guru here at Smallpox, and she has a lot of industry experience. She comes from Shopify and Shipt and knows a lot about ecommerce and logistics overall. So that's your team today. We're gonna be providing you with actionable insights that you can take back to your business. And now let's get into the content. Awesome. Thanks, Olivia. So I'm gonna be chatting through today the three p l problem, so why it doesn't work for small businesses. Olivia mentioned some of the pain points that we're gonna cover, but this section is gonna be all about why a three PL might not be the right fit for your business. So a lot of small businesses we've heard struggle with three PLs due to lack of flexibility. When demand shift, rigid contracts and fixed shipping schedules make it hard to adapt. So customer trust is on the line whenever you're at a three p l, and these service disruptions and delayed deliveries can really hurt your brand. So moving into the first issue that we see in here is lack of visibility and control. So the main thing we hear from a lot of folks who have transitioned from three p l's to Saltbox is that three p l's handle your inventory, and that's great, but you don't get full insight into your operations with this. So like I said in the previous session, your products are just on a shelf in the middle of a huge warehouse. You're not working from that warehouse. You're not there day in and day out to see how your inventory is being dealt with by the folks on-site, and this is a huge issue for a lot of brands. We've heard issues like, you know, products being shipped that weren't their own. We've heard about inventory being lost, being damaged, and you not having that oversight is just a really big issue. And then next, you have unexpected delays. So a lot of misplaced products like I just mentioned or even incorrect inventory counts. Again, you're not there to count your inventory on a regular basis. You only see the numbers that are in the system that are being shown to you. That's a huge issue if you're trying to keep your bottom line, at a reasonable level, and then also limited ability to customize fulfillment packaging or branding. A lot of three p l companies will charge you an additional cost to have any custom inserts or any labels on your boxes that show your branding, and this isn't ideal if you're a brand that's trying to maintain control over your image. You really wanna have access to those features. Moving into the second issue, we see hidden costs and lack of transparency. So a lot of the upfront pricing at a three p l may seem reasonable, but you usually get additional fees that pile up, especially during peak seasons. So high storage costs, pick and pack fees per item, and order minimums are really going to eat into your cost every single month at a three PL. And then lastly, we have small businesses often end up overpaying for inflexible services. So unlike at a co warehousing facility, at a three p l, you're usually locked into whatever they offer you. So whether you need that service or not, you have to pay for it every single month. Or depending on what your contract is, it could be a yearly cost. The third thing we have is inflexibility of one size fits all approach. I know this seems like it wouldn't be an issue. However, scaling up or down is very, very difficult when you're at a three p l. So, you know, you usually have your inventory fluctuate during peak seasons or maybe your business has slowed down a little bit. You're gonna face frustrations with your rigid three p l contract. You won't be able to, import or sorry. You won't be able to inbound your inventory easily. You won't be able to get your inventory out of the warehouse easily. They make it really difficult depending on your contract. Second, many three p l's require long term contracts, like I just mentioned, which is risky for growing businesses. So say you run into a snag and your inventory isn't coming in and you can't really ship anything out of the three p l right now, you still have to pay for that monthly fee, which is, again, risky for your growing business. You're gonna be losing money, and you're gonna be burning a hole in your pocket. And then lastly, limited ability to pivot quickly. So in response to those demand fluctuations, you're not gonna be able to inbound new inventory. You're not gonna be able to get inventory out of the warehouse like I mentioned. You're kind of in a stagnant state when you're at a three p l. And then lastly in this section, we have core customer service and communication. So as a small business, you wanna make sure your customer service and communication is in tip top shape. And at three p l's, they operate at scale. So this means that small businesses are often deprioritized. So you might have slower, service level agreements when you're at a three p l. You might have an issue with a product being lost, and you're trying to control what happened with that product, and you're communicating over your customer service line. However, the three p l isn't communicating back with them. You are. So you don't necessarily know what happened. You don't know where the product ended up. You have no idea what's going on, and your three p l typically doesn't know either. So in addition to that, you're gonna have a lack of direct communication like I mentioned. So this makes problem solving difficult, but, also, service disruptions can, damage your customer trust. So like I said, those service level agreements, they have them. However, whether or not they always reach those agreements is it's, you know, still up in the air. And then I wanna go through a little bit of a customer story while we finish up this section. So we spoke with Shanique Alexander. She's a founder and CEO of Ripple Effect, and a lot of what we heard from her was that she had a lack of flexibility with shipping when she was at her three p l. So she was at a big three p l before she came to Saltbox, and the reason that she came to Saltbox is because she felt like she was stuck on the three p l schedule rather than having the control that she needed over her business. Also, I talked a little bit about that attention to detail, and that was just missing at the three p l. So she wanted to have her brand label on the packaging. She wanted to have, sorry, her brand logo on the taping of the packaging, and that was missing at the three p l. She could add that service, but it was an additional cost that didn't fit within her budget. And she really mentioned that she pours a lot of love and care into her brand and product, and, unfortunately, her three p l just didn't match that same level of commitment. So we were excited to have her come over to Saltbox and be able to give her that control that she was looking for. And now I'm gonna pass it to Olivia to talk about the alternative, which is a smarter, more flexible approach. Olivia, over to you. Thanks, Monica. So, like Monica has been talking about, there have been lots of, members that come to Saltbox after having either a really bad experience that sort of almost put their business and reputation in jeopardy, or they just it wasn't hitting the mark, for many of the reasons Monica talked about. So we're just gonna talk a little bit about your options as a growing brand and the fact that you do not have to choose between do it yourself, fulfillment, or getting your own warehouse and the more rigid traditional three p l. A hybrid hands on logistic model can actually give you the best of both worlds, and it's all about scalability, growing with your business rather than locking you into a one size fits all model. So talking about co cowearhousing, Saltbox is a pioneer of cowearhousing. And on our last one zero one webinar, if you caught that, we talked all about just what is co cowearhousing and why should you consider it. But just a quick recap, what you get with a co warehousing space versus a traditional three p l where your products are kind of just on the shelf, you have a dedicated warehouse space within a shared common space. So you're getting a lot of those scale benefits and all of the things you need to fulfill and ship orders on-site, but you're not locked into a one size fits all approach. It's your unique business within a broader network of other businesses. And so with that, you have control over your inventory and your fulfillment and, of course, the customer experience, things like the packaging, like we talked about with Shanique. You also can be as hands on or hands off as you want. So, you know, you're able to come and see the product, but that doesn't mean you have to stay on-site every single day. Members use us in different ways. Some people have their team in there working all the time, and, they are the ones fulfilling the orders and actually doing the the execution. But you can also hand it over to Saltbox. We have an on-site logistics team. We call it eforce. They can help streamline your operations. We have many different services, which you can check out on our website. The best part about this too is that you don't have to commit to it, like, for a long term contract. You can scale it up or down. It is a la carte. The other thing about co warehousing is that you aren't gonna get any hidden fees. You're just gonna pay for the space and the services you need. At Saltbox, we have month to month contracts. We have six month contracts. We have year contracts. You can determine what's best for you at the life cycle of your business. The pricing is scalable and based on your actual business growth. So you can get a bigger suite if you're doing more order volume, maybe during peak season, and then you can downsize to conserve costs in your slower parts of the year. We know that some businesses are very seasonal, and so that's a benefit of co warehousing. And, again, you have that shared logistics infrastructure. So you're getting access to enterprise level services and support that you would get at a three p l, but at a lower cost. We're using those economies of scale across the 12 Saltbox locations, 800 plus members, and we will continue to add locations, which will get you those scale benefits without the rigidity. And then one big thing about Saltbox that is actually in the top tier of things that people love about co warehousing in Saltbox versus other solutions are that you have a community on-site, both with your peers, so other businesses that you're working nearby and next to and interacting with every day, and also with the staff that is on-site to help you with anything you need. A lot of businesses coming to Saltbox are new to the growth stage, and they're not really familiar with the pains and the challenges of operations. And so having somebody on-site to help you and, you know, it's something as simple as, like, helping with how to package things up properly or pickup times. It's really, really an excellent benefit. So, this is also I wanted to say, like, not only is it organically happening at SALTBox, but we're facilitating that. So through community events, lunch and learns, things like that, you get that as a perk of your membership versus being a little bit maybe alone on an island when you outsource to a three p l. And lastly, you'll get the tech and tools that you need to stay in control. We integrate with all major platforms. Most of our members are on Shopify. We have data driven inventory management solutions and a shipping platform that you can tap into emerging carriers and save up to $4 per shipment on average. So really great burn benefits on the tech side as well. Awesome. Yeah. A lot of what we offer at Saltbox, we've heard folks say that, especially coming from a three p l, is they get that control. They love the community aspect. We actually have two members who we highlighted in the last session who met at Saltbox, and then were able to create a gift box set that integrated both of their businesses and both of their brands. So really awesome to see the community side of things and hear from our members that that's something they love. So now I wanna walk into the Soulbox in action section, how we help businesses win. So Soulbox, like Olivia mentioned, is built for modern ecommerce brands that need control and flexibility. We provide co warehousing, fulfillment support, and even shipping solutions without the without the traditional three p l headaches that you typically get. So, again, you stay hands on while we handle the heavy lifting of everything. So what I like to say, and this is something that I started to coin as our content marketer here, is that Soulbox is the three p l alternative for small businesses. So where you get those rigid contracts here, you get a community. You get flexibility. You get all the things that you've been dreaming of in one space. So whenever you hear a three PL alternative, you'll think of Saltbox, and you'll know that's the solution I want. That's where I wanna go. And then I wanna highlight two other members that I have spoke with whenever I was on-site at a couple of our locations. So these real member stories show that businesses have made the switch from a three p l successfully, and Cowher Housing has just been working so much better for their business. So the first business that I spoke with was a small activewear brand, and they're at our Dallas one of our Dallas locations. And they said that as a small shop with a handful of orders each day, working with the three p l was bleeding us dry. So they had outrageous costs for basic shipping, and that nearly put them out of business even. So at Saltbox, you don't get these outrageous costs. You like Olivia said, you have access to our parcel platform, our shipping platform. And with that, you'll be able to see carrier rates directly in the platform. You'll be able to compare rates between major carriers as well as emerging carriers, and local carriers. So you're really in control of the cost. We get to pass that along to our members with the broader community using the platform. And then second, this brand, actually, I used to work with at my former company at Deliver, And I learned this when I was on-site in DC talking to them, and I was like, yeah. I come from Shopify, Deliver. And they were so surprised because they had their inventory there back in the day. And what they talked about with me is that they had a lot of discrepancies and issues when they were at this three p l. So from customers receiving items that weren't even from their brand, to lost packages, They were constantly dealing with incorrect shipments and just having to constantly be in contact with the three PL's, support team to get these resolved was not ideal for their business. And then I love what they say at the end here. They said switching to Saltbox has been a game changer. So really being able to take back control of their inventory, control of their customer experience really changed the game for the small business. And, Olivia, I think it's back over to you to talk about a day in the life at Saltbox. Yeah. So we get this question a lot, so we felt like we would go through it on our one on one series. Like, what is a day in the life at Saltbox? Well, you're going to make sure with Saltbox, what we do is that make sure that our logistics work for you, not against you. So things like you're gonna be dropping your packages off to the loading dock. You don't have to wait. There's no restrictions. We have every carrier there, including the emerging carriers that you can utilize by you, hopping onto our parcel platform. You'll be able to track your shipments, store inventory, and scale up when you need to. And if you want, you can interact with the community. There's plenty of common spaces where you'll organically have these conversations. A lot of members also even set up, like, peer groups. That's something Saltbox also can help facilitate. And your team or the Saltbox staff that you choose to hire can help pick, pack, ship orders with ease, leveraging any support that you need. So it's really just a place where you can get shipped done as we say. So call to action. If you are thinking of making the switch, if you are from a three p l and you're looking into alternative options, If you've never outsourced your fulfillment or have utilized a warehouse before, come check us out by getting a tour. That's the best way to decide if Saltbox is a good fit for you. We have so many locations. You can view them on our website. So, you also can visit saltbox.com/3pl-comparison, the link's right here in the slide, to really dive in or maybe share, a visual infographic with someone on your team, as you're deciding what to do operations wise. And we'll also put the tour link up while we go through q and a. I'll share that in the chat, and I think Monica is able to put up a banner of some sort with Goldcast, a really nifty tool. But we're gonna move into q and a now, which we will answer in the chat. Thanks, guys. We will leave the q and a up for a little bit more, and I'll also make sure that the tour link is here so you can book that if you desire. But I did wanna thank everyone for tuning in and learning a little bit about your three p l alternative. We're here if you have any questions in the meantime, and I hope everyone has an awesome week.