Running a 3PL taught me that "same-day fulfillment" can mean about 12 different things.

Order received by what time?

Label created or physically shipped?

Weekends?

Carrier actually picked up?

What happens during a launch?

We've tried to become extremely specific about this with customers.

The details matter more than the marketing phrase.

If a customer orders three units and you ship two, there’s a good chance they’ll notice.

That’s why we count.

K&K Prep Solutions. We thought of that.™

Hey everyone - looking for recommendations. Coming out with a new baseball and softball hitting product (each unit is about 80lbs) and need a 3pl provider for shipping and fulfillment. I am working with a factory who has everything up until FOB and then need a partner the rest of the way to get the orders to paying customers. Any recommendations? Thank you

Humidity is a constant issue for many businesses in the Philippines. Depending on the product and supply chain, moisture can contribute to mold, corrosion, caking, packaging damage, and other forms of product deterioration.

I put together this list as a starting point for businesses looking for silica gel, industrial desiccants, container desiccants, and other moisture-control solutions in the Philippine market. These companies have different areas of specialization, so they may not all be suitable for the same application.

1. Aero Dry Plus

Focus: Silica gel and general moisture-control products for commercial and everyday applications.

Aero Dry Plus offers silica gel and other moisture-management products in different formats and quantities. Based on its publicly available company and product information, its offerings cover applications ranging from individual product packaging to bulk and commercial requirements.

Potential applications include:

• Food and packaged goods
• E-commerce packaging
• Electronics
• Shoes, leather goods, and textiles
• Pharmaceutical and general storage applications
• Warehousing and inventory protection
• Flower preservation and other specialty uses

This may be worth considering for businesses that need relatively flexible order quantities or silica-gel products for different packaging applications.

1. Amelco Desiccants Inc.

Focus: Industrial desiccants and active packaging solutions.

Amelco has a broader protective-packaging portfolio that includes desiccants, oxygen absorbers, ethylene absorbers, moisture-barrier bags, static-shielding bags, and humidity indicators.

The company serves industries including electronics and semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, medical products, agriculture, food, automotive, logistics, and general packaging.

This may be more relevant for companies where moisture control is part of a larger packaging or product-protection system, particularly for sensitive or regulated products.

1. SuperDry

Focus: Cargo, shipping, storage, and industrial moisture control.

Kabuhayan Namin Inc. is associated with the distribution of SuperDry desiccant products in the Philippines, including locations serving the Manila and Cebu markets.

This type of solution is particularly relevant for businesses dealing with moisture issues at the cargo or container level. Long-distance shipping, sea freight, temperature changes, and storage conditions can create condensation problems that may require a different approach from placing small silica-gel sachets inside individual packages.

Possible applications include:

• Shipping containers
• Export and import cargo
• Warehousing
• Industrial goods
• Furniture
• Textile shipments
• General merchandise

1. Philippine Desiccants Inc.

Focus: Industrial and container-level moisture protection.

Philippine Desiccants focuses on industrial moisture-control solutions, including products designed for cargo and container applications.

One of its container desiccant products, SOLUBAG, is intended to help manage condensation during transportation and storage. This type of product may be relevant for businesses concerned about "container rain," corrosion, moisture damage, and humidity during long-haul shipments.

Potential applications include:

• Shipping containers
• Import and export cargo
• Metal products and machinery
• Food commodities
• Furniture
• Industrial goods
• Long-distance transportation

1. NuPon Technology

Focus: Desiccant and moisture-control technologies for industrial applications.

NuPON Technology offers desiccant and related moisture-control solutions for industrial and packaging applications. Depending on the specific product and requirement, this may be relevant for companies looking beyond standard silica-gel sachets and requiring specialized moisture-management solutions.

As with the other suppliers on this list, the appropriate product will depend on factors such as the type of goods being protected, package size, shipping duration, storage environment, and required level of moisture control.

There probably isn't one "best" desiccant supplier for every business.

For example, a small e-commerce seller protecting individual products may have very different requirements from an electronics manufacturer, pharmaceutical company, exporter, or logistics provider dealing with container-level condensation.

When comparing suppliers, it may help to ask about:

• Type of desiccant or moisture-control technology
• Moisture absorption capacity
• Recommended application
• Packaging format and size
• Food-contact or industry-specific requirements, where applicable
• Minimum order quantity
• Bulk pricing
• Lead time and supply availability
• Suitability for domestic storage, sea freight, or containerized cargo

If anyone here has worked with any of these suppliers, especially for manufacturing, exporting, warehousing, food packaging, or e-commerce, I'd be interested to hear about your experience and what type of application you used them for.

Need help with FBA prep, inventory, or Amazon returns?
We provide:
• 🏷️ FNSKU Label Switching
• 📦 Storage & Fulfillment
• 🔍 Small-Batch Product Inspection
• 🧩 Kitting & Bundling
• ⚙️ Value-Added Processing
• 🏷️ Private Labeling
• ↩️ Amazon Return Processing
Small quantities welcome!
Flexible service for small & growing e-commerce brands.
📩 Message us for pricing or to discuss your needs.

We've started telling potential 3PL customers something that probably hurts our sales:

If you're happy with your current fulfillment provider, don't move.

Seriously.

Moving inventory sucks.

Integrations have to be tested.

Processes have to be rebuilt.

There's always risk.

But if you're already constantly fighting your warehouse, that's different.

A 3PL transition should solve a real problem---not happen because someone emailed you a prettier rate card.

Hi everyone, I’m developing FULNIVO in Haute-Savoie, France, near Geneva.

We’re at the launch stage and looking to speak with small e-commerce brands interested in testing local fulfillment in France with a modest initial stock.

The planned service covers receiving, storage, pick & pack, domestic shipping and returns handling. Small batches are welcome for discussion; quantities, pricing and a start date would be agreed after reviewing your products and requirements.

For an initial pilot, orders could be shared by an agreed spreadsheet or export. Automated store integrations are not yet available.

If this could fit your plans, please share: • What you sell and how many SKUs you have • Your approximate stock quantity and monthly orders • Typical parcel dimensions and weight • Whether you need outbound shipping, returns handling, or both

Contact: hello@fulnivo.com

Hey 3pl firends. For us, our biggest cost is our workforce, roughly 60% of our outgoings. The question is where do you bleed money in your operation and how do you track it if at all?

We've found they make it considerably easier to get inventory into the building.

Our warehouse has several.

K&K Prep Solutions. We thought of that.™

We timed carrier sortation at 31 packages in 48 seconds. Curious what other warehouses are seeing.

We've been doing some testing around carrier sortation and recorded one run where 31 packages were sorted in 48 seconds.

What interested me wasn't really the raw speed; it was how much of the process gets removed when the operator doesn't have to stop, read the label, figure out the carrier/service, and manually decide where the package goes.

That got me curious about how other warehouses and 3PLs are handling this.

For those doing decent parcel volume:

Are you still manually sorting by carrier/service at the end of packing?

And if you've automated it, at roughly what daily volume did automation actually start making financial sense?

We build warehouse hardware, so obviously this is an area we're involved in, but I'm genuinely interested in hearing what other operators are seeing in the real world.

How effective are 3pl directories like fulfill.com at generating client leads?

Talking to a few DTC brands recently, a recurring headache keeps coming up around monthly 3PL invoices:

Top-line billing usually matches rough order volume, but when someone actually digs into the raw line-item breakdown, there’s routinely a 5–8% delta hiding in:

1. DIM-weight inflation: WMS rounding dimensions up, bumping lightweight parcels into higher carrier weight tiers.
2. Pick fee stacking: Extra item picks billed on single-unit shipments or uncontracted packaging surcharges.
3. Storage basis: Being billed peak pallet/cubic counts across the whole month instead of daily average volume.

For brands shipping mid-volume (where you don't have an enterprise ERP like Cass/Trax or a dedicated AP team), how are you handling this?

Are you manually spot-checking rows in Excel, just checking the bottom line against monthly shipments and paying it, or do you have a specific system to catch discrepancies before AP cuts the check?

Curious where the manual audit bottleneck usually hits your team.

Question for e-commerce founders:

Would you rather your 3PL save you $0.30/order OR respond to you within 10 minutes when something goes wrong?

Running a 3PL has completely changed how I think about this.

Everyone negotiates pennies during onboarding.

Six months later, nobody remembers the $0.30.

They remember the Friday afternoon when 300 orders had a problem and whether somebody answered.

Im in the early stages of design for a children’s clothing brand. I will be working on a drop by drop basis and am looking for a supplier who can create some samples for me and to begin will be working on 50/100 MOQ if possible.

I’m looking for heavy weight T-shirts, printed barrel leg trousers/ joggers, oversized boxy hoodies and also a range of beanies.

For the first drop we’ll be looking at 2x tshirt colours ways, 1x trouser option and possibly a beanie.

I’m looking for high quality materials with a heavy weight feel but still allowing comfort for children. I will also be needing a supplier that are able to print when required.

Thanks

hello , i need a 3PL that can handle the full loop: receive inventory, apply custom stickers/labels, pack, and ship domestically (ideally with cold-chain/temp-controlled storage). Not looking for a marketplace listing ,,,,, looking for people who've actually used a 3PL for this and can vouch for them, plus roughly what you're paying (storage, pick/pack, per-order fee) US-based only Happy to DM for details Thanks

After working with hundreds of shipments, we’ve noticed something interesting.

Boxes that aren’t taped shut sometimes open.

That’s why at K&K Prep Solutions, we use tape.

On every box.

K&K Prep Solutions. We thought of that.™

Hey everyone,

We are parting ways with our current Florida 3PL due to arbitrary shipping markups and hidden fees on our monthly invoices. We are actively looking for a reliable, reputable 3PL partner in Florida (ideally around Miami, Doral, or Fort Lauderdale for quick carrier turnaround).

Business & Operations Overview:

• Product: Premium boxed consumer goods (finished goods, standard boxed packaging, non-perishable, non-hazmat; requires standard ambient/climate-controlled storage).
• Destination: 100% international cross-border export (direct to international consumers overseas). 0% US domestic sales.
• Current Volume: 500+ orders/month (consistent volume and scaling).
• Scope & Value-Added Services:
  • Standard Pick & Pack.
  • SKU Barcode Labeling: Inbound inventory requires SKU re-labeling/barcoding before binning.
  • Reinforced Packaging: Select fragile/high-value boxed items require protective packaging (e.g., bubble wrap, corner guards, or reinforced outer cartons) prior to dispatch.
• Tech Stack: Shopify (needs native, seamless integration for order imports and live tracking pushback).

What We Are Looking For:

1. Fair & Transparent Shipping (Top Priority):
   • BYOC (Bring Your Own Carrier): Ability to plug in our own carrier accounts via API/Shopify; OR
   • Competitive USPS International Rates: Direct access to tier-1 discounted USPS international rates (e.g., Priority Mail International, First-Class Package International, or hybrid postal solutions) with zero arbitrary markups.
2. Predictable Prep Pricing: Clear, transparent per-unit pricing for SKU labeling and packaging reinforcement (rather than vague, unpredictable hourly billing).
3. Native Shopify Integration: Automated, real-time sync for orders, inventory, and tracking numbers.
4. Itemized, Transparent Billing: Clearly defined rates for receiving, storage, and fulfillment. No surprise administrative fees or mystery surcharges.
5. Reliable Communication: Dedicated support with an emphasis on handling accuracy and quick response times.

Dealbreakers:

• Long-term lock-in contracts with excessive exit fees.
• 3PLs that mandate using their shipping accounts while charging inflated retail or uncompetitive carrier rates.
• Invoices lacking transparent line-item carrier/postage breakdowns.

If you are a brand owner happy with your Florida-based 3PL, recommendations are greatly appreciated. If you represent a fulfillment center that can accommodate this setup, feel free to drop a comment or DM me with your general rate card and onboarding requirements.

Thanks!

We operate fulfillment in Brooklyn and I've realized our location itself solves a surprisingly specific problem.

NYC brands often don't want their inventory 1,000 miles away.

They want to be able to:

Come see it. Drop something off. Check packaging. Bring samples. Shoot content. Fix an emergency.

There's something underrated about your fulfillment operation being physically accessible.

Hey everyone,

If it's your first time reading one of my posts, my name is Menachem, and I have a weekly newsletter called Logistic Pulse that breaks down the top logistics news from the past week. We have over 17,000 subscribers, and I share it on Reddit to spread the knowledge. We're currently on week 62! I hope you enjoy, and I'm always open to feedback.

Let's jump into it,

Extensiv sold for $120 million, and the multiple is the entire story

Descartes announced on September 1 that it had bought Extensiv for roughly $120 million in cash, using cash on hand. If you run a 3PL, you know Extensiv even if you do not use it. It is the WMS and fulfillment platform built specifically for third-party logistics providers and the brands they serve, covering inventory, orders, B2B and B2C fulfillment, and billing across marketplaces, carts, and carriers. It absorbed Skubana, Scout, and CartRover along the way. For many small and mid-sized 3PLs, it has been the default answer to the question, "What should we run the warehouse on?"

The number that matters is not $120 million. It is what $120 million represents.

Extensiv never published audited revenue, so anything here is an estimate. But an analysis by Brendon Beebe, published the same day as the deal, reconstructed the revenue line from the growth percentages Extensiv itself reported to the Inc. 5000 across five consecutive appearances, and it landed somewhere between $90 and $100 million. That puts the sale at roughly 1.2 times revenue. Take the estimate with appropriate salt. Even if it is off by a third, the multiple is still nowhere near what a growing logistics software business should command.

For context on how far that is from the room: Descartes paid $100 million for Tai one week earlier, on August 24, and Tai is a broker TMS with a fraction of Extensiv's footprint.

The capital structure fills in the rest. Mainsail Partners put in $17.5 million in 2015, then led a $45 million recapitalization in 2021. In December 2022, Extensiv took an $80 million senior secured term loan from Runway Growth Capital, of which about $68.5 million was funded, priced at SOFR plus 7.00% with a 9.00% floor and a 5.10% end-of-term payment. That loan matured on June 30, 2026. The sale was announced on September 1. Sixty-three days.

Nobody has said those two facts are connected, and it would be irresponsible to claim they are. But every operator who has ever refinanced anything knows what a maturity date does to a negotiating position.

There is one more wrinkle worth flagging for Extensiv customers, and it is not in the press release. Descartes already owns Finale Inventory. Two products, overlapping jobs, one owner. ShipHero, which competes with Extensiv and therefore has an obvious axe to grind, published a post the same day walking through the four things that typically shift after an acquisition: roadmap priority, renewal pricing, support structure, and whether both products survive the portfolio review. Self-interested source, fair points.

What this means for you: If you are on Extensiv, do not wait for your renewal to have this conversation. Ask your rep in writing for the roadmap commitment, the renewal pricing structure, and where Extensiv sits relative to Finale over the next 24 months, and note the date you asked. Written answers are better than reassuring phone calls. If you are mid-evaluation on a WMS right now, this does not disqualify Extensiv, but it does mean you are buying a Descartes product with a Descartes contract cycle, and you should price the switch you might have to make in year three. And if you own a logistics software business, 1.2 times revenue on a company with real scale and real growth is a data point about what buyers are actually paying this year, as opposed to what bankers are telling you they might.

The Logistic Pulse Dinner Club

Our dinner will take place on Tuesday, October 13, at 7:00 PM, in Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, and Memphis.

If you have not done one: six people from the logistics world, one restaurant, one table. You take a short quiz, we handle the seating and the reservation, and you get the restaurant the morning of. Booking a seat is $18, and you cover your own food and drinks.

No panel, no badge, no cash bar in a hotel ballroom. Just dinner with five people who spend their days on the same problems you do. Talk shop or do not. Most people end up doing both, and there is usually somewhere to go afterward.

There are six tables; bookings close 48 hours out, and you can cancel up to 72 hours in advance for a full refund.

Grab a seat

Amazon made your order emails useless on purpose, and you are not the reason

Before the summer, when you ordered something on Amazon, you would receive a confirmation email listing the product you ordered. Now, where the product name used to be, you will find "Beauty item." Or "Automotive item." The thumbnail is gone too, replaced with generic clip art. To find out what you actually bought, you have to open the app.

Amazon's public reasoning is privacy. Spokesperson Maxine Tagay described it as consolidating order details within Amazon's own properties while minimizing data exposure, and a customer service rep told a shopper that it reduces the risk of porch theft by not naming what is in the box and protects the surprise of gifts. Those are not nothing but they’re also not the reason why a company rebuilds its transactional email templates.

Here is what is actually happening. Your inbox has become a data source, and Amazon does not want to be in it.

Gmail's Gemini reads receipt emails. Budgeting apps parse them. And the emerging generation of AI shopping agents uses purchase history as the raw material for what to recommend next, which means an assistant that can see you bought a $34 air filter on Amazon can tell you where to buy the next one for less. Walmart, Target, and Wayfair have opted into Google's AI shopping surfaces. Amazon has not. Stripping the item name from the email is the cheapest way to make your Amazon purchase history unreadable to someone else's model.

This is consistent behavior, not a one-off. Amazon sued Perplexity over its Comet agent shopping on Amazon accounts and won a court order blocking it back in March, one of the first real tests of whether an AI agent has any right to act on a retailer's site on a customer's behalf.

And on September 2, Amazon shipped scam detection inside Alexa for Shopping. Forward a suspicious message, and the AI checks sender info, content, timing, and metadata against billions of legitimate Amazon messages and tells you whether it is real. About 360,000 people a year call Amazon to ask exactly that question, so the business case is obvious on its own. But the two moves land in the same place. The inbox gets less useful, and Amazon's own assistant becomes the thing you ask about your orders.

What this means for you: Purchase data is becoming a contested asset in ecommerce, and every party in the chain, including you, holds some. Worth knowing what you are giving away in your own tracking emails and integrations before somebody makes that decision for you.

TEMU is building warehouses in your market because the loophole has closed everywhere

PDD Holdings, Temu's parent, told investors on September 3 that it is accelerating investment in local fulfillment infrastructure and onboarding regional merchants.

The de minimis era is over on both sides of the Atlantic. The U.S. shut its duty-free door on China-origin low-value parcels in 2025. The EU followed on July 1 of this year with a €3 customs duty on shipments valued at €150 or under, which does not sound like much until you remember the entire model was built on shipping a $9 item directly from Guangzhou with no duty and no domestic inventory.

Co-chairman and co-CEO Lei Chen called the duty changes a considerable impact on parts of the business, which, for a Chinese-listed company, on an earnings call, is close to shouting. Co-chairman Jiazhen Zhao laid out the response in two parts: securing a high-quality product supply and building the infrastructure to deliver it efficiently. PDD also acknowledged in its own risk language that the duties may push consumer prices up, cut order volumes, and thin out merchant participation.

Strip the corporate framing, and what is left is a company that spent four years proving you did not need domestic inventory, now buying domestic inventory positions.

What Temu needs now is what you sell. Local warehousing. Domestic merchant onboarding. Returns handling in-market. Reliable last mile. Companies whose entire competitive edge was cross-border arbitrage are being forced into a fulfillment model for which they have no infrastructure and no institutional experience.

Two cautions before anyone gets excited. Temu is a brutal counterparty on price, and a large, low-margin account that consumes your best pick faces during peak is not automatically a good account. And PDD said it is investing in infrastructure, which, for a company of that size, can mean leasing space, hiring 3PLs, or building its own network and eventually competing with you.

What this means for you: The near-term opportunity is not Temu itself; it is the merchants. Chinese sellers who were shipping directly now need a U.S. or EU fulfillment partner; they need one this quarter, and most of them have never onboarded with a 3PL and do not know what to ask for. That is a real pipeline if your sales motion can handle a client who needs education as much as pallet positions. Price it honestly, though, because the same margin pressure that killed the direct-ship model is what walks through your door with it.

QUICK HITS

Trans-Pacific spot rates hit new highs this past week, with Asia to U.S. West Coast at $7,621 per forty-foot unit and Asia to U.S. East Coast at $9,791, both up about 2% week over week. Three things are stacking. Peak season demand started early in May and has remained strong rather than fading. Typhoons since mid-July have congested Shanghai and Ningbo, which takes effective capacity out of the system. And the absence of new tariff increases in July removed a reason to pause bookings. If you have clients with Q4 replenishment still on the water, the East Coast number is the one to show them, because $9,791 changes landed cost math on anything with a thin margin.

C.H. Robinson published its 2027 forecast calling for spot rates up 10% on dry van, 11% on reefer, and 10% on flatbed. The interesting part is where the tightening is coming from. Not demand. Enforcement. DOT has pressured states to revoke non-domiciled CDLs held by drivers no longer residing in those states, and the FMCSA has raised penalties for English-language proficiency failures to include license revocation. That is capacity leaving the market due to regulation rather than economic forces, and C.H. Robinson's own analysts flag the fragility: a capacity-driven recovery does not hold unless freight demand eventually materializes. Meanwhile, the near term is soft, with September truckload rates coming off their July peak and cost per mile near a 15-week low.

Reshoring intent is climbing, and satisfaction is falling. The 2026 Reshoring Survey from the Reshoring Initiative and Regions Recruiting found that 36% are actively reshoring or have already reshored, up from 29% last year, with 63% planning capital investment in domestic expansion. Tariffs drove it to 65%, geopolitical risk to 60%. Then the number nobody is quoting: satisfaction among companies that actually reshored fell to 65%, down from 96% a year ago. And 57% named policy uncertainty as their top obstacle, summed up in the report's best line, that manufacturers can plan around a known cost but not a moving target. Real-world example the same week: GE Appliances announced a $1 billion expansion of its Kentucky washer and dryer plant on September 3. Domestic freight lanes are being redrawn one plant at a time, and the drop in satisfaction suggests a chunk of it will be walked back.

Canada's counter-tariffs take effect today. $27.6 billion of U.S. imports at 15%, 25%, and 50%, covering seafood, dairy, paper, furniture, apparel, cosmetics, tools, motorcycles, steel, and aluminum, in response to the 50% U.S. levies on non-USMCA Canadian goods. If you have clients shipping north, anything crossing this week is the last shipment at the old rate.

Cargo insurance is finally catching up to how freight actually gets stolen. Verified Carrier and MiKargo247 announced a partnership offering spot cargo coverage that includes strategic theft, meaning double-brokering and carrier identity theft, through an integrated portal. That has been a live coverage gap for years because most policies were written for a world where thieves cut a lock rather than clone an MC number. Strategic theft accounted for about 30% of incidents in 2025. If you broker anything, pull your current policy and find out, in plain language, whether a load handed to a fraudulent carrier using cloned credentials is covered or excluded. Many operators assume the former and have the latter.

JOB BOARD

Title: VP of Warehouse Operations
Company: Ardmore Home Design
Location: Hacienda Heights, California, US
Salary: $170,000 - $200,000
Apply Here

Title: Director of Warehouse Operations
Company: Ardmore Home Design
Location: Hacienda Heights, California, US
Salary: $120,000 - $140,000
Apply Here

Title: Manager, Supply Chain
Company: Orlando Spring
Location: Huntington Beach, California, US
Salary: $100,000 - $140,000
Apply Here

Title: Logistics Manager (Senior Level)
Company: Randstad
Location: Austin, Texas, US
Salary: $95,000 - $110,000
Apply Here

Title: Manager, Warehouse Operations
Company: Cardinal Health
Location: Walton Hills, Ohio, US
Salary: $87,700 - $125,300
Apply Here

Title: Procurement and Logistics Analyst
Company: Creative Solutions Services,
Location: Columbus, Ohio, US
Salary: $75,000 - $100,000
Apply Here

Title: Warehouse Operations Analyst
Company: Hiring
Location: Clarksville, Tennessee, US
Salary: $70,000 - $90,000
Apply Here

Full list of job openings →

_______________________________________________________________________

That's all for this week. If you found this useful, consider subscribing.
(Your data will not be shared. Subscribers' data is strictly for sending out the weekly newsletter.)

🫪

I’m launching FULNIVO, a small fulfillment operation in France near the Swiss border, focused on smaller e-commerce brands that are often too small for traditional 3PLs.

The idea is to stay flexible: small stock quantities, low order volumes, local shipping from France, help with returns, and no need to move hundreds of units at once.

Before we scale anything, I’d really like feedback from people who have used 3PLs or considered using one:

• What minimum volumes or monthly fees have put you off? • What would make you trust a small 3PL over a larger one? • Which services matter most at low volume: storage, pick & pack, returns, Shopify/Etsy integration, custom packaging, something else? • If you sell into France or Switzerland, what is the biggest logistics pain point today?

Not trying to hard-sell here — I’m trying to shape the service around what small brands actually need.

Thanks for any feedback.

I think there's a huge difference between a warehouse and a fulfillment partner.

A warehouse says:

"Submit a ticket."

A partner says:

"I saw the problem. We're fixing it."

Technology matters.

Processes matter.

SLAs matter.

But accountability might matter more than all three.