3PL: the guide to outsourced logistics, from factory to end customer

What is a 3PL?

A 3PL (third-party logistics provider) handles all or part of your physical logistics with its own warehouses, teams and tools: it receives your goods, stores them, picks orders and hands them over to carriers. The products remain your property.

Some 3PLs own their warehouses and vehicles (asset-based), others rely on partners (non-asset-based): the former generally offer more control, the latter more geographic flexibility. In e-commerce, the term fulfillment provider is also used, meaning order execution.

European law has its own definition. Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 calls a "fulfillment service provider" any natural or legal person that offers, as part of a commercial activity, at least two of the following services: warehousing, packaging, labeling and shipping, without owning the products. Postal services, parcel delivery and freight transport are excluded. This status has regulatory consequences, detailed below.

1PL, 2PL, 3PL, 4PL, 5PL: a scale, not a standard

A 3PL's services, from the dock to the customer

1. Receiving: unloading, counting, checking against the advance shipping notice (ASN), put-away.
2. Storage: pallets on racks, shelving or bins for small SKUs, tracking by batch or expiration date if needed.
3. Picking (pick & pack): retrieving items, packing, void fill, carrier label.
4. Shipping: handover to carriers and sending the tracking number back to your store.
5. Returns: inspection, restocking, repackaging or disposal according to your rules.

All of it is managed by a WMS (Warehouse Management System) that tracks every SKU (Stock Keeping Unit).

Value-added services

• Kitting: assembling several SKUs into one sellable item (gift set, bundle, box).
• Labeling: EAN product barcodes (Europe) or UPC (North America), FNSKU labels (Fulfillment Network Stock Keeping Unit, Amazon's own barcode), compliance labels.
• Personalization: marketing inserts, gift wrapping.
• Marketplace prep: bringing items up to Amazon's or other platforms' standards. In the United States, Amazon stopped offering its own prep and labeling services for FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) on January 1, 2026: this work must now be done upstream.
• Cross-docking: direct transfer from the receiving dock to the shipping dock, with no storage, for example to split a container across several stores.

B2C, B2B and omnichannel

Selling to consumers (B2C, business-to-consumer) or to businesses (B2B, business-to-business) does not put the same demands on a warehouse.

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is the automated exchange of orders and shipping notices with distributors. An omnichannel 3PL serves your website, your marketplaces and your business customers from a single stock. Amazon also offers a multichannel service (MCF, Multi-Channel Fulfillment) that ships orders from your other channels out of your stock at Amazon, with less control over branded packaging.

What does a 3PL cost? Reading a rate card

There is no standard price: every 3PL charges per transaction, depending on its country, its automation and your profile (product size, items per order, seasonality). The line items, however, are almost always the same.

Also check the pallet format the price is based on. In Europe, the benchmark is the EUR/EPAL pallet of 800 × 1,200 mm, but the 1,000 × 1,200 mm format, also standardized, remains widespread. In North America, the standard pallet measures 48 × 40 inches (about 1,219 × 1,016 mm), and storage is often billed per pallet or per cubic foot (about 0.028 m³). Ask for the full rate card, minimums included: a good per-order rate can be offset by high receiving fees or a high monthly minimum.

When should you move to a 3PL?

There is no universal threshold in number of orders. The signals are operational:

• You spend more time packing parcels than selling.
• Errors and shipping delays are increasing.
• Your premises no longer suffice when a container arrives.
• Peaks (sales, year-end, launches) force you to hire in a hurry.
• You open a channel (marketplace, retail) or a country.

To decide, calculate your full in-house cost per order (floor space, fully loaded salaries, consumables, software, errors, management time) and compare it with two or three 3PL quotes, transport included. Staying in-house is justified if your packaging is part of the brand experience, or if your volumes are too low to interest a provider.

How to choose your 3PL

Location and integrations

A warehouse close to your customers reduces lead times and last-mile cost; close to your port of arrival, it reduces inbound cost. Selling in the EU, the UK, the US and Canada means just as many customs territories: often one stock per zone, or a deliberate trade-off on lead times.

The 3PL must receive your orders and automatically send back stock levels and tracking numbers. On Shopify, WooCommerce or Amazon, many 3PLs offer an app or an API connection (Application Programming Interface, a data exchange interface between software programs) for this. For your ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning, integrated management software) or your distributors, ask for a documented API or EDI, and test the flows before signing.

The KPIs to write into the contract

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) turn service quality into numbers. The WERC (Warehousing Education and Research Council), the US association of warehousing professionals, publishes an annual report on these indicators. In the 2025 edition, the most closely tracked include on-time shipments, order picking accuracy and dock-to-stock time, measured in hours.

These commitments form the SLA (Service Level Agreement). Also read the clauses on monthly minimums, reserved capacity for peaks, the cap on compensation for loss or damage, exit (notice period, destocking fees, return of data) and warehouse audit.

3PL in Asia or in your destination market?

The two warehouses do not play the same role and can be combined.

What has changed for direct shipments of small parcels

Duty exemptions on low values, which favored shipping individual parcels from Asia, are disappearing or remain very low:

• European Union: since July 1, 2026, a temporary flat duty of €3 (≈ $3.30) per item applies to distance sales shipments of up to €150 (≈ $165). It is counted per tariff heading, meaning per category of the customs nomenclature: five t-shirts = €3 (≈ $3.30), three t-shirts and a watch = €6 (≈ $6.70). Standard duties will take over on July 1, 2028.
• United States: the de minimis exemption (shipments up to $800) has been suspended for all countries since August 29, 2025. In June 2026, US Customs (CBP, Customs and Border Protection) made this suspension indefinite, and the law removes the exemption on July 1, 2027. Every shipment must be declared and pay the duties owed.
• United Kingdom: the removal of the duty exemption on shipments of £135 or less, announced in the 2025 Budget, was brought forward on June 23, 2026: it will apply from October 2028.
• Canada: according to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), a shipment from Asia, by post or courier, is exempt from duties and taxes only up to 20 Canadian dollars.

Importing by container to a local 3PL, clearing customs once, therefore becomes more often competitive: run the numbers product by product. The formalities for each region are detailed in our guide to customs clearance in the EU, UK and USA.

Storing locally: three points to plan for

Taxation of stock. Stock held in a country often creates tax obligations in that country, and they differ from one region to another.

Have your setup reviewed by a tax advisor before opening a warehouse in a new country.

The European responsible person. Since December 13, 2024, the GPSR (General Product Safety Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2023/988 on general product safety) requires an economic operator established in the EU to be accountable for every consumer product placed on the market. This is the manufacturer if established in the EU, otherwise the importer or an authorized representative (a person established in the EU, appointed in writing to act on behalf of the manufacturer). Failing that, this role falls to the 3PL, if established in the EU, for the products it handles: some 3PLs therefore refuse products without a designated European responsible person. Better to organize it yourself, see our guide to CE, UKCA and GPSR.

The customs warehouse. A customs-licensed 3PL can store uncleared goods. Duties and taxes are suspended until they are released for free circulation, meaning the customs clearance that allows them to be sold on the market, and are not owed if they are re-exported.

In the EU, storage duration is in principle unlimited. In the UK, the warehouse operator must be licensed by HMRC (HM Revenue & Customs, the UK tax and customs authority). In the US, a bonded warehouse can hold goods for up to five years after their importation, extendable on a justified request.

From the factory to the 3PL: how NOVASEA connects the chain

A 3PL's success is often decided before the container arrives. At NOVASEA, the chain follows six steps:

1. Logistics specification: packaging, carton marking, barcodes and marketplace labels are defined with you and sent to the factory.
2. Inspection before balance payment: quantities, markings and packaging are checked at the factory along with quality.
3. Consolidation in China: your suppliers' orders arrive at the consolidation warehouse best suited to their factories, where we check quantities, cartons and labeling, and carry out kitting and FBA prep if needed.
4. A single container: optimized and documented loading. Costs and risks with each factory follow the Incoterms® rule chosen at order (Incoterms® is a registered trademark of the International Chamber of Commerce, ICC).
5. Customs clearance and delivery to the 3PL of your choice or to one of our partner warehouses in Europe, the UK or the US, with an ASN sent in advance.
6. Monitoring: inspections, documents and shipment status are shared in NOVASEA Bridge.

Multi-supplier consolidation is detailed in our guide to consolidation in China; freight, customs and storage on the Logistics & 3PL page, marketplace prep on the Brand & e-commerce page.

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