Stop recounting your inventory every two weeks
Published September 18, 2025. Updated September 12, 2026. The cost ranges mentioned apply to that period.
If you do a full count every week or two, it isn’t about being thorough. It’s a sign you don’t trust your own numbers, and you pay for that twice: in your team’s hours, and in decisions made blind between counts.
A lot of businesses hope to fix this by handing their warehousing to a third party, what’s called a 3PL. It can work. But a provider can’t guess what you have. It inherits your mess, and it bills you for it.
I ran a 3PL distribution centre, and I’ve been working with small businesses for about 10 years. What follows is what you need to have sorted out before you hand anything over to anyone.
It’s also what one client went through: how a logistics provider stopped recounting.
The three mistakes that cost the most
First mistake: products that aren’t properly identified
Your 3PL can’t guess how your business works. If every product doesn’t have a unique code (SKU), a standard barcode, and clear labelling, everything falls apart.
A 3PL receives your pallets. They have to unload them, count them, and label them properly. Without that, you’ll get:
- Picking errors (the wrong product goes out).
- More customer returns.
- Time lost fixing mistakes.
Before you sign with a 3PL, check: does every product have a unique identifier the 3PL recognizes? If not, it’ll get expensive fast.
Second mistake: paying for capacity you don’t use
A 3PL bills by the pallet, by the square foot of storage, and per order picked. If you ship 50 orders a month and pay for 500, you’re losing money.
Before you commit, work out the real fees:
- Picking and packing: how much per order?
- Storage: how much per month, and after 30 days without moving?
- Shipping labels: the 3PL pays carriers less than you do, but how much less, exactly?
Tip: Give the 3PL you’re considering a list of 10 to 20 real customer addresses (urban, rural, international) and your three most common box sizes. They can then give you an estimate that’s very close to what you’ll actually pay.
Third mistake: not managing returns
Returns are where everything gets complicated. On paper it’s simple: the customer sends it back, you refund them. In real life:
- How does the customer send the return? (Is it easy for them?)
- Who receives the return at the 3PL?
- How does the product get inspected? (Is it worth putting back in stock?)
- Who handles refunds? (It doesn’t happen on its own.)
- How long before the customer sees their money?
Every extra day without an answer is one more frustrated customer leaving a bad review.
With a good 3PL, you share a ticketing system (Zoho, Gorgias, etc.). The 3PL reports what it received and inspected. You decide what to do. Nothing is hidden.
What to get ready before you sign
1. Are your products ready?
Unique codes? Barcodes? Standard labelling? If not, fix that first. It’ll take you two to four weeks.
2. Are your processes documented?
How do you put an order together? How do you pack it? What are the exceptions? A 3PL can’t improvise. The clearer it is, the fewer mistakes.
3. Can you still see what’s going on?
A good 3PL gives you a client portal: real-time inventory, orders in progress, shipments ready to go. You need to see what’s happening, not trust it blindly.
Hidden 3PL costs that catch people off guard
- Integration fees: the API connection with Shopify, WooCommerce, etc. Count on $500 to $2,000.
- Moving fees: getting your current stock over there. Often paid up front.
- Extras: custom repackaging, additional software, special processes. It adds up.
- Settling-in period: the first month will be chaotic. Expect to pay more in fees for fixing errors.
Questions to ask a 3PL before you sign
Ask the 3PL you’re considering:
- How many days between receiving a return and an approved customer refund? (Under 10 days is a good sign.)
- What’s your picking accuracy rate? (Look for 99% or better. Anything less is too many errors.)
- What costs extra? (Repackaging, software, training, night work?)
- Can I leave without a penalty? (You don’t want to be stuck for three years.)
Will a 3PL actually save you money?
Your order volume doesn’t decide it. Three things do.
Are your products ready to ship? Packed, sealed, identifiable by barcode. A provider ships your products. It doesn’t package them. If someone still has to open a box to find out what’s inside, warehousing isn’t the problem.
Does it move? A product that sits on the shelf takes up space you pay for every month. Ideally, you only send over your best sellers. Slow products only go along if the fast ones bring in enough to pay for their storage.
Rent on the space is the number people forget. They compare picking, shipping, packaging, and returns fees, and leave out the one that comes due whether the stock moves or not. That’s the real question: do the month’s sales cover all of the storage fees?
That gives you a picture of what does best at a provider: a small product that’s worth a lot and sells fast. It takes up little space and brings in a lot of revenue per square foot. On the other hand, a bulky, low-margin product that moves slowly will cost more to store there than to keep at your place, no matter how many orders you ship.
There’s one more condition, and it’s about cash flow: you need enough to absorb two to three months of extra costs during the transition.
What I do at FP Service
Before you make the move to a 3PL, I help you:
- Work out what it really costs you today. Not guesses: the actual numbers.
- Compare several 3PLs. You have options, not just one.
- See the traps coming. Returns, special processes, how things will change down the road.
- Plan the transition. Step by step, with no downtime.
Often the answer is: “Yes, go for it.” Sometimes it’s: “Wait six months and consolidate your products first.”
Both answers save you time and money.
Thinking about a 3PL?
Book 30 minutes with me. We look at your numbers, work out the real cost, and decide together whether it’s the right time.
Bonus: Download the “3PL: are you ready?” checklist (in French) It covers the five key questions and gives you an honest score in 10 minutes.
Three questions I get about outsourcing warehousing
How many orders do you need before a 3PL is worth it?
It’s the question I get most often, and it’s the wrong yardstick. Two businesses with the same volume can end up with opposite answers.
What counts is how much space your products take up and how fast they leave it. A small, expensive product that sells fast pays off at a provider even at low volume. A bulky, low-margin product that sits for three months will cost more to store there than to keep at your place, even at a thousand orders.
Do the math the other way around: take your sales for a normal month and check whether they cover all of that month’s storage fees. It’s a question you can answer yourself, and it’s worth more than any threshold.
How long does the move to a 3PL take?
Count on two to three months before everything runs smoothly, and the first month will be messy. That’s not a sign of failure. It’s the time it takes for the provider to learn your products and for your systems to talk to each other.
Do I lose control of my inventory?
Only if you agree to. A good provider gives you a portal where you see stock in real time, orders in progress, and shipments. If they don’t offer one, that’s reason enough to look elsewhere.