The holiday season can be a stressful time for all—and that includes your 3PL. Even if you have a long-standing relationship with a logistics provider who delivers quality, reliable service, it’s not unusual for 3PLs to get inundated during the holiday logistics rush.

But that shouldn’t affect your business. With holiday retail sales poised to increase between 2.3% and 3.3%, per Deloitte’s 2024 Holiday Forecast, the pressure is on for you to meet increased consumer demands in Q4. What happens if it’s late October or early November and you’re deep in holiday logistics prep when suddenly your 3PL tells you they won’t be able to hit your targets?

Before you start worrying about missing out on the most lucrative months of the year, know that there is still time to adapt your logistics solutions. By bringing on an additional partner, you can pad your logistics setup with extra help for services like holiday packs and reverse logistics so you can meet your targets with confidence.

4 Reasons why you might need extra holiday logistics support in Q4

If you’ve been working with a reliable 3PL all year long, why would they suddenly not measure up come Q4? As the end of the year approaches, even the most organized and efficient 3PLs start to feel the squeeze.

With more orders and greater urgency, it’s only normal for merchants and logistics teams to worry about hitting targets and keeping up with spiking holiday logistics demand. These are the top 4 reasons why your 3PL may struggle to support you in Q4:

1) Pre-holiday inventory surges

As the holiday season approaches, most merchants decide to ramp up inventory to prepare for a surge in sales. Considering that 2023 set a new shopping record with a whopping 200.4M consumers breaking out their wallets from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, this is a smart strategy for merchants to get ready for the year’s most intense shopping weekend.

But this surge in inventory can also overwhelm your 3PL. For example, sudden inventory swells can put a strain on warehouse space and management systems, leading to potential delays and management issues in receiving, organizing, and tracking.

2) Bigger order volumes

It’s no surprise that the holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year, so your 3PL has likely put systems in place to prepare for Q4’s extra demands. But with holiday promotions starting earlier and earlier each year, 3PLs now often face higher order volumes before the traditional holiday season even begins. An unexpected influx in orders can catch 3PLs off guard, causing inefficiencies in order processing and even delays—definitely not the way to start the holiday season on the right foot.

3) Overloaded systems

Even if your 3PL has enough warehouse space to accommodate inventory surges and spikes in fulfillment, it’s not a given that their technology and digital tools will also be up for the increased workload.

For example, if logistics platforms and management systems are overloaded, your 3PL may face system slowdowns, software bugs, or even all-out crashes. Moreover, with increased orders and inventory levels, any system malfunction can disrupt inventory management, upset communications, compromise real-time tracking, impact accuracy, and create a host of other holiday logistics problems that slow down operations.

4) Staff shortages

During a busy Q4, feelings of overwhelm extend beyond warehouse space and management systems. Your 3PL employees will likely feel the heat, too, as they work overtime to keep up with surging demand. Worse yet—there may not be enough helping hands to go around.

Unfortunately, onboarding new employees in the eleventh hour is easier said than done. Even if your 3PL can find extra workers to hire on such short notice, training new staff at the last minute presents further challenges. If your 3PL didn’t plan in advance to scale up their workforce for the holiday season, it’s almost certain that staff shortages will create holiday logistics bottlenecks for your business in order processing, packing, and shipping.

Can you switch 3PLs in October? Not really

If your 3PL is facing challenges with inventory management, order volumes, or staff shortages, your first thought may be to switch providers altogether. But even in the first few weeks of Q4, it may already be too late.

Onboarding is too complex

Holiday rush aside, onboarding is a cumbersome process that shouldn’t be done in a hurry. For instance, when starting up with a new 3PL, you need enough time to properly facilitate data integration and inventory transfers, as well as systems setup for order management, tracking, etc.

It can take upwards of several weeks to complete these processes—and that’s under normal circumstances. During the already hectic fall months, complex onboarding is not a task you should add to your growing to-do list.

A new 3PL would have the same holiday logistics problems

If you’re facing challenges with your current 3PL, it’s easy to think that switching to a new service provider would be a magic problem-solver. Sometimes, that can be the case. But if your 3PL is buckling under the pressure of the holiday season and its accompanying inventory surges, staff shortages, and increased order volume, then it’s likely other 3PLs are under the same strain.

Plus, in late October and early November, many 3PLs are already at capacity. Even if you’re prepared to take the risk and start from square one with a brand-new provider, it’s not a given you’ll find a 3PL who has the space, resources, and availability to take on a new client at this time of the year.

Changing 3PLs disrupts order fulfillment

Suppose it’s early November and, against all odds, you’ve found a 3PL who’s willing to accelerate onboarding processes and take on your fulfillment needs this late in the game. Think you’re in the clear? Think again.

With a new 3PL comes greater risks of errors and inaccuracies. Note that November and December sales, on average, account for 19% of all a merchant’s yearly sales. The end of year is not an opportune time to turn your business on its head—not unless you want to risk fulfillment errors, delayed deliveries, and unhappy customers.

How to pad your holiday logistics setup for sales in Q4

When it’s late October or early November and you’re feeling the pressure of the busy holiday season, what are you supposed to do if your 3PL is unable to deliver under the high stakes?

While it may be too late to replace your 3PL with a new provider, there is another way to get help: outsourcing specific tasks to a specialized fulfillment and logistics services provider, like MyFBAPrep. Here are 6 ways you can augment your holiday logistics setup for extra support in Q4:

1) FBA prep services

One of the most impactful ways a secondary logistics provider can support your overwhelmed 3PL is with FBA prep services.

When your usual 3PL is swamped with extra orders for the holiday season, another fulfillment services provider, like MyFBAPrep, can step in to help with prepping. For example, suppose you need to prep 50k units to meet expected consumer demands, but your 3PL is too underwater to get the job done. You can delegate 25k to MyFBAPrep, and we’ll take over picking and packing to help you get the job done faster. Not only does this reduce the risk of fulfillment delays, but by taking this work off your 3PL’s plate, it also gives you some buffer room to allow your 3PL to catch up on its workload and get back up to speed.

2) Reverse logistics

Come holiday season, increased orders aren’t the only challenge keeping you and your 3PL busy. You’re also likely dealing with a higher rate of returns. Consider that the average retailer sees $145M in merchandise returns for every $1B in sales, i.e., a 14.5% return rate, according to the National Retail Federation.

This is where a secondary 3PL can help relieve some of the burden. For instance, MyFBAPrep can take over different reverse logistics solutions like processing returns, disposing, refurbishing, and restocking. By assuming responsibility for reverse logistics, a secondary 3PL can help ensure your business doesn’t end up with a backlog of unprocessed returns after the holiday rush.

3) Holiday packs

Bundling and holiday packs have quickly grown in favor among consumers. If your business isn’t already taking advantage of this marketing strategy, it’s not too late to get on board for Q4. While your usual 3PL may not be up for the added challenge in the eleventh hour, you can outsource this responsibility to a third-party team so you can tap into the advantages of bundling without increasing your workload.

For example, MyFBAPrep offers kitting and assembly solutions, including bundling, shrink wrap, relabeling, and sorting and segregation. Whether you want to make a variety pack, create shrink-wrapped packs for your brick-and-mortar shops, or build custom-designed bundles, we can help you build a bundling strategy that can serve you for the holiday season, and beyond.

4) Subscription boxes

In the last decade, the subscription economy has grown by a stunning 435% and is expected to be worth $1.5T by 2025. While subscription boxes have clearly become a financial boon for retailers, they’re also very labor-intensive, requiring teams to pick and pack specific assortments of goods into various subscription boxes.

As with bundles and packs, outsourcing subscription box fulfillment is a smart way to streamline your 3PL’s bustling workload so they can focus on managing more straightforward orders for holiday shoppers. You might also turn to a third party for subscription box fulfillment if you don’t already offer subscriptions but want to try out the offering on a trial basis. Seeking help from an experienced provider enables you to test new bundling strategies without distracting your existing 3PL during the busiest time of the year.

5) Omnichannel fulfillment

If you have both eCommerce and brick-and-mortar channels, then bringing in another partner for support can help when your usual 3PL is feeling inundated from all directions during the busy holiday season.

For example, suppose you outsource direct-to-consumer (DTC) fulfillment. By delegating picking, packing, and shipping responsibilities to a full-service prep and fulfillment partner like MyFBAPrep, you allow your usual 3PL to direct their full attention to fulfilling buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) orders and ship-from-store processes. This way, you can continue to meet your customers where they are as Q4 orders escalate—without overwhelming your 3PL and risking holiday logistics errors, inaccuracies, and delays.

6) Temperature-controlled logistics

If you sell perishable items, then you know shipping and storing them requires more rigorous attention than do other products. By outsourcing temperature-controlled logistics to a third party who has experience with both storage and delivery for refrigerated and frozen goods, you can reduce strain on your 3PL’s general warehousing at a time when they need it most.

MyFBAPrep, for instance, has dozens of warehouses across the country and dedicated cold chain shipping solutions to make sure your products get to your customers on time without risks of spoilage. On top of that, we can also provide quality checks, item inspection, and waterproof packaging, giving you complete solutions for storage and delivery with guaranteed freshness and quality.

Wrapping up—pad your holiday logistics to hit Q4 targets

With booming consumer spending, the holidays is a time when retailers need to move fast to accommodate spiking orders and a higher rate of returns while meeting customer expectations for bundles, multi-channel shopping options, and more. In other words, it’s not the time when you want to worry about hitting your sales targets.

If you don’t think your 3PL is prepared for the holiday logistics demands of the hectic EOY but you don’t have time to switch providers, sometimes outsourcing just a few services can make all the difference. From holiday packs to temperature-controlled logistics to DTC fulfillment, MyFBAPrep can step in to shoulder some of your 3PL’s responsibilities, even as late as early November. Contact us for a free consultation to learn how we can augment your logistics setup and help you meet your goals for holidays Q4.