A product bundling strategy is quickly becoming a go-to for merchants—and it’s easy to see why. A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that selling by product bundling helps merchants increase profits by an impressive 30%.

For merchants who don’t offer product bundling yet, Q4 is a great time to launch your product bundling strategy. The holiday season has consumers primed and ready to purchase, with the total U.S. retail sales for November and December 2024 expected to hit $1.353 trillion.

If you’ve never offered or executed product bundling before, it can seem daunting to undertake the logistics aspect of kitting and bundling during the already-busy Q4. You may not be sure if your current warehouses or 3PLs can accommodate creative bundling and the training involved at crunch time, and many merchants may even face pushback from 3PLs that are already overbooked.

However, holiday packs and bundles can make your brand more memorable and profitable. A product bundling strategy is a great way to boost your average order values, delight your customers, and introduce loyal customers to new products.

We’re here to reassure you that you can indeed introduce last-minute holiday packs to boost your sales in Q4 without worrying about logistics, as long as you work with the right partner.

Logistics solutions to create a last-minute holiday product bundling strategy

Imagine: You’re getting your business ready for the holiday season. You’ve already prepped 50k units, and you’ve been getting a lot of requests for product bundling and holiday packs that can tap into the season’s extra consumer spending.

Even with Q4 just around the corner, there’s still enough time to work with your logistics partners to make a product bundling strategy (and their increased profits) a reality for your EOY. Here are some options.

Use your traditional 3PL for last-minute product bundling

First, you may consider continuing to work with your traditional 3PL and enlist their help to create your holiday product bundling strategy. This is a good strategy if your 3PL has remaining capacity for Q4 and the expertise needed to execute beautifully styled, efficiently bundled packs.

If this is not the case, they may need to perform sub-optimally to meet the needs of your last-minute request. For example, your 3PL may need to individually pick, pack, and ship the different items in your newly created bundle. This is especially true if your 3PL doesn’t offer kitting and product bundling services, or FBA prep services.

While this ensures bundles are delivered, this approach can get expensive considering you may be facing additional pick fees and/or shipping fees. Consider the cost of sending out four separate packages for one four-item bundle.

In addition, if your 3PL isn’t trained in kitting and bundling, it’ll take them longer to create messier, sometimes incorrect bundles in the end. This will end up costing more time and money, and may even impact customer perceptions of your brand.

Train your team on product bundling in-house

If you have warehouse facilities, consider training your team to assemble and ship your product bundles. This is optimal if you want full visibility and control over the bundles. For example, an internal brand manager can check bundles they day before they go out to ensure a beautiful unboxing experience.

The risk of this approach is that your in-house resources may already be stretched thin preparing for Q4, and adding additional training and new SKUs to the mix may inhibit other processes from running smoothly. You don’t want to add product bundles at the expense of your customer experience with other items.

Work with a full-service logistics provider, like MyFBAPrep

Finally, you can work with a prep specialist to create your last-minute holiday product bundling strategy. Instead of picking, packing, and shipping each item in a bundle separately, a partner like MyFBAPrep can accommodate product bundling with a 2-3 day turnaround time. On top of that, we can also ship those bundles to your sales channels (like Amazon) or retailers, or even directly to your customers.

It’s natural to want to stay in your comfort zone and keep working with the logistics partners you already know, but sometimes it’s worth it to venture out and collaborate with other providers if you need help handling a special request, such as executing a product bundling strategy.

Why traditional 3PLs struggle to accommodate last-minute holiday product bundling

We’ve heard of many cases where traditional 3PLs struggle to accommodate last-minute holiday product bundling strategy requests. We’ve listed six of the most common reasons we’ve heard from our customers as to why they chose MyFBAPrep instead of their 3PL for holiday product bundling. Use this list to benchmark your 3PL and decide the right course of action for your business.

1) Their systems aren’t flexible enough

A good 3PL runs like a well-oiled machine. But that machine is typically only designed to handle standard, predictable processes. The minute you throw them a curveball (like last-minute holiday product bundling), they’re no longer prepared to deliver the prompt, reliable service you’ve come to expect.

Instead, the sudden changes a last-minute product bundling strategy requires are highly likely to upset your 3PL’s standard workflows. For example, your 3PL may need to make staffing adjustments or bring on new equipment. While possible, these changes can be time-consuming. Plus, they add extra management complexities at the busiest time of year when you need to move fast.

2) They may not have the right resources on hand

Picking, packing, and shipping product bundles require different resources than your standard warehouse procedures—and traditional 3PLs aren’t always ready to pivot on a dime.

For one, bundling usually calls for extra labor, which can be hard to find on short notice, especially during the holiday season when resources are already spread thin. Even after taking on extra help, there’s still training and potential overtime pay to contend with, which can easily end up cutting into profits.

Don’t forget that warehouse space is a resource, too—and there’s only so much of it to go around. When you decide to create a last-minute product bundling strategy for Q4, you may end up causing scheduling conflicts for your 3PL. After all, it takes extra space to organize and assemble bundles, and it can be difficult for 3PLs to allocate this space without upsetting regular workflows during peak holiday season.

3) They could run into problems with inventory management

There’s a good chance an inexperienced 3PL will run into inventory management problems when you request bundles, especially if you ask just weeks before the holiday season begins.

Coordinating multiple products in a bundle can be challenging if your 3PL isn’t accustomed to providing a bundling service and tracking inventory. For example, whenever a bundle is sold, if your bundle isn’t pre-packed with a unique SKU, then all of the individual units in that bundle must be marked as sold. If you sell too many bundles that contain a best selling item, and then you sell out of that item, all of your bundles will be incomplete.

For example, last-minute bundling may require warehouse teams to pull various items from different warehouse zones. While it might seem like a simple hiccup, this inefficiency can slow down the entire bundling process and ultimately lead to delays in shipment—which is the last thing you want to give your customers for the holidays.

4) They might not be able to handle your product bundling’s complex packaging requirements

A holiday product bundling strategy calls for special packaging, not just your standard line-up. Whether that’s custom-sized boxes, custom labels, holiday-themed packaging, protective inserts for fragile items, or other particularities, the standard packaging your 3PL has on hand for normal packing and shipping may not be enough to meet the needs of your new, multi-item bundles. If you want your 3PL to order custom packaging materials at the last minute, you may face long delays.

Even if your 3PL has the necessary supplies to package your holiday bundles, assembly remains challenging. Picking and packing multi-item bundles is a complex, time-consuming process; your 3PL needs to coordinate multiple SKUs, consider the packing needs of diverse products (e.g., their shape, size, weight, fragility, perishability, etc.), and leave enough time for sufficient quality control to make sure all bundles are properly assembled and labeled before being shipped out to customers. At such short notice, orchestrating and overseeing a complex process may be out of bounds of your 3PL’s normal capabilities.

5) They may face shipping restrictions

Beyond assembly, multi-item bundles can continue to pose challenges for 3PLs that are used to following more standardized, predictable procedures. A common obstacle is shipping.

Once assembled, produce bundling may exceed standard shipping categories due to their size, weight, and/or dimensions. In turn, your 3PL must spend extra time assessing shipping methods and recalculating costs. Worse, your bundles may no longer qualify for standard shipping rates and thus require additional fees for handling, oversize dimensions, fragile items, etc. All of these extra considerations complicate the fulfillment process, leading to potential shipment delays or unexpected cost increases, which should be taken into consideration when creating a product bundling strategy.

6) They’re more prone to mistakes

Shifts in procedure always run the risk of creating more room for error. Normally, this is an expected part of the process, and your 3PL is likely prepared with systems in place to slowly onboard order changes and mitigate errors for your product bundling strategy.

But when you introduce a sudden change during the hectic holiday season, at a time when teams are already scrambled and working under pressure, it’s almost inevitable that mistakes will happen. In other words, by asking your regular 3PL to take on an unexpected, complex multi-item bundle at the last minute, you can unfortunately expect a higher rate of error with issues like incorrect item combinations, labeling errors, shipping mistakes, incomplete bundles, and more.

Why MyFBAPrep is the best logistics partner for your last-minute holiday product bundling strategy

Your 3PL may have your typical fulfillment processes down pat, but when you want to create a new product bundling strategy right before the start of the holiday season, there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to handle the last-minute complications—and the busy holiday season is no time to take a risk. With 70% of consumers ready to shell out more than $100 for Christmas shopping, you don’t want to risk inventory management problems, packaging mistakes, or late shipments at this time of year.

If you’re worried your 3PL won’t be able to accommodate last-minute product bundling strategy, consider working with a full-service logistics provider with experience in bundling strategies, like MyFBAPrep. We offer multiple bundling services, including custom-designed bundles and kitting and variety packs.

Here’s a look at why we’re the best logistics provider for holiday bundling:

Fast turnaround time

More than ever, the holiday season is the time to prioritize speed and efficiency. Especially when it comes to product bundling and kits that many customers will likely be buying as gifts for their loved ones, you don’t want to risk delays in fulfillment or shipping.

MyFBAPrep ensures it will all get done on time. We guarantee a 2- to 3-day turnaround for FBA prep (and other prep services), including:

• Receiving and inspection
• FNSKU labeling
• Poly bag or shrink wrap
• Warning labeling
• Sticker removal
• Freight pickup scheduling
• Amazon Seller Central (including shipping plan creation)
• And more

With rapid, reliable item prep, we can help your business ensure continuous sales so you can maximize business growth (and profits) with your new bundles for the holiday season, and beyond.

On-demand scalability

Most 3PLs have very standardized inventory and order management systems. While they may be reliable, these systems are also rigid and unable to easily adapt to sudden order changes.

MyFBAPrep is different. Our services are specifically designed to be flexible and scalable, so you can adjust your orders as needed, even at the last minute. With 100+ Amazon FBA prep centers and warehouses worldwide, you can use as much or as little of our expansive network and services as you need. That means you can count us to handle large volumes of your new holiday product bundle strategy efforts without sacrificing the speed or quality your customers expect.

Direct integration with FBA

As we enter Q4, there’s already plenty of chaos getting everything ready to ship out for the holiday season. If you want to maximize profits and minimize headaches, it’s worthwhile to work with a logistics partner who knows how to handle the complexities of Amazon FBA prep services.

With decades of experience, we know how to ensure your products are seamlessly prepared and delivered into Amazon’s FBA network. Specifically, we:

• Inspect and verify your bundles: We will inspect and verify your items to make sure they’re received in good condition from your manufacturers before they’re assembled, packed, and sent into FBA. 
• Ensure compliance with FBA standards: We have years of experience prepping items for FBA. Not only do we understand Amazon’s bundling policies, but we know the ins and outs of Amazon standards and FBA prep requirements. We’ll make sure everything is compliant with FBA standards so you don’t lose time—or money—from non-compliant inbounds. 
• Offer a full suite of Amazon FBA prep services: We can give you the whole package and handle all merchant needs for Amazon FBA prep services, including: FNSKU labeling, warning labels, polybagging, returns, dunnage and wrapping, etc.

Harmonizes with other logistics components

MyFBAPrep can work with all of your existing logistics partners and infrastructure. For example, you can:

• Use MyFBAPrep to create unique bundles and add barcodes and labels, then send completed bundles to your 3PL to fulfill.
• Have MyFBAPrep kit and bundle your holiday packs, then send to your internal warehouse for distribution.
• Leverage MyFBAPrep for the entire bundle’s journey, from kitting to delivery into FBA, the consumers, or elsewhere.

6 Q4 benefits of a product bundling strategy for last-minute holiday offers

If you’re experiencing resistance from your 3PL about creating a last-minute holiday bundling strategy, you may wonder if it’s even worth it to go through what they’re telling you are all the extra headaches and inconveniences of last-minute bundling.

But product bundling is a great option to offer your customers—especially during the holidays—that can translate to increased sales, higher profits, and more loyal customers. Specifically, holiday bundles can enable you to:

• Appeal to customers with ready-to-gift sets: A customer may not consider just one of your products as a gift for a loved one. But when you offer them pre-packaged bundles designed to go straight under the tree, they may decide your products are just what they need to check off their holiday shopping list.
• Stand out from competitors: According to Deloitte, 61% of consumers are swayed by holiday discounts and sales. By bundling several items together at a discounted rate, you can entice customers to do their holiday shopping with you, instead of with your competitors.
• Take advantage of heightened customer spending: Come holiday time, customers are prepared to open their wallets and do some serious spending. Specially-designed holiday bundles give you something new to offer customers for seasonal gift-giving without you having to rush a full-on new-product launch in Q4. 
• Create a sense of urgency: A report from Product Marketing Alliance reveals 60% of consumers follow through with a purchase if they have FOMO (i.e., fear of missing out). By marketing your holiday bundles as a limited, one-time offer, you can help persuade indecisive customers to click ADD TO CART—and maximize your end-of-year sales.
• Move excess inventory: At the end of the year, you may be left with more of a certain item than you had predicted. Bundles are a great way to help you move these extra products by combining them into a joint offer with some of your brand’s most popular, best-selling products. 
• Set the stage for future growth: Discounted bundles make it much easier to attract and close new customers. If they like your product, these last-minute holiday shoppers have the potential to become new, loyal customers who will repeat purchases in the new year.

Wrapping up—Find the right logistics provider to handle last-minute holiday product bundling

Introducing a holiday product bundling strategy in the final weeks before Q4 may seem like a logistical nightmare—but it doesn’t have to be. While your regular 3PL may caution you against launching a new product offering so late in the year, it is possible. Plus, there are too many benefits of holiday product bundling, like increased sales and boosted profits, to be turned off by logistical concerns.

If you want to introduce last-minute holiday packs for Q4 and maximize your end-of-year sales, you must work with the right logistics provider who has experience in bundling strategies. Contact MyFBAPrep for a consultation and learn how we can help drive greater EOY sales with last-minute holiday bundles.