Selling Big & Bulky Products? Insist on these 6 Standards from your 3PL or Bleed Cash.

These might seem like small issues, but they’re not.

The best companies don’t let small inefficiencies slide. They nip problems at the bud, and are not afraid to demand excellence from their partners. 

If you ship big, heavy, or awkward stuff, this list is for you. 

1.Take a look at your fulfillment footprint.

The best 3PLs will actually help you map this out.

They’ll model scenarios—what happens to your shipping costs if you add a second node? What if it’s in Texas? Or Pennsylvania? Or the West Coast?

It’s simple math, and the right setup can save you serious money.

2. Your 3PL should rate shop every single shipment.

Small to mid-sized brands don’t have enough volume leverage to be tied to a single carrier.

Instead, compete by working with a 3PL with multiple carrier relationships who run each shipment through a smart algorithm that takes into account weight, dimensions, origin, and destination… then picks the cheapest option.

This is how you save money every single day without touching your product or your pricing.

3. Tracking emails should trigger on the first carrier scan—not when the label prints.

The typical warehouse prints the label, tracking email fires, and the customer sees “shipped” while it’s still physically in their warehouse. During peak holiday or missed pickup days, the package sits in the lot and the customer gets confused why their tracking isn’t showing movement.

Now your customer thinks you're slow or unreliable and might hesitate to re-order.

Trigger tracking when the driver actually scans it, not when the label is created.

4. Lost package? Your 3PL should file the claim, not your team.

Wasted time is a real cost to your business.

If your ops team is spending hours chasing FedEx claims, you’ve got a broken system.

Good partners handle it automatically.

That’s part of the job.

5. Every charge. Every shipment. All in one place.

You should have access to a clean platform, or at the very least, a spreadsheet that shows every order, every cost and every adjustment updated with time.

You should not be digging through PDFs and emails to find costs, or worse, blindly trusting that the charges are accurate. 

6. You can’t fix what you can’t see.

Shipping invoices shouldn’t just give you a total.  You need to see exactly what you're paying for: base rate, fuel, DAS, residential, oversize, etc.

I’ve found six figures in savings for brands just by digging into these surcharges. Sometimes they’re misapplied and the refund process is a pain, so your best shot is catching them early.

Bottom Line -  Operations isn’t “set it and forget it” and deserves the same scrutiny as your ad spend or product quality. Don’t apologize for demanding more from your 3PL.

These “little issues” are the silent killers of your time and margin.