Signs Your Business Needs a 3PL Service for Handling Your Shipping
As a small and mid-sized business (SMB), you may be looking for solutions to keep your shipping under control as your company grows and shipping demand increases. Efficient and affordable shipping is a fundamental business necessity. Shifting to a third-party logistics (3PL) provider provides important quality, efficiency and cost-savings benefits. Below are some key signs your business needs a 3PL service.
What is a 3PL Provider?
A 3PL provider offers logistics and shipping services, including inventory management, warehousing and order fulfillment. 3PL shipping advisors identify freight carriers that can transport your cargo and work closely with a vast network of carriers to negotiate the best possible shipping rates for your business.
Signs That Your Business Needs a 3PL
Proper freight shipping management requires a highly complex skillset. Experienced and dedicated experts with wide-ranging industry knowledge and connections are needed to maximize efficiency and cost savings for busy SMBs. Here are a few key indicators that your business needs a 3PL shipping service.
You Want to Reduce Your Shipping Costs
Small businesses do not usually have extensive transportation and shipping networks established. This means a business owner typically loses larger and larger amounts of money on transportation and shipping as the business grows. A leading freight shipping service like Unishippers works with a vast nationwide network of freight carriers so that we can negotiate the best possible rates for you.
Further, paying employees to work overtime to keep up with shipping demands is very expensive. A top freight shipping service can provide reliable service for your customers and save you a significant amount of money at the same time.
You Need a More Accurate and Efficient Transportation Management System
A 3PL service like Unishippers gives your business access to a state-of-the-art transportation management system (TMS) that allows your business to:
- Instantly generate shipping quotes
- Streamline rate quote comparisons
- Speed up booking shipments
- Auto-create the bill of lading (BOL)
- Provide online tracking of your deliveries
- and more!
Your Order Fulfillment Falls Behind
Running behind on shipping can damage your company's reputation, and trust is quickly diminished by shipping delays, errors, poor communications and slow problem resolution. When such problems persist, customers may complain or even cancel their purchases. These and other serious issues can be avoided by integrating the use of a 3PL service into your process flow. Our TMS eliminates the need to visit multiple carrier sites to compare quotes, file claims or get tracking information. You'll be able to see all of that information in one easy-to-use dashboard.
What Are the Benefits of Utilizing a 3PL Service?
Partnering with a 3PL provider enables business owners and others to multiply their productivity by freeing valuable employee time to focus on the company's core goals and objectives. A top 3PL service provides an ideal solution for a business that has outgrown its startup operations capacity but is not yet ready for a major investment in transportation services. Additional benefits include:
- Get significantly lower shipping rates than you could receive on your own.
- Allows you to avoid expensive investment in warehouse expansion.
- Leverage a network of leading national, regional and local shipping providers so you can choose the carrier that's best for your needs.
- Manage all of your inbound and outbound shipping in one place and with a single point of contact.
- Provide the consistency of excellence in the customer experience that it takes to build a great brand.
- Redirect your team's talents to do what they do best — applying core skills to pursuing your company's purposes of creating, making and selling your product(s).
- Receive one invoice to process for all your shipment types and vendors.
For the Best LTL and TL Shipping, Call Unishippers
We are an industry-leading 3PL company for nationwide and international transportation and freight shipping support. We work with 75+ national, regional, and local LTL shipping carriers. We offer our customers the savings enabled by the collective 125,000+ shippers we assist.
Our state-of-the-art TMS for small package shipping and freight order processing provides our customers with many important advantages. These include quick access to price quotes, carrier rate comparisons, order tracking and more.