Managing a warehouse on your own is challenging. You’ve got to keep track of all the inventory on the shelves, make sure it’s easy to find for picking, and keep the space running, all while dealing with the unique issues that come with employing people.
Rather than tear your hair out trying to keep everything going, partner with a third-party logistics (3PL) company to handle your warehouse management tasks. Here are 3 ways choosing a 3PL can help you overcome warehouse management challenges and boost your business:
Reduce Labor Costs
More than half of companies have trouble finding and keeping skilled, qualified, dependable workers for their warehouses and distribution centers—a problem that’s only gotten worse with global labor shortages in all industries. And when you are able to keep workers, the costs of paying them wages and benefits, as well as training costs, can make your budget balloon out of control.
A 3PL maintains all the necessary warehouse workers for you, and you benefit from their skill and training. You never have to worry about who’s taking a vacation day or who didn’t show up for work; you just see the results of your 3PL’s hard work and dedication.
Additionally, spreading out the costs of employing and training a labor force among all of a 3PL’s clients means that you’re paying just a fraction of the amount you’d pay if you handled your own warehouse labor.
Improve Standardization
When you handle all your warehousing yourself, it can feel as if you’re just cobbling together systems and ideas without any real plan. You may have one way of organizing a set of shelves, but then someone else comes along and organizes it a different way.
This lack of standardization means you’re wasting your time and money every moment of your working day.
Over their years in business, a 3PL has become a master of their craft. They use data collection and analysis tools to help find the most efficient, quickest, and most cost-effective methods in all areas of their business. They’re always evaluating their processes and making adjustments, and your business benefits from all this time, effort, and expense.
Better Responsiveness
Shopping seasons shift quickly, and experiencing an unexpected upturn in demand for your products (or a downturn in demand) could spell a huge financial issue for your business. Managing all your warehousing and inventory management yourself means you’ve got to be constantly on your toes, ready to respond to shifts in demand.
A 3PL, however, can help you determine the right amount of stock to keep at any given time. And, their larger amount of storage space means you can manage a little bit of overstocking without a huge issue for your space.
Through months and years of collecting demand data and tracking trends, your 3PL works with you to help you figure out just how much of each product you need to have in stock, and when to ramp up production in anticipation of a boom in demand.
Your Warehouse Management Partner on the East Coast
For more than 30 years, Cannon Hill Logistics has been helping small businesses just like yours with all their warehouse management and logistics needs. We can help you custom-design a solution to meet your needs and budget. Call today for a quote!