In-house fulfillment vs 3PL: when to outsource and when not

Third-party logistics providers promise to take fulfillment off your plate. Ship your inventory to their warehouse, they pick, pack, and post. You focus on selling.

It sounds like a no-brainer. But for many e-commerce sellers—especially smaller ones—outsourcing fulfillment means giving up more than you realize.

What you lose with 3PL

When someone else packs your orders, you lose control of the unboxing experience.

No handwritten thank-you note. No branded tissue paper. No surprise sample tucked into the box. No personal touch that makes a customer smile, take a photo, and post about you.

Your early customers—the ones who found you before you were big—are exactly the people who respond to this stuff. They didn't buy from you because you had the fastest shipping. They bought because they connected with your brand. Treating their order like any other package from any other warehouse misses the point.

There's also something less obvious: when you pack orders yourself, you see what people buy. You notice patterns. You catch a weird order that might be fraud. You feel the rhythm of your business in a way that disappears when fulfillment becomes someone else's spreadsheet.

What you gain with 3PL

Let's be fair. 3PLs exist for good reasons.

Time. Packing orders takes hours. Hours you could spend on product development, marketing, or strategic work that actually grows the business.

Scale. When you're shipping 200 orders a day, in-house fulfillment means hiring warehouse staff, managing shifts, and dealing with sick days. A 3PL handles the headcount.

Speed. A good 3PL has optimized processes, multiple locations, and carrier relationships. They might get orders out faster than you can.

Flexibility. Peak season hits and you're suddenly doing 5x volume. A 3PL absorbs that. Your spare bedroom does not.

The question isn't whether 3PL is good or bad. It's whether it's right for your stage and your priorities.

Signs you should stay in-house

Keep fulfillment in-house if:

Your order volume is manageable. If you're shipping under 50 orders a day, you can probably handle it yourself without it taking over your life.

Brand experience matters. You're building a premium or personal brand where the unboxing is part of the product. Think DTC brands, gift products, anything where presentation drives loyalty.

You're still learning. Early-stage businesses benefit from touching every order. You learn what sells, what gets returned, what customers actually want.

Margins are tight. 3PL costs add up. Pick fees, pack fees, storage fees, minimum commitments. If you're watching every euro, doing it yourself might be the only profitable option.

Signs it's time to outsource

Consider a 3PL if:

Fulfillment is eating your week. If you're spending more time packing boxes than running your business, something has to give.

You're missing growth opportunities. You could launch that new product line, but you don't have bandwidth because you're drowning in shipments.

Volume is spiking unpredictably. You can't hire and fire staff for every sales peak. A 3PL can.

You're selling through B2B channels. Retail orders often have specific labeling, packing, and routing requirements. A 3PL experienced with retail compliance can handle this better than you can.

The hybrid approach

Here's what smart sellers often do: keep some fulfillment in-house and outsource the rest.

The split usually looks like this:

In-house: webshop orders, subscription boxes, VIP customers—anything where the personal touch matters.

3PL: marketplace orders (Amazon, bol.com), retail orders, high-volume SKUs where speed matters more than experience.

This gives you the best of both worlds. Your most valuable customers get the white-glove treatment. Your volume business gets handled efficiently. You're not drowning in boxes, but you're not disconnected from your customers either.

How Stockpilot supports both

Stockpilot lets you route orders however you need.

Set up rules to split orders by channel, SKU, destination, or any other criteria. Webshop orders stay in your pick-and-pack queue. Marketplace orders forward automatically to your 3PL or WMS via email or API—with packing slips and shipping labels attached if needed.

You can even split a single order: some items fulfilled in-house, others routed to a supplier or 3PL.

This flexibility means you don't have to choose one model and stick with it. Start in-house, add a 3PL for overflow, shift the balance as your business evolves. Stockpilot adapts to how you want to work—not the other way around.