10 questions to ask on a 3PL discovery call
Table of contents
Share
Your first call with a 3PL is a two-way assessment. The 3PL is working out whether your business is a good fit for their operation, and you're working out the same thing from the other side.
These discovery calls are highly important, yet most brands arrive underprepared. They answer questions about their volume, nod along to the capabilities overview, and leave without the information they actually needed. Below are 10 questions to help you work out whether a 3PL is worth progressing to a site visit and formal proposal, or whether your time is better spent elsewhere…
1. What types of product and brand do you work with most?
Start here rather than diving into pricing or technology. A 3PL's current client base tells you a lot about where their operation is optimised. A generalist 3PL warehouse built around high-volume commodity products operates very differently to a specialist 3PL, for example, that handles fragile or high-value items.
Listen for: familiarity with your product category and similar brand profiles. If they name clients in your sector without prompting, that's a good sign. If they describe their client base in vague terms, push for specifics.
2. What's your current order volume, and how much capacity do you have?
You need to know whether your business is a meaningful account for them or just something to fill a bit of space. Some 3PLs processing 200,000 orders a month won't give a brand shipping 400 orders a month the same attention as one where you'd be in the top 20% of clients.
Listen for: honest capacity information and a clear sense of where your volume sits relative to their operation. The right answer isn't the biggest number. It's one that puts you in a position where your account gets genuine attention.
3. How do you handle peak season, and what did last Q4 look like?
Peak season is where fulfilment partnerships succeed or quietly fall apart. Generic reassurances about scalability aren't useful here. You want specific data from the last peak period.
Ask: "What was your order accuracy rate in Q4?" and "Did you hit your Service Level Agreement (SLA) commitments across the board?"
Listen for: specific numbers, a candid account of where things got stretched, and what they did about it. A 3PL that claims a perfect Q4 with no detail to back it up is a probably red flag. One that describes a problem they caught and resolved is telling you something more useful.
4. What does your technology stack look like, and how does it integrate with our platforms?
Your 3PL's Warehouse Management System (WMS) is the operational backbone of the relationship. If it doesn't connect cleanly with your ecommerce platform or storefront, your inventory data will be unreliable and your team will spend hours reconciling it manually.
Ask: "Do you have a pre-built integration with Shopify, WooCommerce, or whichever platform you're on?" and "Is inventory data updated in real time or on a delay?"
Listen for: specific integration names, not a general claim about connectivity. If they have to check whether they integrate with your platform, that's worth noting.
5. What are your pick accuracy and on-time despatch rates?
These are the two numbers that determine whether your customers receive the right order on time. Any established 3PL tracks them. If they can't give you a figure on a first call, that tells you something about how seriously they monitor performance.
Benchmarks to note: pick accuracy below 99% is worth probing, and on-time despatch rates should sit above 98% outside of peak.
Listen for: specific, recent figures rather than rounded claims. "Around 99%" is a very different answer to "99.6% last quarter, measured against same-day cut-off."
6. How is my account managed day to day?
Operational problems in fulfilment don't always surface in a weekly report. You need to know who picks up the phone when something goes wrong at 4pm on a Friday, and whether that person actually knows your account.
Ask: "Will I have a named account manager?" and "What's the escalation path when there's an issue that needs resolving the same day?"
Listen for: a named contact and a clear escalation process. "Contact our support team" is not an escalation path.
7. What are your storage and handling fees, and how is billing structured?
Fulfilment pricing is rarely as simple as a per-order rate. Most 3PLs charge a combination of storage fees, pick and pack fees, inbound receiving fees, and carrier costs. Understanding the structure early prevents surprises when the first invoice arrives.
Ask: "Can you walk me through how billing works for a typical month?" and "Are there any minimum volume commitments or fees if we don't hit a certain threshold?"
Listen for: transparency and willingness to walk through the detail. A 3PL that's vague about billing structure on a first call is likely to be vague about it in the contract too…
8. How do you manage returns?
Returns are a routine part of ecommerce fulfilment, and how a 3PL handles them affects your inventory accuracy, your refund turnaround times, and your ability to resell returned stock. Not all 3PLs treat returns with the same operational rigour they apply to outbound orders.
Ask: "What's your returns process from receipt to restocking?" and "How long does it typically take for returned stock to be available to sell again?"
Listen for: a defined process with a clear timeline. If returns are described as something that gets handled when there's time, that's a problem you'll feel at scale.
9. Can you provide references from brands in a similar category to ours?
A 3PL's willingness to connect you with existing clients is one of the clearest signals of operational confidence, and a provider with genuinely satisfied clients in your product category will offer this without hesitation.
Ask: "Can you put us in touch with two or three brands you work with who are in a similar space to us?"
Listen for: an immediate yes, with names offered rather than promised later. Hesitation, or references that never materialise, tells you something important.
10. What would make us a difficult client to work with?
This is the question most brands don't think to ask, and the answer is often the most useful thing you'll hear on the call. A 3PL that answers honestly is telling you they know their operation well enough to know where it works best. One that says "we work well with everyone" is telling you the opposite.
Listen for: a specific, candid answer. Common responses include minimum volume thresholds, product types they don't handle well, or brands with very irregular order patterns. If any of those apply to you, better to know now.
What to do after the call
The 3PLs who answered with data, named contacts, and candid detail are worth progressing. The ones who stayed at the level of capability claims and general reassurances probably aren't.
Discovery calls rarely end in a final decision, but they should narrow the field so that your time on site visits, proposals, and contract reviews is spent on providers who know what they're doing, and those that match your business requirements.
How we can help
If you're not sure where to start, we can help before the first discovery call even happens. At fulfilment.com, we match ecommerce brands to vetted 3PL providers based on volume, product type, and channel requirements, so you can skip the hard-no's and only speak with fulfilment providers that are actually a credible fit for your business.
