3PL Tracking Platform: Real-Time Order and Inventory Tracking That Stops Small Problems From Becoming Big Ones

When tracking is weak, you manage fulfillment with rumors

A 3PL tracking platform matters because fulfillment is not forgiving. Research shows that customers expect fast delivery, accurate orders, and clear status updates. Brands also need internal certainty: what shipped, what is delayed, what is out of stock, and what is at risk. Without a strong tracking platform, you find out about problems late, and late is expensive.

Many brands come to G10 after living inside a tracking fog. They had a 3PL, but they did not have visibility. Orders shipped, but updates were delayed. Inventory counts existed, but they did not match reality. Exceptions surfaced only after a customer asked. A tracking platform is supposed to replace that fog with proof.

As Maureen Milligan said, "Most of the customers who come to us from another 3PL, their challenges have always been access to their data, order accuracy and efficiency, and basically just meeting the committed requirements. So we've seen a lot of people come disillusioned by their last 3PL, where their orders weren't getting fulfilled in time, their inventory accuracy was not there, and they were not able to satisfy customer orders." A 3PL tracking platform should address those exact gaps: access to data, accuracy, and timing.

Real time tracking is what makes a platform a platform

A platform that updates later is not really a tracking platform. It is a recap. Research shows that delayed status updates increase oversells, missed cutoffs, and customer-facing surprises because teams act on stale information. Real time tracking is the difference between prevention and apology.

Maureen described what real time access should provide when she said, "We're in the last stages of developing a new portal that will give customers real-time visibility to their on-time order fulfillment, inventory accuracy, and even inventory levels so that they can monitor those things directly in our systems." A tracking platform should make those signals visible without a ticket, a call, or a spreadsheet.

She also said, "A lot of the 3PL customer expectations are that order fulfillment is happening extremely timely, that our inventory is accurate, that we're able to execute on their orders very quickly, and get them shipped the same day. So what these real-time portals provide our customers is 100% visibility." That is the benchmark. If the platform does not provide that visibility, it is not doing its job.

Tracking starts with scan-based execution inside the warehouse

Tracking platforms do not create truth. They display truth. Research shows that visibility breaks when warehouse events are not captured consistently. Scan-based execution is the foundation because scanning turns physical work into time-stamped data.

As Connor Perkins said, "You want everything to be scanned in the warehouse, nothing done on paper. You can lose a lot of money in this industry by you know having people ship stuff wrong, or store it wrong, and now it's lost somewhere. So having a 3PL and WMS that is 100% scan-based is crucial." A 3PL tracking platform is only as accurate as the scans behind it.

Connor also said, "One of the pain points our clients have experienced with previous 3PLSs is inventory accuracy; maybe their previous 3PL wasn't great at picking the orders accurately. So they were losing money by shipping wrong items or wrong quantities of items." Scan-based workflows reduce that loss, and the tracking platform makes the resulting accuracy visible.

Order tracking must show the full warehouse lifecycle

Tracking numbers are not enough for operations teams. Brands need warehouse lifecycle tracking: received, released, picked, packed, labeled, shipped. Research shows that issue resolution is faster when teams can pinpoint the step that caused the delay.

Bryan Wright described what this looks like when he said, "Absolutely. We have portals that show you the data. We have history that shows you all of that tracking. It shows the product landed on the dock at 8 o'clock. At 8:10, John picked it up and took it to location XYZ, and at 10 o'clock, we picked two items off of that pellet in the location 1, 2, 3, 4, order, you know, ABC, and at 11 o'clock, we packed it, we put it in this box and put this label number on it, and all the way through the process onto the truck and to the customer." That is platform-grade tracking because it links events to time and to action.

Inventory tracking must separate availability from totals

Inventory tracking that only shows totals will still allow oversells. Research shows that oversells often happen when on-hand inventory is treated as available-to-sell inventory across channels. A 3PL tracking platform should show inventory states clearly: available, allocated, picked, packed, shipped, damaged, quarantined, and inbound.

When inventory states are visible, the business stops making promises it cannot keep. Marketing can scale with fewer surprises. Customer support can answer questions with accuracy instead of guesswork.

Exception tracking prevents support tickets and late-night firefights

Not every problem is avoidable, but most problems are detectable. Research shows that early detection reduces customer-facing damage because teams can intervene before delays turn into failures. A 3PL tracking platform should surface exceptions clearly: failed picks, short inventory, late receiving, carrier scan gaps, and routing issues.

Exception tracking is also what makes same-day shipping realistic. When teams can see where an order is stuck, they can unblock it before the cutoff clock runs out.

Transaction history is the backbone of tracking credibility

Dashboards are useful, but dashboards without drilldowns are just decoration. Transaction history is what makes tracking credible because it allows you to verify what happened. Research shows that transaction-level visibility supports root-cause fixes because teams can trace issues back to a specific workflow step.

As Connor said, "Our clients get best-in-class visibility and transparency. They can see their daily orders, they can see KPIs, and they can see historical transactions. They can look at a daily level or go into the more granular version where they're looking at transactional history on an item." A tracking platform should make it easy to move from summary to evidence.

He also said, "You have easy access to reporting and you can export to Excel, or really any format that you like you know directly from our https://g10fulfillment.com/blo...." Export access matters because tracking evidence should be shareable across teams.

Tracking platforms support B2B compliance and HAZMAT accountability

Tracking is not only about speed. It is also about compliance. Research shows that compliance failures create chargebacks, rejected shipments, and costly rework. For B2B, retail routing, and HAZMAT requirements, a tracking platform should provide traceability that supports accountability.

When an issue occurs, the platform should help prove what happened. That protects relationships and shortens the time to resolution.

How G10 approaches a 3PL tracking platform

G10 was founded in 2009, and we built our ChannelPoint WMS to support B2B and D2C ecommerce, retail, wholesale, and HAZMAT-compliant fulfillment with same-day shipping, custom capabilities, and retailer integration. A 3PL tracking platform should be part of the operating system, not an afterthought. That is why tracking, portals, dashboards, and transaction history are tied to scan-based execution and real time updates.

As Connor said, "This is one of our strengths. G10 is on the cutting edge for this kind of transparency and feedback for clients." If you want tracking that acts like proof instead of a promise, the platform has to be built for it.

If you want to see what a tracking platform looks like when order lifecycle events and inventory states are visible in real time, ask for a walkthrough of ChannelPoint that maps your current blind spots to a clearer, more defensible visibility model.