Co-packing and Assembly 3PL: One Partner for Product and Pack

When product ideas outgrow basic pick and pack

Early on, fulfillment looks simple. You have a few SKUs, you put them in boxes, you ship orders. Then the product team gets creative. Suddenly you have bundles, kits, multi-packs, channel exclusive packs, seasonal displays, and packaging that changes by retailer. The work shifts from putting finished products in cartons to actually building what the customer or retailer expects. That is the moment when a co-packing and assembly 3PL stops being optional and starts looking necessary.

By the time leaders start exploring this, they usually have scars from doing too much the hard way. As Maureen Milligan explains, "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." She adds, "Even when they were getting their new inventory delivered to the warehouses, they weren't getting received and on the shelves in a timely fashion to satisfy customer orders." If a basic 3PL cannot keep products moving, trusting them with co-packing and assembly work is a risky bet.

Why co-packing and assembly need each other

Traditional co-packers are very good at running repeatable packaging work. They print cartons, fill them, seal them, and send pallets out the door. Traditional 3PLs are very good at storing pallets and shipping orders. The friction comes from everything in between. Product changes. Retail launches. Marketplace bundles. Regulated packaging updates. All of that requires both co-packing and assembly capabilities working together.

When those functions sit in different companies, brands get stuck in the gap. Co-packers produce finished packs that do not quite match what retailers or marketplaces now require. 3PLs are left to relabel, re-kit, or rebuild loads on the dock. Costs go up. Timelines slip. Everyone points at everyone else when something goes wrong.

Retailers and marketplaces rarely care who did what. They care what arrives. Joel Malmquist points out, "Walmart's pretty intense with their labeling rules. Dick's Sporting Goods is the same; if you don't do it right, you get those massive chargeback." On the marketplace side, the story is similar. As Jen Myers explains, "We also help them label products correctly." She warns what happens when details are off: "If you send stuff to Amazon that has the wrong labels on, or it's not to their specs, or the wrong dimensions, you get chargebacks basically they fine you!" Co-packing and assembly only create value when they work together tightly enough to avoid that outcome.

What a co-packing and assembly 3PL actually does

A co-packing and assembly 3PL combines light manufacturing, packaging, and fulfillment under one roof. That can include building kits and bundles, filling and sealing product into branded packaging, applying regulatory and safety labels, building retail ready displays, configuring case packs, and preparing FBA, FBM, and D2C units from the same inventory pool.

On the services side, John Pistone describes the broader toolkit that supports this: "We have created these other value-added services." He makes it specific: "I can kit for them. I can bundle for them. I can build an Amazon seller central account, and I can do all the content build-up." Co-packing and assembly work sits right in the middle of that picture. It turns components and packaging into sellable units that match how the brand shows up across channels.

Jen ties that work into channel growth: "Helping people grow, part of that is the channel expansion and having a warehouse management system, WMS, that supports that seamlessly." She continues, "Everything has to be connected. Now I'm selling into stores as well, and they order a whole pallet at a time as opposed to one unit at a time, as customers would do." A co-packing and assembly 3PL is where that connection becomes physical. It is where you decide which version of the product goes into a parcel, which goes on a pallet, and which goes into a display.

Why the WMS matters more than fancy packaging

Nice packaging is important, but it is not enough. If the warehouse management system does not understand what is inside each pack, how many units exist, or how they should flow to different channels, co-packing work will create as many problems as it solves. That is why a co-packing and assembly 3PL lives or dies on its WMS.

Bryan Wright draws the line clearly: "A bad WMS system will not track inventory 100%, as it should." In a co-packing environment, that means components and finished goods quickly drift out of sync with the system. You might think you have enough components for a promotion, only to discover halfway through that the numbers were wrong.

He describes the alternative like this: "A good WMS tracks inventory through the warehouse at every point that you touch it." For co-packing and assembly, that includes receiving components, staging them for production, tracking work in process, and receiving finished product into the correct SKUs. WMS driven assembly tasks and scan based assembly accuracy help ensure that every touch is recorded, not guessed.

Adaptability matters just as much. Bryan points out, "With G10 we can make that change extremely quickly because we have our own development staff." When a brand updates packaging, changes a bundle, or adds a new channel, those changes have to appear in the WMS and workflows quickly enough that the floor does not have to improvise.

The founder's fear: losing control when more work moves under one roof

Founders and operations leaders often feel torn. On one hand, combining co-packing and assembly with fulfillment in one place sounds efficient. On the other hand, it feels like putting even more of the brand's fate in someone else's hands. If that partner stumbles, there is no one else to blame.

That fear shows up in blunt questions. Joel recalls a customer asking, "Say Target drops 10 POs and gives us 48 hours to turn it around? Is G10 the right partner for us to navigate through that and execute at a high level?" Swap Target for a major retailer, marketplace promotion, or key wholesale launch and the concern is the same. When everything depends on one operation, can it actually perform.

Joel explains how his team responds when the stakes are high: "We are able to help them get through that big surge and develop and grow their business as it comes in." Co-packing and assembly work is a big part of that surge handling. It is where bulk product, packaging, and routing rules turn into what buyers and customers actually receive.

Holly Woods offers a ground level picture of that commitment: "Our supervisor, warehouse manager, and several employees worked that entire day into the night, came back in in the morning at 5 a.m. to make sure that we had the routing completed for that pickup for Target." When co-packing and assembly live with fulfillment, that kind of grind can be focused on completing the whole job, not just one piece of it.

Designing products and packs that operations can support

A co-packing and assembly 3PL does more than take instructions. It helps brands design SKUs, packs, and bundles that operations can actually support at scale. That might mean simplifying a planned bundle, adjusting counts to fit case pack rules, or changing packaging to meet retailer and marketplace requirements without inflating cost.

Bryan describes the visibility that makes those conversations real: "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." Over time, that history shows which pack formats flowed easily and which ones created bottlenecks or error patterns.

Maureen explains how customers use that insight to adjust: "They can actually watch those progressions going on." When a co-packing and assembly 3PL shares that view, brands can prune or refine SKUs and bundles instead of letting complexity pile up unchecked.

Co-packing and assembly inside omni channel operations

Most brands do not have the luxury of one channel at a time. They sell D2C, through marketplaces, and into retailers simultaneously. A co-packing and assembly 3PL has to support that omni channel reality. The same components and base products may flow into Shopify bundles, Amazon ready units, big box retail case packs, and specialty store displays.

Jen highlights that this is where systems and services have to line up: "Helping people grow, part of that is the channel expansion and having a warehouse management system, WMS, that supports that seamlessly." She adds, "Everything has to be connected." In practice, that means co-packing work for one channel cannot blindside the others. The WMS must understand how many units are reserved, how many are in production, and how many are available for each demand stream.

On the services side, John says, "We have created these other value-added services." He notes, "I can kit for them. I can bundle for them." When co-packing and assembly are treated as shared capabilities instead of channel specific silos, brands can say yes to new programs without always fearing that something else will break.

Visibility that makes a single partner feel safe, not risky

Handing co-packing, assembly, and fulfillment to one 3PL only works if you can see what is happening. Brands need more than reassurance. They need data. That means clear portals, job tracking, and inventory views that cover components, work in process, and finished goods.

Bryan describes that data layer: "We have portals that show you the data. We have history that shows you all of that tracking." For co-packing and assembly work, that history shows when components arrived, when production runs started, how much was completed, and how long it took each time.

Maureen notes how customers react when they get that level of transparency: "They can actually watch those progressions going on." For leaders used to wondering whether a co-packer or 3PL is really on schedule, watching progress in real time changes the tone of every planning meeting.

Culture that respects grind and quality at the same time

Co-packing and assembly are not glamorous. They involve repetition, checklists, and careful attention to details most customers never see. Doing that work well, at scale, requires more than processes. It requires a culture that respects both grind and quality.

Mark Becker captures the leadership mindset behind that culture: "Yeah, I live in the grind every day." That grind shows up on the co-packing line when teams keep building, labeling, and checking units long after the novelty has worn off.

Bryan sets the standard for critical projects: "You go 110% and make sure that when they're done, this project is something they're going to remember." Many of those projects are exactly the co-packing and assembly runs that power new product launches, retail expansions, and major promotions.

When something goes wrong, Maureen describes the response: "We say, We made a mistake, this is what happened, this is how we're correcting, it and this is how we're going to make it right by you." In a combined co-packing and assembly 3PL, that mindset matters. There is no one else to blame. The same team that caused a problem is responsible for fixing it.

Why a co-packing and assembly 3PL becomes a growth engine

On a spreadsheet, a co-packing and assembly 3PL can look like a cost line. There are fees for projects, packaging execution, and extra touches. In practice, the right setup behaves like a growth engine. It lets brands launch more products, test more bundles, enter more channels, and respond faster to retailer and marketplace opportunities without rebuilding infrastructure every time.

It ties directly into Connor Perkins's simple framing: "To be successful and grow rapidly you have to sell a lot of your products. That boils down to having a good product, but also having a good supply chain." A co-packing and assembly 3PL strengthens that supply chain exactly where your product meets the real world: in the packaging, labels, and configurations that customers, retailers, and marketplaces actually receive.

If your leadership meetings include too many conversations that start with We have a great idea, but we are not sure how to build it or ship it, it may be time to treat co-packing and assembly as a core capability instead of an afterthought. With the right partner, systems, and culture in place, you can focus on creating products worth shipping while knowing that someone is ready to build them, pack them, and get them out the door correctly every time.