Inventory Tracking for 3PL: How to Know What Is Happening When It Is Not Your Warehouse

Outsourcing fulfillment can feel like trading one problem for another. You get space, labor, and shipping capacity, but you also hand your inventory to someone else. If the tracking is weak, you lose the ability to answer basic questions: what is on hand, what is allocated, where is it, and what is happening to orders right now. Inventory tracking for 3PL is the system that keeps outsourced fulfillment from turning into outsourced uncertainty.

Brands usually realize this after a bad experience. Inventory counts drift, returns get messy, and every question turns into a ticket. Meanwhile, the storefront keeps selling against numbers that are not real, and customer service keeps taking heat for issues that started inside someone else's building. A 3PL relationship is only as scalable as the tracking behind it, because tracking is what lets you steer without being on the warehouse floor.

Why 3PL inventory tracking breaks more often than it should

In-house teams usually know where the shortcuts are because they live inside them. With a 3PL, you lose that context. If the provider is not capturing transactions consistently, you do not find out until a shipment goes wrong, or a cycle count variance shows up, or a retailer disputes a shortage.

Bryan Wright, CTO and COO of G10 Fulfillment, described one core cause of tracking failure: "A bad WMS system will not track inventory 100%, as it should." If the WMS does not capture inventory through every touchpoint, the customer portal becomes a polished guess. Guesswork is dangerous when you are selling in real time.

Real tracking requires transaction-level visibility through receiving, staging, putaway, replenishment, picking, packing, transfers, and returns. If a 3PL only scans at receiving and shipping, inventory can disappear digitally in the middle. That is where most of the problems hide.

What good 3PL inventory tracking actually looks like

Good tracking is not only an on-hand count. It is a living record of what happened and what is happening. That includes inventory by location, inventory by status, and transaction history that can explain changes.

Bryan described the standard for that level of control: "A good WMS tracks inventory through the warehouse at every point that you touch it." When a 3PL runs a system like that, they can answer the questions that matter, and they can prove the answers. In a strong setup, you can trace a SKU from receiving to stow to pick to ship, and you can see where it is at any moment.

Bryan also gave a vivid example of how specific that visibility can be: "At any point in time, I know that Bobby has this product on fork 10 right now, and if I needed to go find that product, I just got to go find Bobby on fork 10." That is not trivia. That is the difference between a warehouse that can locate product quickly and a warehouse that hunts and hopes.

Scan-based execution is what makes 3PL tracking believable

When you outsource fulfillment, you are trusting the system to tell you the truth. The system can only tell the truth if warehouse work is captured as it happens. That is why scan-based execution is the baseline.

Connor Perkins, Director of Fulfillment at G10 Fulfillment, described the rule that prevents invisible work: "You want everything to be scanned in the warehouse, nothing done on paper." Paper creates gaps. Gaps create drift. Drift creates those moments where the portal says you have inventory, but orders cannot ship.

Connor also described the cost customers experience when scanning and accuracy are weak. They were "losing money by shipping wrong items or wrong quantities of items." In a 3PL model, those errors hurt twice. You pay for the mistake, and you lose time trying to diagnose it through limited visibility.

Visibility reduces tickets, escalations, and surprises

In a weak 3PL setup, every question becomes a ticket. How many units are on hand. When will inbound be processed. Why is this order stuck. Tickets are slow. They also interrupt warehouse execution, which increases the odds of missed scans and errors.

Maureen Milligan, Director of Operations and Projects at G10 Fulfillment, described the value of customer-facing access: "What these real-time portals provide our customers is 100% visibility." She also described what that changes day to day: "They can actually watch those progressions going on." When you can see order progress and inventory movement yourself, you do not have to chase updates, and you can make decisions faster.

That visibility is also strategic. It lets you plan promotions around real stock. It lets you manage allocations across channels. It lets you spot bottlenecks before they become backlogs.

3PL tracking matters most in B2B and omnichannel

Direct-to-consumer fulfillment is demanding, but B2B introduces stricter rules and bigger penalties. Retailers expect precise quantities, specific labeling, and on-time compliance. If the 3PL cannot trace inventory and shipments cleanly, you can lose money on chargebacks and lose credibility with buyers.

Tracking also becomes more urgent as you add channels. Jen Myers, Chief Marketing Officer at G10 Fulfillment, described the omnichannel need: "You want to make sure your inventory is tracked across those two different systems, to make sure that there's enough inventory." That starts with the warehouse truth. If the 3PL inventory is wrong, every channel decision becomes risky.

Ship accuracy is the downstream proof of strong tracking

Inventory tracking is not only about counts. It is about outcomes. When tracking is accurate, picking is faster, exceptions are fewer, and wrong shipments are less likely.

Joel Malmquist, VP of Customer Experience at G10 Fulfillment, described what strong execution looks like at scale: "We have over 99.9% ship accuracy of these orders." That kind of performance depends on verification, scan discipline, and inventory truth that stays aligned with reality as volume rises.

Questions to ask a 3PL about inventory tracking

Ask whether the operation is fully scan-based, including internal moves and replenishment. Ask whether staging and temporary areas are tracked locations. Ask whether you can see inventory by status, not just by total on hand. Ask whether you can access transaction history that explains why inventory changed. Ask whether the 3PL can produce an audit trail for a specific SKU and time window.

Bryan described the kind of traceability you should insist on: "We have portals that show you the data. We have history that shows you all of that tracking." If a provider can show that history, you are far less likely to end up in month-end reconciliation battles and constant ticket loops.

How G10 approaches inventory tracking for 3PL customers

G10 focuses on scan-based execution, transaction-level tracking, and customer-facing visibility so customers can operate with confidence even when the warehouse is offsite. Connor summarized the baseline: "Having a 3PL and WMS that is 100% scan-based is crucial." Bryan described the tracking foundation behind that baseline: "A good WMS tracks inventory through the warehouse at every point that you touch it." Maureen connected real time access to customer confidence: "What these real-time portals provide our customers is 100% visibility."

If you want to outsource fulfillment without outsourcing control, inventory tracking for 3PL is the standard to insist on. When scans capture every touch and portals show real transaction history, you can sell, allocate, and plan based on truth, not hope. That is when a 3PL stops feeling like a black box and starts feeling like a system you can scale with confidence.