Omnichannel Automation

Running an e-commerce brand today feels a little like hosting a dinner party for ten guests who all show up at different times and shout their orders from the driveway. Shopify wants attention, Amazon sends alerts, Target demands two pallets tonight, and a celebrity suddenly posts your product on Instagram and turns your peaceful evening into a stampede. Meanwhile, you wonder why your warehouse looks calm on paper but behaves like a squirrel with a double espresso.

Search trends show the same tension. People keep looking up slow 3PL shipping, order delays, and inventory mismatch. These patterns happen when brands sell across multiple channels without the automation needed to keep everything moving in sync. As channels multiply, manual processes collapse under their own weight.

Many brands arrive at G10 after going through this firsthand. As Maureen Milligan explained, "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." When the basics slip, trust slips right behind them, and growth becomes painful instead of exciting.

Omnichannel automation changes that story. It is not a shiny robot fantasy. It is the invisible engine that keeps operations steady, data clean, and workflows predictable, even when orders surge. When it is done right, brands shift from panic mode to growth mode.

If a brand sells only through Shopify, life stays manageable. When the brand adds Amazon, then Walmart, then Target, and then a subscription program, everything becomes harder in a hurry. Inventory must stay synchronized. Fulfillment rules multiply. Label formats vary. Retailers enforce deadlines with zero mercy. Without automation, the cracks form immediately.

Connor Perkins sees this every week during onboarding. "One of the pain points our clients have experienced with previous 3PLs 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." A wrong pick is not a small mistake. It sets off a chain reaction involving refunds, negative reviews, lost rankings, and retailer penalties.

Matt Bradbury hears similar stories from fast-growing brands that tried to scale without the infrastructure to support it. "A lot of these brands have been around for 10 years or less, and a lot of them have had really bad experiences with 3PLs, so there's a big mistrust in the space." That mistrust comes from seeing manual systems fail right when a brand needs reliability the most.

Manual workarounds create fragile systems. People work late. Spreadsheets change hands. Information gets stale. The moment a big promotion hits or a retailer issues a large order, the whole operation shakes.

Automation in the warehouse is no longer hype. It is practical, measurable, and quietly transformative. G10 uses Zebra robots as part of a pilot program that dramatically increases picking speed and reduces wasted steps.

Holly Woods described them in very human terms. "The robot is round, it looks like an industrial Roomba," and by using automated pick paths they have delivered "3X the amount of efficiency" on lines picked per hour. That jump comes from cutting unnecessary walking, optimizing routes, and letting the robot do the navigation instead of the human.

These robots also absorb the impact of sudden growth. Holly recalled how fast things can escalate. "Sometimes these smaller customers come and work with G10, and they might be shipping 100, 200 orders a day. Then something goes viral on social media, and all of a sudden the doors are being blown off on orders." Without automation, that kind of surge would bury a warehouse. With automation, it becomes a busy day instead of a disaster.

Behind the robots sits the system that makes omnichannel automation possible. A warehouse management system becomes the translator, the traffic cop, and the historian for every unit of inventory. When a WMS is strong, everything else becomes simpler. When it is weak, everything becomes unpredictable.

Bryan Wright, who originally designed the system G10 uses, did not mince words. "A bad WMS system will not track inventory 100 percent as it should." A good WMS documents every movement, from arrival on the dock to final packing. It knows where every case sits. It knows who touched it. It knows which order requires it next. That precision is what keeps omnichannel operations from unraveling.

Bryan also pointed out that G10’s system was built with B2B requirements from the start. "If they have a Walmart account that they're trying to bring on, we can turn on the integration. We can create the Walmart-specific shipping label, send them Walmart-specific EDI transaction, pick it in a specific way for Walmart, and all of that stuff is inherent in the software." This matters because many 3PLs start as D2C specialists and only later try to support B2B.

When automation works, customer service does not get buried under avoidable problems. Clean data means fewer missing items. Accurate inventory means fewer customer complaints. Fast fulfillment means happier shoppers. Instead of chasing errors, customer service teams can spend their time actually helping people.

Joel Malmquist knows this contrast well. He said, "You only have to worry about reaching out to one person. And from there, that individual is going to work with the teams internally to make sure we execute for you the right way." This kind of support is only possible when automation keeps the routine tasks running smoothly.

Omnichannel automation shines brightest when a brand grows faster than expected. Growth without automation feels like a series of emergencies. Growth with automation feels like a rising tide that the system can handle.

Joel shared one example where a merchant asked whether G10 could turn around ten Target POs in forty-eight hours. Joel answered, "Yes we can," because distributed automation and flexible staffing made it achievable. This yes came from preparation, but also from infrastructure designed to flex instead of break.

Automation is designed for founders who build their brands by taking risks, adapting quickly, and learning fast. These founders do not want fluff. They want systems that stay strong when their business accelerates.

Mark Becker described this spirit perfectly. "At the end of the day, all we are is builders. The two of us love to build." That builder mindset means designing automation not as a gimmick but as a growth tool.

Jen Myers explained the result clearly. "That's why omnichannel is pretty seamless for us, because we built it that way." When the system is designed for omnichannel from day one, expanding into Amazon, Target, Walmart, or specialty retailers becomes far more natural.

If omnichannel life currently feels like juggling too many flaming torches, automation can give your brand the steady foundation it deserves. The goal is calm reliability, accurate inventory, clean data, and the confidence to scale without chaos.

G10 was built for brands that are building something big. If you want operations that stay sharp under pressure, deliver on time, and give you space to grow, reach out. We can show you how omnichannel automation becomes a competitive advantage instead of a constant headache.