Third-party warehouse management

When Your Inventory Lives Somewhere Else but Still Needs Your Attention

Third-party warehouse management becomes important the moment your product no longer lives under your own roof. Outsourcing storage and fulfillment solves many problems. It also introduces a new one: how do you manage what you cannot physically see every day. The right 3PL turns distance into an irrelevant detail. The wrong one turns distance into a fog bank where inventory goes to feel mysterious.

Search demand for managed warehouse services has grown as brands shift away from owned facilities and into 3PL partnerships. The math makes sense. Shared labor, shared automation, and shared infrastructure reduce unit costs. The risk is that brands feel like they have traded control for efficiency. Third-party warehouse management exists to keep control firmly in the picture.

Why Traditional 3PL Relationships Feel Opaque

Many brands arrive at a new 3PL after experiencing the worst side of outsourced operations. Limited dashboards. Slow response times. Confusing invoices. Inventory discrepancies that never quite get resolved. In those environments, the warehouse feels like a black box: orders flow in, packages flow out, and everyone hopes the math balances.

Maureen Milligan, Director of Operations and Projects at G10, summarizes what she hears. "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 meeting the committed requirements." That is not a peripheral complaint. It is the heart of warehouse management.

ChannelPoint as the Management Console

Third-party warehouse management at G10 revolves around ChannelPoint, a WMS built to give brands direct visibility into operations. Orders, inventory, SLAs, and history are all accessible. Instead of relying on emailed spreadsheets or ad hoc status reports, brands can log in and see the same operational truth the G10 team sees.

Connor Perkins, Director of Fulfillment at G10, notes that clients "can see their daily orders, they can see KPIs, and they can see historical transactions." That transparency changes the tone of every conversation from guessing to collaborating.

Defining SLAs That Actually Mean Something

Third-party warehouse management includes clear service level agreements. These SLAs define cutoffs, ship speeds, accuracy expectations, and reporting cadence. Without them, it is hard to know whether the warehouse is performing well or simply surviving. With them, everyone understands what success looks like.

G10 works with brands to define realistic but ambitious SLAs and then uses ChannelPoint data to measure performance against those commitments daily.

Scan-Based Discipline as the Operational Foundation

Good management relies on good data. Good data relies on consistent scanning. If inventory moves without scans, the records stop matching reality. That undermines reporting, planning, and trust.

Connor articulates the core rule. "You want everything to be scanned in the warehouse, nothing done on paper." This principle shapes receiving, putaway, picking, packing, and returns so that every movement is traceable.

Automation That You Do Not Have To Maintain

Third-party warehouse management at a sophisticated 3PL includes access to automation that would be difficult or expensive to install in-house. Zebra autonomous robots, conveyor systems, and integrated packing technology all operate behind the scenes, making the warehouse more efficient without requiring the brand to become an automation engineer.

Holly Woods, Director of Operations at G10, explains one of the key benefits of robotics. "The Zebra robots are allowing efficiency with pick paths. They are lowering fatigue on employees." That translates into steadier performance across all clients using the facility.

Returns, Exceptions, and Edge Cases

Warehouse management goes beyond standard orders. Returns, damaged goods, quarantined inventory, and special projects all need clear handling rules. If these edge cases are managed informally, they quietly erode inventory accuracy and financial clarity.

Joel Malmquist, VP of Customer Experience at G10, outlines the framework. "It looks good, we are going to restock this, or it looks damaged, we are going to either dispose of it or put it in a quarantine area." Those categories feed directly back into ChannelPoint so brands see what happened, not just that an adjustment occurred.

Multi-Node Strategy Under One Management Umbrella

As brands grow, they often need more than one warehouse. Managing multiple third-party facilities with different systems can feel like juggling. Third-party warehouse management at G10 centralizes operations across South Carolina, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas under the same platform and leadership philosophy.

That means brands can pursue multi-node strategies without stitching together several unrelated providers.

Integrations That Keep Your Stack Aligned

Third-party warehouse management is inseparable from integrations. Orders must flow from ecommerce platforms, ERPs, and marketplaces. Inventory must sync back cleanly. Tracking must return to customers without delay. G10’s API-driven integrations reduce the friction between systems so the warehouse never becomes a data bottleneck.

These 3PL API integrations ensure that the third-party environment behaves like an extension of the brand’s own stack, not a separate island.

Regular Reviews Instead of Emergency Calls

Managed warehouse relationships work best when reviews are structured, not just reactive. Regular performance reviews, forecasting sessions, and planning meetings keep everyone aligned. Instead of calling only when something breaks, brands and G10 meet to prevent problems.

ChannelPoint’s reporting capabilities support these conversations with facts rather than anecdotes.

Making Distance Irrelevant

The real test of third-party warehouse management is simple. Does the warehouse feel far away. Or does it feel like a well-run part of your company that happens to sit in another building. When data is clean, SLAs are clear, automation is steady, and communication is consistent, distance stops mattering.

Mark Becker, CEO and founder of G10, sums it up. "We are going to grow with them." Managing third-party warehouses well is how that growth stays grounded in reliable operations.

When You Are Ready To Let Go Without Losing Control

If you are tired of micromanaging a warehouse you do not own, or if your current 3PL makes you work too hard just to know what is going on, it may be time for a different approach. Third-party warehouse management done right lets you outsource the building and the labor without outsourcing insight or control.

When your brand is ready for outsourced fulfillment that feels managed instead of distant, G10 can help you build a warehouse program that gives you the best of both worlds: expert execution and real visibility.