3PL Central Releases Enhanced Unified Small Parcel Shipping Suite

3PL Central, the leader in cloud-based warehouse management systems (WMS) built to meet the unique needs of 3PL warehouses, today announced updates to its unified small parcel suite as part of its 3PL Intelligence Initiative.

This suite of products includes the newly-released SmartScan for mobile scanning, as well as the company’s SmartPackTM and SmartParcelTM solutions.

The new functionality was built after extensive consultation with warehouse operations professionals to address the unique demands of high-volume ecommerce shipping.

By integrating 3PL-centric shipping features into a unified suite, the company has created a seamless, best practice pick, pack, and shipping workflow warehouses can use to reduce manual labor, improve accuracy, and streamline the work required to ship packages.

The enhanced small parcel shipping suite also includes rate shopping, allowing 3PL warehouses to save thousands of dollars a month on labor and postage by selecting the cheapest shipping rate for their customers.

With peak season package volume increasing 18% year over year, third-party logistics warehouses and their ecommerce customers are experiencing rapid growth.

Additionally, the rise of online purchases and consumer demands for faster delivery has put significant strain on their organization to meet customer service level agreements (SLAs) with little room for error.

To help manage this growth, 3PL Central has developed technology and best practice workflows to help warehouses outpace industry growth. As more and more 3PL warehouses supplement their B2B offerings with ecommerce fulfillment services, the need to unify and automate shipping processes, and move away from paper and Excel to manage operations, is a necessity to meet customer expectations and grow their businesses.

These new offerings are the culmination of almost a year of research and collaboration between 3PL Central, its partners, and more than thirty high-volume third-party logistics warehouses through the 3PL Intelligence Initiative. Beyond the in-product enhancements, ShipEngine, the leading multi-carrier shipping provider that powers Stamps.com (STMP) and ShipStation, is now the engine behind SmartParcel.

As an industry leader, ShipEngine APIs have powered over one billion shipments for the fastest-growing brands and logistics companies. With the ShipEngine integration, 3PL Warehouse Manager offers a greater range of carriers to choose from, better support for high volume shipping, and will soon include shipment confirmation and address validation. Now 3PLs can set-up new carrier accounts and be shipping in as little as 3 minutes.

Functional enhancements to the small parcel shipping suite have significantly reduced manual labor, with customers reporting a 75% reduction to previous shipping workflows. These updates include:

• Rate shopping, integrated directly with SmartParcel, optimizes shipping rates from within the WMS, saving over $1,700 of labor costs per month versus manually searching for carrier quotes per order.
• FedEx One Rate to allow 3PLs to ship any package under 50lbs at a flat rate. Warehouses can save time by removing the reliance by entering package dimensions and simply focus on packing and shipping.​​​
• SmartScan, the newly-released mobile scanning solution with support for both enterprise-class and consumer-grade devices, offers improved quality control to ensure 100% accuracy and increased efficiency for inbound orders.

As part of a paperless best practice workflow, 3PL Central recommends its small parcel shipping suite as an end-to-end solution for ecommerce and high-volume fulfillment.

Streamlining warehouse efficiency, orders are received into 3PL Warehouse Manager via pre-built integrations to the industry’s leading shopping carts. Using SmartScan, orders are validated in real-time, and no longer require warehouse staff to print pick tickets saving valuable time.

Once an order is picked, it is easily scanned, packed, and verified with SmartPack, all from within the same UI reducing the training required for warehouse workers.

Finally, SmartParcel’s rate shopping technology selects the best carrier, rates, and prints the required shipping labels per order. These automated workflows are completed in an integrated, paperless workflow all from within 3PL Warehouse Manager.

Several 3PL Central customers are already reaping the benefits of these improvements.

Joe Isabell, co-founder and lead engineer at Tugg Logistics:

“The unified small parcel shipping suite allowed us to expand our drop-shipping business and is saving our warehouse $1000 a month on labor. One of our customers has saved over $1,500 on postage alone in only one month. We no longer have to re-check orders, input package details or guess which rate is the cheapest – this information is already displayed directly in our WMS. I don’t know how we would get by without it!”

Mike Sanders, director of customer success at 3PL Central:

“Customers that utilize the unified small parcel suite are saving up to three minutes per order. We’ve eliminated the manual labor required to copy addresses, juggle multiple spreadsheets, and search for the best carrier. Our customers are ecstatic and are saving thousands of dollars in a month.”​

3PL Central’s unified small parcel suite is available today to 3PL Central customers.

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The 3PL Warehouse Peak Season Playbook
Preparing your 3PL warehouse operations for the holiday rush used to be something that was done once a year. Now, consumers are ready and able to shop any time of year, day, or even hour. From last minute holiday shopping, new shoes for school, or the perfect gift for Mother’s Day, “peak season” can be anytime of year. Download Now!