Questions brands ask before they move

Two to three weeks is typical for a mainstream platform and a straightforward catalogue. Week one is connecting channels, mapping SKUs and agreeing the packing specification. Week two is the inbound delivery, goods-in and put-away. Complex kitting, bespoke integrations or multi-entity stock pooling can add time, and we will say so before you commit rather than after.

There is no hard minimum, but below roughly two hundred orders a month the economics rarely favour outsourcing — you would usually be paying for a service you have not yet outgrown. If you are close to that line we will tell you honestly whether it is worth moving yet.

No, and we usually recommend against it. Most brands start with one channel or a subset of SKUs, run it live for a couple of weeks, then move the rest once the process is proven. It costs a little more in the short term and removes almost all of the risk.

A SKU list with barcodes, dimensions and weights; access to connect your sales channels; your packing specification or an example of a packed order; and a forecast of volumes including any seasonal peaks. If some of that does not exist yet, we will help you build it.

Yes, and you should. Ask to see goods-in, the pick faces and the pack benches during a normal working day rather than a scheduled tour slot. What a warehouse looks like mid-shift tells you more than any proposal document.

In our UK facilities, racked to fixed barcoded locations. Before you commit we will tell you which specific site will hold your stock, how that building is held — owned, leased by us, or run by a vetted partner under our service levels — and what it is equipped for. A provider that will not answer that question is worth pressing on it.

Both structures exist across the industry and both can work; what matters is knowing which one you are buying. Where a site is partner-operated we say so, your account is still managed by us, and the same service levels apply. The operations page sets out each site and how it is held.

Yes. We connect through the Shopify app, pull orders continuously, sync stock against a dedicated Shopify location and write the fulfilment and tracking back to the order — which is what makes Shopify send its own shipping confirmation to your customer. Bundles are mapped to their components so stock decrements correctly.

Yes to both, from the same stock pool. Merchant-fulfilled orders are dispatched inside Amazon's handling time with tracking uploaded at label print, which is what protects your Late Dispatch and Valid Tracking metrics. FBA shipments are prepped, labelled and booked in from the same building, removing a transfer leg and a second provider.

Yes. eBay orders are dispatched inside your stated handling time with variant-level stock tracking on multi-variation listings. TikTok Shop is set up for spike volume: stock allocated at the moment the order lands, a holdback figure you set to protect against overselling, and surge absorbed by a shared floor rather than your own headcount.

Yes, and most brands do. Send your cartons, mailers, inserts, tissue and tape into stock and you pay handling rather than materials. Your packing specification is documented at the bench so it is applied identically to every order. If a carton size is costing you more in volumetric carriage than it saves, we will tell you.

Yes. Components are counted as components and finished kits as their own SKU, with a build transaction that decrements the parts. We build and time a sample before quoting, because per-unit assembly priced from a description is a guess in one direction or the other.

Hazardous goods requiring specialist licensing, temperature-controlled or pharmaceutical stock, live goods, and anything needing calibration or certification during assembly. We would rather turn the work down than take it on and handle it badly.

Per order picked, plus a lower per-item rate for additional lines in the same order, plus carriage and storage. Packaging materials are either supplied by you or charged at cost plus handling. Prep, kitting and assembly are priced separately by unit because the work varies so much.

Carriage, storage, packaging materials, and any per-unit work such as bagging, relabelling or bundling. Unusual handling — oversized items, hazardous goods, two-person deliveries — is quoted separately. We name these up front because discovering them on the first invoice is the fastest way to lose a client.

We work on a rolling agreement with a notice period rather than a multi-year lock-in. If the service is not right, a long contract does not fix that; it just makes leaving expensive.

By the space you actually occupy — per pallet, per bin or per square metre — billed weekly, so a seasonal build-up costs more for the weeks it is there and less afterwards.

Carrier peak surcharges are passed through at cost during the Q4 period, because the carriers apply them to us. We do not add a separate peak margin of our own, and we will tell you the expected surcharge windows in advance so they can go into your margin planning.

15:00 on working days for same-day dispatch, subject to stock being available. Orders after the cut-off go out the next working day. Weekend and bank holiday handling is agreed per client, since it depends on your carrier services.

It is held rather than shipped short by default, and flagged on the daily exception report. You choose the standing rule during onboarding — hold everything, ship what is available and follow up, or cancel the missing line — and we apply it consistently.

Stock levels sync back to your connected channels continuously, and your account manager provides a stock and movement report at the cadence you want. Cycle counts run against a rolling schedule so the figure stays close to reality between reports.

Yes, provided it can be driven by a rule or a field on the order — a gift flag from checkout, an order value threshold, a channel, or a note field. What we avoid is anything that requires an operative to make a judgement call at the bench, because that is where consistency breaks.

Damage found at goods-in is photographed and reported the same day so you can claim against the supplier or carrier. Damage found during picking is quarantined and recorded against the SKU, and appears on your exception report rather than quietly disappearing from the count.

Capacity, staffing and carrier allocation are agreed months in advance based on your forecast. We will ask for that forecast in late summer, and we would rather plan against an honest estimate than an optimistic one.

We are, while it is in our custody, and we carry goods-in-trust cover for it — the limit is confirmed in writing during onboarding. What that does not cover is stock that never arrived: if a count at goods-in is short against the ASN, that is a supplier or inbound carrier issue and we give you the photographs and paperwork to claim on it the same day.

You do, at all times. We hold it as bailee, which is why goods-in-trust cover exists and why a written notice period is enough to have it picked, palletised and released back to you. Your stock is never used as security against anything, and it is not commingled with another client's units of the same product.

Shopify and Shopify Plus, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, Squarespace, Wix, Amazon, eBay, Etsy and TikTok Shop natively or through a multichannel manager. Anything else can usually be connected over our REST API, by webhook, or by scheduled file transfer.

Yes — a documented REST API with webhook events for order status, stock changes and dispatch. Teams running headless or in-house platforms build against it directly. Access and documentation are provided during onboarding.

We process customer data only to fulfil your orders, under a written data processing agreement and in line with UK GDPR. We do not market to your customers, and we do not share your data with other clients.

Connections are monitored, and a failure raises an alert on our side rather than waiting for you to notice missing orders. Where a platform has changed its API, we handle the update; where it needs a decision from you, your account manager will explain what it affects and what the options are.

Yes. If you have negotiated rates worth keeping, we will ship on your accounts. Many brands compare both and use whichever is better per service — that comparison is what rate shopping does at the point of dispatch.

Yes, and it is usually the cheapest route. We book the container or pallet delivery against a dock slot, check it against the ASN on arrival, and handle unloading and put-away. Send the paperwork ahead of the shipment so goods-in know what to expect.

Yes. Returns are received, inspected against your grading rules and either restocked, repackaged, quarantined or written off, with the reason recorded against the SKU so patterns become visible rather than anecdotal.

Yes, both parcels and freight. International parcels are shipped with the required customs documentation generated at dispatch. For larger movements, our cargo transport service covers road, sea and air with the documentation prepared before departure.

We hold goods-in-trust cover and will confirm the limit in writing during onboarding. If you expect to hold a high peak value, tell us the figure early — some catalogues need a higher limit than the standard policy provides, and that is better arranged before stock arrives.

Give notice under the agreement and we will pick, palletise and release your stock, either to your own transport or through our freight service. Exit terms are set out plainly in the agreement. A 3PL that makes leaving difficult is telling you something about its confidence in the service.