What a 3PL really wants from a box vendor
Two years into a contract with a 200-dock 3PL, here's what the contract manager told us they actually care about. None of it was price.
In 2023 we hit the two-year mark on a contract with a third-party logistics company — call them "M.A." — that runs about 200 dock doors across the Midwest. Their packaging manager and I sat down for the renewal review, and she said something I've thought about a lot since.
Price is what got you in the door. It's not why you'll be here in three years.
The renewal review didn't go through line-item pricing for the first hour. It went through six things she actually cared about.
1. Reliability of count
When our BOL says 320 boxes, she wants 320 boxes. Not 318. Not 322. Variance has a downstream cost in her receiving counts, and a vendor who delivers reliable counts is worth slightly more per unit than a vendor who delivers cheap counts.
2. Grade honesty
She doesn't want optimistic grading. She wants the grade we'd give the box if we were the buyer. A B that performs like a B is more valuable than a B that turns out to be a C with extra tape.
3. Lead time consistency
Not lead time — consistency. If our typical lead is 5 days, she can plan around that. If our lead bounces between 2 and 9, she has to build a buffer big enough to absorb the worst case. Predictability is its own currency.
4. Single point of contact
She doesn't want a portal. She wants Mateo's email. When she has a question, she wants an answer from somebody who can actually answer. Brokers and CRMs make her grit her teeth.
5. Honest force majeure
When something goes wrong on our side, she wants to know within 24 hours, not on the day the truck doesn't show. She'd rather have bad news on Tuesday than no news through Thursday.
6. Match our paperwork to her paperwork
Her inventory system has fields. Our invoices have fields. The fewer humans she has to put between them, the happier she is. Custom invoice formatting that maps cleanly to her ERP is the kind of unglamorous thing that wins contracts.
The renewal
We renewed for another three years. The price moved up a bit because kraft costs had moved. She didn't push back. I'd like to think that was because we'd earned the six things on her list.
Related field notes.
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Read →In 2023 a procurement manager sent me a one-page note explaining what she actually wanted in a quote. We changed our quote template within a week. Here's what was in it.
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