Every growing ecommerce business reaches the same decision: keep packing and shipping orders yourself, or hand it to a fulfilment partner. Both can work. The wrong choice usually shows up as cash tied up in rent, late deliveries, or a founder who spends the day packing instead of growing the business.
What each option means
In-house fulfilment means you run it: your space, your staff, your arrangements with riders and logistics companies.
Third-party fulfilment means a 3PL provider stores your stock in its warehouse, picks and packs each order and delivers it for you.
Side-by-side comparison
| In-house | Third-party (3PL) | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost structure | Mostly fixed: rent and salaries, whatever you sell | Mostly variable: you pay per order and for space used |
| Upfront investment | Rent, deposit, shelving, staff | Little or none |
| Control | Full control of every parcel | Control through a dashboard and agreed processes |
| Delivery speed | Fast near your location, slow everywhere else | Fast wherever the provider has hubs |
| Scaling up | More space, more hires | Send more stock |
| Quiet months | Fixed costs continue | Costs fall with orders |
| Your time | Spent on operations | Spent on selling |
The case for in-house fulfilment
- You have very low volume and packing a few orders a week doesn’t take much time.
- Your product needs special handling that a provider can’t offer, such as custom assembly or personalisation for every order.
- Your customers are concentrated right around your existing shop, and you already have reliable riders.
- You already own suitable space and have staff with spare capacity.
The case for third-party fulfilment
- Your orders are growing and packing is eating into time you should spend selling.
- Customers in other states are waiting days, paying high delivery fees or cancelling.
- You don’t want to commit to a year’s rent or permanent staff while demand is still uncertain.
- You sell on several channels and keep overselling because stock counts don’t match.
- Your sales are seasonal, with spikes around festive periods and quiet months in between.
The hidden costs people forget
When sellers compare options, they often compare a 3PL invoice with “zero”. But in-house has costs that don’t come as a single bill:
- Your hours spent packing and chasing riders.
- Stock that goes missing or gets damaged with no clear record.
- Orders cancelled because delivery took too long.
- Sales you couldn’t take because you ran out of space or hands.
Put a number on each, then compare. Our fulfilment cost guide includes a worksheet for exactly this.
A hybrid approach
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Some sellers keep a small amount of stock for walk-in customers and outsource everything else. Others outsource only out-of-state orders by placing stock in a hub in their second-biggest city. With Movnn, warehousing, fulfilment, delivery and distribution each work on their own, so you can start small.
A quick way to decide
Answer these four questions:
- Are you spending more than an hour a day on packing and delivery?
- Do more than a quarter of your orders go outside your city?
- Have you oversold, lost stock or missed deliveries in the last month?
- Would you rather not sign a long lease right now?
If you answered yes to two or more, third-party fulfilment is probably worth testing.
Try it with one hub and a portion of your stock. Your first 7 days of storage are free.
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