The best way to Write a 3PL RFP: Course of + Free Template – Buzz Credit score

It’s taking place – your ecommerce enterprise is on the rise. It’s grown so huge, actually, that you just simply don’t have the time or capability to meet your individual orders anymore. You’re able to outsource to a 3PL. Now the one query is: which one? 

Whereas the query is easy, the choice course of itself could be fairly advanced – and high-stakes. If what you are promoting chooses a companion that’s a nasty match to your wants, you might expertise a bunch of points, together with limitless order inaccuracies, hidden charges, gradual deliveries, and in the end sad clients.   

Because of this it’s paramount to totally vet potential logistics companions to search out one which’s greatest aligned along with your wants and price range. To do that, many manufacturers leverage the “request for proposal,” or “RFP” to judge and evaluate totally different companions. 

This put up provides you an in-depth information to what a 3PL RFP is, why it’s necessary, and tips on how to write one for what you are promoting.  

What’s a 3PL RFP (request for proposal)? 

Usually, a enterprise will both announce that it’s accepting proposals or particularly invite potential companions to submit a proposal. These proposals often define key details about the companion, what the service or challenge would entail, pricing, and extra.  

An RFP affords a structured framework for vetting 3PLs, permitting the corporate to evaluate the varied proposals from totally different 3PLs utilizing the identical set of standards. This streamlines the analysis course of, because it makes it simpler to check and distinction the professionals and cons of every potential partnership. 

Why does the 3PL RFP course of matter? 

Following the RFP course of could be game-changing in your seek for the right success companion. Particularly, the RFP course of permits manufacturers to: 

• Clearly articulate their service wants – Because the model soliciting proposals will explicitly state the whole lot they’re on the lookout for in a logistics companion within the RFP, it improves the probabilities of discovering a 3PL that meets their actual wants. 

• Preserve pricing transparency – An RFP virtually at all times require 3PLs to submit a bid that clearly breaks down pricing and any further bills, which helps companies keep away from hidden prices additional down the road whereas gaining access to aggressive pricing. 

• Streamline communication – Having a structured strategy to requesting proposals formalizes and simplifies the analysis course of, enabling companies to get all the knowledge they want a few 3PL in a single place, keep away from misunderstandings, and decide sooner. 

“I spoke to 12 totally different success firms of all sizes and shapes — however our dialog with our ShipBob consultant was by far the perfect. Out of everybody that we had spoken to, our conversations with him felt essentially the most like an actual partnership. Altogether, ShipBob was capable of present us with the bespoke resolution that we have been on the lookout for, and a way of partnership we simply couldn’t discover wherever else.”

Adelina Zotta & Connor Westby, Co-Founders of NutriPaw 

What’s a 3PL RFP used for? 

A 3PL RFP is a flexible instrument, and types use them in a variety of methods to assist them discover the perfect match for his or her distinctive success wants. Listed here are among the commonest ways in which manufacturers leverage RFPs as they select their subsequent 3PL. 

Evaluating supplier compatibility 

With so many 3PL firms providing various things, it’s straightforward to get overwhelmed when selecting a success companion. It’s straightforward to get distracted by all of the bells and whistles of a 3PL with out realizing that the corporate doesn’t actually meet your actual necessities. 

Clearly documenting your logistics necessities ensures that you just don’t lose focus of what’s necessary to your model. It means that you can assess a supplier’s capabilities and choices objectively and consider compatibility primarily based in your particular wants, serving to you slim down your choices. 

Standardizing responses for straightforward comparability 

Not all 3PLs are created equal – and whereas most provide the identical core capabilities of storage, selecting, packing, and delivery, you’ll wish to think about all of a companion’s service choices earlier than making your determination.  

Nevertheless, this may be tough when you’ve totally different suppliers describing or itemizing their choices in numerous codecs. You will have a tough time discovering the knowledge you want, and even miss key particulars that may assist along with your analysis. Alternatively, some suppliers might miss sure particulars about their providing, which may skew your comparability course of. 

To attenuate this confusion, a 3PL RFP lays out all the knowledge that should be included in a proposal, in addition to the format that suppliers should observe when responding to the request. Every supplier sends in a standardized response utilizing similar format and itemizing an important info. Because of this, you may simply evaluate responses to one another. 

Enquiring about particular warehousing initiatives or providers 

Since a 3PL RFP means that you can clearly describe your model’s wants, you may get as granular and particular as it’s worthwhile to. This makes RFPs extremely helpful for enquiring about particular warehousing initiatives or providers.  

For example, possibly you want a supplier who can provide custom-branded packaging, or you could want a supplier who’s able to scaling their ecommerce warehousing capabilities primarily based on seasonal demand fluctuations. With an RFP, you may inquire as as to whether suppliers provide these providers and the scope of their choices. This streamlines the choice course of, permitting you to eradicate suppliers whose capabilities are aligned along with your actual wants. 

Key elements of a profitable 3PL RFP course of 

On your 3PL RFP to ship high quality responses, it wants to incorporate detailed and related sections that may information respondents. Listed here are among the key elements of a profitable 3PL RFP. 

1. Firm overview and aims 

Earlier than the rest, you’ll need to offer 3PLs with the mandatory context about what you are promoting, in order that they know “who” they’re sending their proposal to.  

First, give an summary of your organization and any important info, together with: 

• What what you are promoting does 
• What you are promoting’s mission 
• The place what you are promoting is situated or headquartered 
• What kinds of merchandise what you are promoting sells 
• What you are promoting’s contact info 

Subsequent, clarify why you’re issuing the RFP and what you’re trying to get out of it; in different phrases, describe the target you’re trying to obtain with a 3PL companion. For instance, maybe you’re increasing your attain, trying to scale back prices, or enhance effectivity. Share the ache factors that you really want the 3PL to handle, corresponding to not having sufficient house or not having the workforce wanted to fulfill supply timelines. 

2. Scope of labor 

With the essential details lined, it’s necessary to set clear expectations concerning the scope of labor. This implies outlining your foremost service necessities, so suppliers know precisely what you’re on the lookout for. Don’t simply assume that they’d know what you want primarily based on the aims you shared. 

Your service necessities may embody each bigger initiatives and smaller value-added providers, together with: 

Be certain to specify whether or not there’s a necessity for sure provide chain know-how. For example, you could want a 3PL that additionally affords a standalone WMS to meet a few of your orders in-house, or you could want know-how that rate-shops between a number of carriers to make sure cost-efficiency. 

Don’t neglect to incorporate directions for the way they’re to format and share their responses. This may assist suppliers perceive tips on how to lay out their service choices in a transparent and logical method that you just’ll settle for.  

3. Operational knowledge and necessities 

Even when a 3PL affords the precise providers you’re on the lookout for, it doesn’t essentially assure that they’ve the capability to fulfill your operational wants. To deal with this, you’ll wish to write an RFP that specifies the precise operational capability and repair scopes {that a} supplier wants to supply. 

Embody specifics about your operations to set expectations from the beginning. Use knowledge out of your ecommerce analytics to spotlight key particulars, like: 

• Common order quantity 
• SKU rely 
• Peak season demand developments 
• Present success efficiency 
• Present success prices 

4. Analysis standards 

Within the curiosity of equity, it’s necessary to inform suppliers upfront about how you can be evaluating them. This helps them perceive how they’ll be in contrast in opposition to different suppliers, to allow them to be ready to set themselves aside. It additionally gives you with a transparent framework for evaluating suppliers, so you may deal with an important particulars. 

Define the important thing particulars of your analysis course of, corresponding to: 

• What issues most to you (value, specializations, know-how, velocity, scalability, customer support, and so forth.) 
• Who can be evaluating the proposals (procurement, finance, operations, and so forth.) 
• What number of phases are within the choice course of (preliminary evaluation classes, shortlisting, interviews, and so forth.) 

5. Questions for the 3PL 

Apart from the fundamentals, you’ll additionally wish to ask further inquiries to hammer out the small print of a partnership and perceive the supplier even higher. A couple of examples of questions you may ask embody: 

• What’s your success capability and might it scale with altering demand? 
• The place are your success facilities situated? 
• How do these places serve my success wants? 
• Who’re your high service companions? 
• Are you able to negotiate delivery charges on our behalf? 
• If sure, what sort of decrease charges are you able to assure? 
• Can I entry real-time success knowledge? 
• What sort of service ensures are you able to provide? 
• What occurs when an error happens? 
• How do you deal with returns and reverse logistics? 

You’ll be able to at all times customise these questions to handle your particular issues. 

The best way to write a results-driven 3PL RFP 

So what to incorporate in an RFP – now, it’s time to write down it. Listed here are a couple of greatest practices you need to observe to write down a results-driven 3PL RFP. 

Establish what you are promoting wants and targets 

The entire function of an RFP is to hunt out suppliers who can meet what you are promoting wants. This makes it essential to begin with a transparent understanding of your actual wants and targets earlier than you write the RFP. 

Understanding the important thing inside logistics challenges that want addressing. What are your greatest ache factors? For example, you could be combating excessive error charges or success delays. Primarily based on this, you may outline the targets that you just wish to obtain with the assistance of a 3PL – within the earlier instance, you could wish to obtain greater order accuracy charges and on-time success, or you could wish to scale back success prices. 

“We used to work with a distinct success supplier, however their service was means too costly and we simply couldn’t afford it. It was one in every of our greatest bills, in order we have been looking for methods to chop prices over the previous yr, we wished to see what different choices have been on the market – and that led us to ShipBob! ShipBob’s billing can also be a lot extra clear and easy-to-predict.”

Stuart Jones, Co-Founding father of Canvas 

Be certain to contain a cross-functional crew when figuring out what you are promoting wants, so you may get a complete concept of key ache factors that your logistics companion wants to handle. This contains everybody from warehousing and success to finance and tech. 

Analysis and shortlist potential 3PL companions 

Whereas an RFP is meant that will help you shortlist potential 3PL companions, you don’t must request proposals from each 3PL.  

Earlier than you draft your RFP, do some basic analysis into {industry} leaders, paying particular consideration to which provide the important thing traits that you just’re on the lookout for in a 3PL (which may embody particulars about their places, warehouse sizes and setups, kinds of items dealt with, {industry} specialization, tech choices, and so forth.).  

Zero in on 3PLs which have all these key traits to create a shortlist of among the most related logistics suppliers to ship your RFP to. That means, you don’t should kind by means of lots of of proposals from firms that aren’t related to your wants. 

“Throughout our seek for a brand new success companion, one in every of our founders was really useful to ShipBob. We started researching their resolution and it turned evident that ShipBob was an awesome match and met all the standards we have been on the lookout for. The pricing aligned with our price range throughout geographies, so we now have been capable of standardize our success throughout the UK and EU (and ultimately different nations they’re in). Because of switching our European success to ShipBob, we’ve skilled 12% value financial savings.”

Callum Jones, Director of Operations & Market, and Rachel Hicks, Operations Supervisor at Hairburst 

Draft your RFP (or use a template) 

With so many particulars to incorporate in an RFP, it’s straightforward to neglect a couple of. This might end in proposals that don’t fairly let you know all that it’s worthwhile to know to make your determination. To not point out the time-consuming means of placing collectively a extremely detailed RFP. 

One of the simplest ways to avoid wasting time and be sure that you embody all the important thing particulars in your RFP is by utilizing a pre-built template. There are a lot to be discovered on-line, and a few consultants (like ShipBob) even provide their very own guides to selecting a success companion that comprise pre-made lists of questions and standards to incorporate.  

Distribute the RFP and gather proposals 

When it’s lastly time to ship out your RFP, it’s necessary to take an organized strategy to distribution and proposal administration. Distribute your RFPs securely whereas making certain that potential distributors have entry to all the mandatory info. Ensure you’re additionally monitoring whether or not the 3PLs obtained your RFP and after they obtained it. 

You’ll wish to outline a transparent deadline for proposal submission so you may keep on monitor. On the similar time, give 3PLs sufficient time to achieve out for clarifications and solutions whereas getting ready their proposals. 

Present clear communication channels to rapidly change info. Let the 3PLs know the way they need to attain out to you if they’ve any questions and tips on how to submit their proposals. You’d ideally dedicate a crew member or place to managing these RFP-related communications and recording your incoming proposals. 

Don’t neglect to offer pre-defined kinds and tables that 3PLs can use to format their proposals and pricing. This may make it simpler to search out the knowledge you want and simply consider and evaluate your choices when you begin receiving proposals.   

Bonus: Frequent errors to keep away from when writing your 3PL RFP 

Apart from following greatest practices, it’s additionally necessary to keep away from among the commonest pitfalls that companies make when writing their 3PL RFP. Listed here are among the widespread errors you need to keep away from: 

Mistake #1: Speeding the method or failing to contain key stakeholders 

When you could also be working with a good deadline, speeding the method usually results in incomplete RFPs and subpar proposals. In your rush, you could even fail to contain key stakeholders, which is able to end in an RFP that fails to successfully handle all your enterprise wants. 

Mistake #2: Offering obscure or incomplete knowledge, resulting in unhelpful proposals 

With out having all the knowledge they want, 3PLs might ship in proposals that aren’t related to your wants. They could fail to incorporate key particulars about issues like capability, scalability, or value-added providers that would inform your selections. 

Mistake #3: Overemphasizing value over high quality or different necessary elements 

Pricing could also be an necessary issue for you, nevertheless it shouldn’t come at the price of high quality or effectivity. Be certain to depart room for negotiation and spotlight different necessary elements that may affect your selections. 

Mistake #4: Not together with analysis standards or a transparent timeline 

When 3PLs don’t know what elements you’ll use to judge them, they lack the mandatory info to create a proposal that highlights what issues most to you. Furthermore, and not using a clear timeline to submit proposals, you could expertise important delays that would have an effect on different operational schedules.

Select ShipBob for industry-leading 3PL logistics providers 

As an skilled provide chain enablement companion, ShipBob’s ecommerce success options and highly effective know-how empower you to optimize your logistics operations at scale. Listed here are simply among the ways in which ShipBob stays on the slicing fringe of ecommerce manufacturers’ must not solely meet, however beat your 3PL expectations.  

Nationwide success community for sooner and cheaper delivery 

If delivery value discount and enhanced buyer satisfaction are a few of your key RFP necessities, ShipBob’s the reply.

With an enormous community of 60+ success facilities globally, ShipBob’s geographic footprint allows manufacturers to strategically distribute stock nearer to clients. This implies you may decrease delivery prices whereas concurrently facilitating sooner deliveries – each of which result in completely happy clients.  

Manufacturers like Our Place have been capable of save $1.5 million in freight prices after benefiting from ShipBob’s distributed success community. It permits them to retailer stock nearer to their clients and ship regionally to decrease zones, which has considerably diminished outbound prices. Their success velocity has even dropped from 5-6 days to 2.5 days. 

“We sought a success companion primarily for his or her distinctive operational capabilities. Our precedence was discovering a companion able to effectively dealing with large-scale success whereas additionally streamlining our workflows. ShipBob emerged as the right match, assembly our wants past expectation.”

Ali Shahid, COO of Our Place 

ShipBob additionally affords you instruments that issue their actual order knowledge to calculate essentially the most optimum break up of stock for you, automating stock allocation.  

You’ll be able to even reap the benefits of expedited delivery options like reasonably priced 2-Day Categorical Delivery. With 100% protection within the contiguous U.S, this allows you to ship orders to your clients in simply two days for enhanced buyer satisfaction. 

Superior know-how to streamline operations and supply transparency 

ShipBob’s proprietary warehouse administration system (WMS) is designed to energy environment friendly, correct success, so that you don’t have to fret about whether or not or not your success companion will get issues proper.  

Our WMS integrates seamlessly along with your ecommerce platforms. This offers you granular visibility into your stock, orders, and success efficiency, so you may make knowledgeable selections to streamline your operations. 

For example, you may see your top-performing places and optimize your stock placement accordingly. Plus, with real-time stock monitoring, you may make well timed replenishments to keep away from stockouts and meet buyer demand. 

The WMS additionally options a number of built-in checks and balances all through the success course of. With warehouse workers rapidly verifying stock and order info by way of barcode scanning as they stow, decide, and pack stock, you may considerably scale back mispicks and improve transparency. 

Omnichannel success for no matter you promote 

You shouldn’t should juggle a number of 3PLs to meet your DTC orders, market orders, and B2B orders individually. With ShipBob’s omnichannel success options, you may seamlessly fulfill orders positioned throughout all of your channels.  

ShipBob helps retail distribution and dropshipping for dozens of main retails, marketplaces, social channels, and extra, permitting you to meet all of your orders by means of one companion, and handle all of your stock and orders from a single, intuitive dashboard. 

Analytics and reporting for higher decision-making 

ShipBob’s highly effective analytics dashboard provides you complete insights into numerous features of your logistics efficiency. You’ll be able to simply entry metrics like on-time success price, common success value, transit occasions, and stock ranges. 

IMAGES: Studies 

These insights assist you make knowledgeable selections to optimize your logistics efficiency in real-time, providing you with the visibility and knowledge it’s worthwhile to run and scale what you are promoting.  

For extra info on how ShipBob can meet your success wants, click on the button beneath to get in contact.  

3PL request for proposal FAQs 

Beneath are solutions to essentially the most generally requested questions on 3PL RFPs.