So, today is a really exciting day. We finally got the first shipment of our brand new product. We launched it on Friday, and sales are crazy. So this is just in time inventory at its finest. We’re unloading the container. And today we’re also going to be immediately shipping the orders that came in over the weekend. My name is Alex Lewkowict.

I’m the co-founder and COO of Black Wolf Nation.com, a leading men’s skincare brand. Our warehouse for Black Wolf has expanded to a 3PL and we fulfill for other top eCommerce brands. Excitingly, our warehouse has since joined the ShipHero network. Today we’re doing a live unload. So the truck came this morning, and from the moment that we cut the bolt on the truck, we have 2 hours to unload it.

If the container comes palletized, it’s exactly like unloading a semi truck. But today, and like most of our containers, this is called floor loaded. There’s no pallets. Every box is stacked on the floor. So these have to be hand unloaded hand palletized, received and put into inventory. And we only have a very short time to do it. So the most basic tool that you need are pallets, pallet jack and a couple of guys.

You can load a container with just that. But it takes a long time. So it pays to get some better equipment to help out with the process. Today, we’re going to show you kind of an evolution of how we can do it with very little equipment until we have the full suite of equipment. First step when you get a container is cutting the bolt.

Once you cut it, we’re going to open the container doors and then back it up to the dock so that we don’t have the doors obstructing. And regardless of method of unloading, the first few pallets, the first few feet of the container, it’s most efficient to just build the pallets right on the dock because you’re so close to the goods.

Once you get further into the container, that’s where you can really build efficiency as you get space in the container enough to turn a pallet around. You’re going to want to build the pallets in the container right next to the wall of product, wrap it and then pull it off with a pallet jack. A forklift makes it a lot easier to unload.

What you do with the forklift is you build the pallet inside, turn it around in the container, drop it on the edge, and then you can have your forklift operator pick it off the container. So the other way to get goods from the back of the container to the dock is with the conveyor belt. Most containers that come are 40 feet long.

So bringing goods by hand, 40 feet takes a lot of time. So if you don’t have a forklift, you’re not ready for one. A good investment if you’re going to get a couple of containers a month is a conveyor belt. We use just a simple gravity expandable conveyor belt. So as we get further and further into the truck, we stretch it out.

So you’re going to have one or two guys in the container putting cases on the belt, and then you’ll have your dock guys taking the goods off the edge of the conveyor and palletizing it. That way you eliminate all the walking, which is what tires the guys out and takes a lot of time. The last way to unload a container is if you have the next level up of equipment. Some warehouses will have motorized conveyors that expand into the truck as you get further and further down And then some of our other warehouses, like our warehouse in Jacksonville, have specialized forklifts that can actually unload floor loaded containers with slip sheets, which is basically a thin piece of cardboard that the factory puts under the goods. Doesn’t take up a lot of space. And it’s a special attachment on the forklift where the forklift can drive in pick up a pallets worth of goods and drive it out.

You can unload a container in 15, 20 minutes that way. The most important thing to consider with a live unload is the time limit. If you go over your time limit, whether it’s an hour or 2 hours, you get charged penalties that can be quite expensive. So it’s better to hire extra people to help unload the container than incur an extra hour of time.

Planning is key. Make sure that you communicate with the delivery company and you have a set delivery appointment and make sure that you have guys on hand with proper footwear, pallets ready, wrap ready, and that you’re ready to go. When that container door opens, the clock starts and that’s action time and you got to get it done.

A 3PL, it’s a blue collar business. Your goal is a dollar per order profit, that’s basically best in class. Your other goal is to not lose money or run out of money, which is really easy to do at a 3PL. It happens one of two ways, mostly related to using your shipping accounts. If you’re using your shipping account and a merchant doesn’t pay you,

UPS and FedEx still expect you to pay them and then you get squeezed, right? You don’t have the money to pay. If you’re using your should be account, not your client’s shipping account, you are responsible for the bill. So you need to make sure you’re only doing that if you know that your merchant is going to A, pay you and B, pay you on time.

Because UPS or FedEx will expect to be paid in, say, 21 days. If your merchant is on 30 day terms, you’re already behind. And then if they pay you late, you now get cash crunched for nothing you did wrong. So make sure that you’ve got the right terms or you’re using your client’s shipping account, which will protect you.

The other reason to use your client’s shipping account sometimes is if you’re not going to mark up your shipping, you have no profit margin in there, which means any mistake that happens, you have no buffer to take that out of. So if you make a mistake or even if you don’t, but UPS charges you for something extra. If you are using your account, your client might not want to pay you for that.

But UPS is going to expect you to pay and you’re going to end up losing money on that. So you need to make sure if you’re using your account, you’re marking it up. So then if you mark it up 10%, there’s the occasional mistake. You have the buffer to to offset that, or it’s the client’s shipping account and then it’s their responsibility.

So if there’s a mistake, let them fight directly with UPS or FedEx. It’s not your cash that you need to watch out for. 3PLs in general should be a fairly profitable small to midsize business. If using our ShipHero software, you can bill the client for using your account or you can plug in their account and you can also do it differently per client.

So let’s say you’ve got, you know [brand] as a client, their shipping rates are probably better than yours, so you might plug in theirs. And then if you’ve got a really small merchant, they probably don’t have access to as good UPS rates as yours. So maybe you plug in yours, maybe you have a bit of a markup on there.

So they’re still getting a better rate than they would get on their own. And now you’ve got a bit of a profit center by leveraging the volume you have with the carrier to get better rates. So that’s how everyone sort of wins.