3PL Logistics: Warehousing, Fulfilment and Stock Control

Third-party logistics is what you buy when moving the freight is no longer the whole job — when the cargo has to be stored, counted, picked, packed and released against orders, and someone has to be accountable for the stock while it sits. Scapex runs this alongside its forwarding and customs work, which matters more than it sounds: the same file that clears your import carries it into the warehouse, so there is no handover where accountability disappears.

What 3PL actually covers

The term gets used loosely, so here is the scope in plain terms:

• Inbound receipt. Container or truck arrives, cargo is unloaded, counted against the packing list and the discrepancy reported the same day rather than at month end.
• Storage. Racked or floor-stacked depending on the goods, with stock held under your name and identified by batch, lot or serial where the commodity needs it.
• Inventory control. A running record of what is there, what has moved and what is committed, reconciled on a cycle you agree rather than only when something goes missing.
• Pick and pack. Orders picked against your instruction, packed to your specification, labelled and staged for despatch.
• Outbound despatch. Domestic delivery, or straight back into an export file for onward shipment.
• Returns. Received, inspected, and either returned to sellable stock or quarantined.

3PL, 4PL and freight forwarding — the difference that matters

These three are constantly confused and the distinction decides who is responsible when something goes wrong.

• A freight forwarder moves a consignment from A to B. Its responsibility begins at collection and ends at delivery.
• A 3PL holds your goods and executes against your orders. It is responsible for the stock while it is in its custody, not just for a movement.
• A 4PL manages other providers on your behalf. It is a control layer; it usually touches no cargo itself.

Scapex operates as a forwarder, a customs broker and a 3PL. It does not present itself as a 4PL, because a 4PL that also executes the work has an obvious conflict when it comes to choosing between its own service and a better one. If you want a genuine control tower sitting above several providers, that should be somebody with nothing to sell you underneath it. Our guide to who does what sets the four roles out in more detail.

Bonded and duty-paid storage are not the same decision

This is the part that costs importers money when it is decided late.

Duty-paid storage means the goods have cleared customs, duty is paid, and the stock is yours to move freely. Simple, and the right answer when you know the goods will sell.

Bonded storage means the goods sit under customs control with duty deferred until they are removed for home consumption. That protects cash flow on slow-moving stock and allows re-export without paying Indian duty at all — but it comes with its own procedure, its own record-keeping and its own time limits, and removing goods is a customs transaction rather than a warehouse instruction.

Which one is right depends on how fast the stock turns, whether any of it is destined for re-export, and what the duty outlay does to your working capital. We will work that through with you before the container arrives rather than after. The mechanics are on our warehousing page.

What we need to quote a 3PL arrangement

Unlike a freight quote, a storage and fulfilment quote is built on throughput rather than a single movement. To price it properly we need:

1. What the goods are — commodity, packaging, unit and carton dimensions, weight, and whether anything is hazardous or temperature-sensitive.
2. How much and how fast — expected stockholding, inbound frequency, and order volume and profile. Fifty orders of one line is a different operation from one order of fifty lines.
3. How orders reach us and in what format.
4. Service expectation — same-day, next-day, or scheduled despatch.
5. Bonded or duty-paid, and whether any stock is for re-export.

Charges normally break into inbound handling, storage per unit or per square foot per period, pick and pack per order or per line, and outbound freight. As with freight, we itemise and state what is excluded — the reasoning is on our page about what a freight forwarder charges.

Where this fits with the rest of the file

The reason to put storage with the people already handling your customs clearance and ocean freight is not a discount. It is that the handover is where shipments fail. When the broker, the forwarder and the warehouse are three companies, a discrepancy found at unloading becomes an argument about whose fault it was. On one file it is a question with an answer.

What we will not claim

We will not quote you storage capacity we do not have, and we will not describe a fulfilment operation we cannot staff for your volume. If your requirement is larger than what we should be taking on, we will say so rather than take the contract and struggle. Tell us the real numbers and you will get a real answer.

Where to check the official position

• CBIC — the warehousing provisions of the Customs Act, bonded warehouse licensing, and the current rules on warehousing periods and interest.
• ICEGATE — bill of entry status and warehousing entries.
• DGFT — export policy where stock is held for re-export.

Warehousing periods, interest provisions and duty rates change. Nothing here is a quotation, and none of it replaces the current position confirmed for your goods.