Natural Dog Company CEO Bill DAlessandro talks fulfilment centre closure and outsourcing and 3PL move
Natural Dog Company, which provides health and wellness solutions for canines, has closed its 50,000 sq ft fulfilment centre after nine years of operations.
This is the conclusion of a two-year project to outsource all the US-based company’s fulfilment and manufacturing, which, it says, will save it over $1 million per year.
In a LinkedIn post, CEO Bill DAlessandro said: “This facility was processing several thousand D2C orders per day, and we manufactured 20 different SKUs of Natural Dog Company products - millions of units over the years.”
He added: “We outsourced manufacturing in 2022, and then finally the fulfilment to a 3PL in Q4 2023. How has it gone? Honestly - it's a huge relief.”
“The responsibility for operating a building is not small. At the peak we had 25+ people. I got calls about break-ins, literal dumpster fires, HR incidents, and more. All of that brain damage doesn't show up in the financial model.”
“But what does show up in the financial statements is undeniable. A 3PL could do almost everything cheaper that we could - lower rent, less headcount per order, better carrier rates.”
“And since fulfilment was their business, a 3PL could deliver things I was not willing to undertake - 7 days/wk operation, multiple nodes, and investment in automation (shout out ShipHero).”
DAlessandro stated that “the combination of our 3PL's carrier rates and bi-coastal nodes (reducing shipping distance) will save us ~$750k/year on postage alone vs. shipping out of Charlotte on our own FedEx/USPS accounts.”
“Not only are we saving money, we can now reach 90% of US addresses in three days or less. A big upgrade from five to eight days from NC to CA out of our own facility.”
“We are also going to save another ~$500k by cutting rent and payroll and instead paying our 3PL per order to pick/pack/ship. They're just that much more efficient than we were able to be.”
DAlessandro believes that tthe company, which was founded in 2008, might not have survived a few years back without in-house logistics.
“But as I sit here in a 500 sq ft co-working space (1% the size of our building) with bathrooms I didn't have to clean and coffee I didn't have to restock - I'm sure glad we made the move,” he concluded.
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