There is only so much you can change in November and December. Your inventory, systems, partners, and team structure are already shaping the outcome. But you can still: • compare sales with plan every day • confirm real shipping deadlines • decide when faster shipping is worth the cost • catch invoice increases above 10% • use January to fix what limited peak I put the entire operating system into a public Google Sheet. Just enter your work email to open it. Copy it, add your data, and give the relevant tabs directly to your AI.

Back to LA today 🫡 Great past few days down south.

Your order tracking page should sell, not just track. Just shipped 6 new IronTrack designer features same-day after a customer request. - 20MB image uploads - Product picker that actually scrolls - Editable headings ("Shop again" is yours now) - Evergreen 24-hour countdowns - starts at each customer's first open - More breathing room on cards - Per-card background + text colors Every order page is a storefront. Build it like one.

It is possible to be too eager with onboarding alternative carriers. There are a lot of things that I've seen go wrong. They're going to give you a rate card but often won't help you convert that rate card into what your actual savings will be. Even in pretty thorough analyses there's still something off with missing variables. That's the first thing: making sure that the rates are actually going to be beneficial and worth the effort of going through the onboarding, the credit application, everything that goes with onboarding an alternative carrier. They're all going to give you their best stats on how strong their on-time delivery performance is, their claims, but the reality is you won't know until you know. You have to understand that it is likely, especially in the first couple weeks, that you'll see potentially a higher claims rate but this is something you should monitor closely. As long as you are actually monitoring and you're set up to monitor, you're going to be okay. Health Y Sol is an example of a brand that is seeing meaningful savings and the alternative carrier they're working with is actually performing on par and even slightly better than the national carriers. Their warehouse manager Gianpaul has been great to work with! Thanks for the conversation.

We actually went with the more expensive option. Everyone understands the premise that 3PL costs are just one variable, and to make a good decision you need to consider other factors. But still time and time again, people go for the cheapest option. @yo_yahli made a different decision for Wayve Wear. He chose a more expensive option based on unquantifiable characteristics. 1. Are they genuine? 2. Are they a good fit for me specifically? 3. How much do they care? 4. Who are the employees? 5. Is their facility clean? 6. Do I trust them to execute? 7. How often can I visit them? Really excited with the result and happy to be a part of Wayve's growth.

Full convo with @yo_yahli -> youtube.com/watch?v=OuJ9vbgN…

Marketing versus reality - are 3PL sales pitches authentic? There are thousands of 3PL options for brands to choose from, and 9/10 of them are going to tell you that they are a good fit for you. In reality, maybe only 1/10 will actually be a great fit. You will get results from Google, 3PL directories, referrals, etc but none of that guarantees a good match. So how do you cut through the noise and find the right fit?

DHL eCommerce committed to USPS as its sole final-mile carrier in a $10B-plus exclusive deal. Consolidators usually keep regional carriers (Veho, UniUni, OnTrac) as a fallback. DHL gave that up. What they get: years of committed volume in exchange for rates they could not reach otherwise. What they give up: the option to pivot. The bet: USPS has the deepest final-mile reach in the country, and it is durable enough to commit to. If DHL eCommerce is in your carrier mix, that locked-in pricing should keep their rates competitive.

"leases warehouse" is best performing group.

"leases warehouse" best performing group.