EZDC 3PL: Choosing the right 3PL, WMS, SLAs, and when to say no

[00:00:00] Dave Gulas: I've had to refuse a lot of custom. We've gotten a lot better about defining who our ideal client is and really just saying no to anything that doesn't, that isn't gonna fit within that. We wanna be a good partner, and we wanna own any of our mistakes. We wanna do everything we're supposed to do to make sure that we're living up to our end of the bargain. We expect the customer to do the same thing. So, we want them to understand their business. We want them to know how to operate their Shopify. We want them to provide us with the proper info that's needed. We want them to follow our routing guide.

[00:00:35] Kailin Noivo: Welcome to another episode of The Ecommerce Toolbox Expert's Perspective. Joining us today we have Dave Gulas. He's a 3PL expert. So welcome, Dave.

[00:00:45] Dave Gulas: Hey, Kailin. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

[00:00:47] Kailin Noivo: Awesome. We always like to start off with a brief intro. Talk to us a bit about who you are, where you're working, and how you got to your role.

[00:00:54] Dave Gulas: Okay. Sure. Yeah. So I am the president and the cofounder of EZDC 3PL. So, we're a Kentucky-based third-party logistics company. We've been around just over three years. How I got here? So, I've been in sales my entire adult life, 20 years or so of that, I was in the medical/pharmaceutical industry. And then a few years back, a good friend of mine and I wanted to get into a different vertical. We knew several ecommerce brands that were having issues with their 3PL in terms of poor service, lack of, you know, orders going on time, lack of timely responses, and from our experience in the pharmaceutical industry, a high touch customer service approach is required to even survive because everything's urgent, everything's going overnight, and things go wrong all the time. So, we're just very used to solving problems on the fly and really going the extra mile in terms of customer service. So, when we saw that, the light bulbs went off and said, “Hey, you know, this would be a great industry for our brand of customer service.” And so we jumped in and did it.

[00:01:59] Kailin Noivo: Very cool. Love to hear that. I know you also run a podcast as well, so excited to have a fellow podcaster on the show. So, let's maybe start off with the basics. What is 3PL? What differentiates the best from the worst? And more importantly, where are you seeing brands leverage 3PL as a strategic advantage against some of their competitors, and how can they look at it more than just a cost center?

[00:02:26] Dave Gulas: Okay. Sure. Wow. So that's a whole lot to answer. So, 3PL, it stands for third-party logistics. And what that is is so when they, we'll just use the example of ecommerce companies because that's who we serve. So, when an ecommerce company is starting out, very often, they begin self-fulfilling where they'll do it out of their home or a small office. And at some point, they'll reach a graduation point where they realize that it makes more sense if they wanna keep scaling to outsource that logistics to a company that specializes in that. So they don't have to be, you know, spend late nights packing boxes and try to keep, you know, installing the next version of software and then get a bigger space and manage staff and run the drop off packages every day and all that kind of stuff. So, they reach a point where they outsource that to a 3PL. And just for context for your listeners, there's about 10,000 or so 3PLs just in the US alone. So that's a big, big number of companies. And very often, if brands aren't used to comparing 3PLs or, looking for a 3PL, it can be very easy to maybe confuse one with the other or think it's just a commodity and look at it as a cost center and not really understand the difference in how the right 3PL partner can make or break your business or really, the wrong 3PL can can break your business. And oftentimes, they don't appreciate how important it is to have a good partner until they've had a bad partner. And we see that and hear those stories literally all the time.

[00:04:05] Kailin Noivo: Makes sense. What complexity level do you think it makes sense for brands to start thinking about 3PL? Is it volume of sales, volume of orders? Like, where have you seen it where it kinda starts to make sense?

[00:04:17] Dave Gulas: Yeah. I mean, it's order volume. I mean, it's different for everybody. But when it starts to really become a headache for the logistics, and maybe you're spending more time than you should actually on the orders yourself, or you're realizing that you're not at, you know, your shipping costs are kind of out of line because the carrier rates are all volume-based. So, if you don't have the right partnership where they can get you the better rates based on volume, you can end up paying a lot more than you have to, and that can really impact your margins and put you at a competitive disadvantage in your industry. I mean, software too, right? The bigger you get, the more complex your operation is. If you don't have the right software, you're really gonna be at a disadvantage. So, you know, being able to leverage the technology that the 3PL has is another big strategic advantage, as well as their shipping rates. And then just simply the advantage of when you have the right partner, and you have a true partnership, when orders come in, they just flow right there, and they're filled, and they go in, you know, as so they go out as expected on time, and you don't even have to think about it. I mean, really, that's what we aim is where the logistics is so smooth that our customers don't even have to think about it, and they can spend their creative energy on their zoner genius and scaling their business and the other things that they're good at and just leave the logistics to us.

[00:05:43] Kailin Noivo: Very cool. Is there, like, a certain order number, like 500 a month, a thousand a month, where you've kinda seen consistency, or is it really depending on the business?

[00:05:51] Dave Gulas: Yeah. I mean, it depends on the business, and some brands actually can scale and do very well doing their own self-fulfilment. And we've seen that, right, but those are really the exception rather than the rule. The vast majority, it just makes sense to outsource it. And, I mean, where that is specifically, it really depends on the business because there's so many variables, I mean, SKU count, type of product, you know, shipping volume, size, all those things play a role. But typically, they know, right, when the logistics is a big enough headache where they don't wanna do it anymore, that they usually know it's time to outsource that.

[00:06:27] Kailin Noivo: Perfect. Love to hear that. Obviously, everyone's talking AI right now. I was recently at NRF. Everything's about AI. Is AI and 3PL, like, is there an angle there, or what's your thoughts?

[00:06:42] Dave Gulas: Yeah. Yeah. 100%. 100%. I mean, some of the top, I mean, the WMS we use is implementing a lot of different AI-based tools. They even put on a summit for all their partners, an AI summit, to really come and network and collaborate about that. I mean, there's definitely ways to maybe automate some of the tedious, kind of lower-level type of tasks that, you know, that a 3PL would have to deal with, like, filing a claim with a carrier or even kind of where you know, just tracking in order, those types of things. So, it's happening. It's being implemented. There's certainly, you know, long ways to go, but I'm sure in the coming years, you're gonna see a whole lot more AI implemented with 3PL because the 3PL game is all about efficiency. So AI is only going to help accelerate that as we move forward.

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[00:07:49] Kailin Noivo: Very cool. Is there a certain set of tools or platforms that you see being the best for your clients that have really automated most of 3PL in ecom? Like, is there kind of a certain tech stack that you'd recommend objectively?

[00:08:06] Dave Gulas: Well, like, for ecom companies, I mean, you know, shopping cart. We love Shopify. I mean, it just, and that tends to be the platform that most brands use, so it's very easy. It integrates great with our system. And, you know, it has a lot of flexibility and capability for the brand, depending on what they're doing. I would definitely just say to all brands, whatever 3PL you go with, you certainly wanna double check what their WMS is and make sure that works well with the tools that you're using, and that it has robust capabilities. And I'm actually shocked as well that so many 3PLs out there operate without a WMS. Because when we got into the industry, we worked with some consultants that said, “Look, you can't even open your doors up without a real WMS on day one.” So, I mean, that's what we did. But then I talked to other people, and it's amazing that there's still warehouses out there that are tracking inventory on spreadsheets, you know, even in this day and age. So, I would certainly say, yeah, make sure the 3PL has a good WMS, and that's gonna work for you.

[00:09:15] Kailin Noivo: Have you guys thought of building any proprietary software in your own business to really help kind of push the clients forward, or do you feel like there's already a lot of the existing tools that are in the market?

[00:09:26] Dave Gulas: Yeah. I mean, we know people that have done that, and it's a long road, and there's no guarantee you're gonna get it right. I mean, from our perspective, right, sure, that's an option, but we're spending our energy elsewhere, and there are a lot of good commercial tools out there. I mean, it's really just finding the one that works with your operation the best. So, I mean, we haven't seriously considered building our own software.

[00:09:56] Kailin Noivo: Makes sense. You mentioned earlier that you've been in sales your whole life. Is there a scenario where you had to actually refuse a customer? What are some of the red flags that you kind of wait to hear to understand if there's a business that maybe is a, but isn't ready for a 3PL?

[00:10:11] Dave Gulas: Yeah. Yeah. I've had to refuse a lot of customers. That's probably one of the big growth areas that I've had personally, is in the beginning, I probably took on too many of the wrong customers. And so, we've gotten a lot better about defining who our ideal client is and really just saying no to anything that doesn't, that isn't gonna fit within that. So, yeah, as far as red flags, I mean, just like we want, we wanna be a good partner, or we wanna own any of our mistakes. We wanna do everything we're supposed to do to make sure that we're living up to our end of the bargain. We expect the customer to do the same thing. So, we want them to understand their business. We want them to know how to operate their Shopify. We want them to provide us with the proper info that's needed. We want them to follow our routing guide and make sure that they're doing everything that we outlined, just so everything can be received in smoothly, quickly, and go back out timely, so just the willingness to have anytime we see someone that's either unable or unwilling to do all the things necessary to to be a good partner, that's a huge red flag for us.

[00:11:23] Kailin Noivo: Yeah. I mean, that makes a ton of sense. And then you can end up, everyone can end up wasting a lot of their own time. Can you really dial in on, like, three common mistakes that you've seen where people have gone with the wrong 3PL partner, or they've waited too long? Like, what are three, kind of, crystal clear mistakes that people make when thinking about this category?

[00:11:48] Dave Gulas: Oh, jeez. Yeah. I mean, well, probably the biggest one is just the wrong or no WMS. I mean, because I've literally had people ask me, like, they're coming from another warehouse, and they say, “Can you connect to my Shopify? Is that even possible?” It's like they don't even, and it should be like, it's automatic. Literally takes a minute to plug in, and you make sure the settings are correct, depending on the parameters that are established, and the orders flow right through. And, I mean, that should be automatic for any ecommerce brand. So, I mean, that's number one. Number two, just clearly defining what the process is if something goes wrong, if orders don't get shipped out, or there's any kind of a customer problem or whatnot. Because, I mean, we hear that all the time too, where maybe that's not established, and then all of a sudden there is a problem and the brand is waiting for days, sometimes a week, to even get a response, and all they can do is email a support inbox and wait. Right? So that and, yeah, just number three, making sure there's clear established, you know, SLAs where, like, they know exactly what your ship today cutoff, and if order is placed on X date, when is it going out? Right? And it might, you know, making sure that they have a clear process for that and understanding what's gonna happen if their customer has an issue. So, I mean, I would say those are probably the top three to be aware of.

[00:13:11] Kailin Noivo: Very cool. Looking ahead 2026, what are kinda some of the things that you guys are discussing at the executive level that your customers are kinda bringing to you? What's top of mind for you guys?

[00:13:23] Dave Gulas: Yeah. Well, I mean, we're expecting 2026 to be a big year and just see a lot of growth. And, I mean, you mentioned AI earlier. I mean, one of the things that we're very excited about, too is where you see the evolution of AI commerce and how that's going to be kinda just like the social shopping was a couple of years ago. It was a big topic, and you're seeing that evolve. You're gonna see the same thing with AI and being able to purchase right through AI. So, I mean, it's just gonna continue to increase the ecommerce industry as a whole in terms of volume. And I, yeah, I think we're gonna see a big year in terms of expansion and, you know, a very good year economically. So, I mean, I think all those things bode well for the industry at large. So, I mean, we're just really focused on, you know, making sure our service is tight for our existing customers. And then this is a big sales season for the 3PL industry, Q1, Q2. That's when the majority of brands are gonna make a move, if that's something they're planning. So, we're having a lot of conversations. So, those are really the things that we're focused on at the moment.

[00:14:31] Kailin Noivo: Makes a lot of sense. I think we're all kind of very curious to see what happens with this AI kinda situation, and what it’s gonna do. Do you think it'll actually executionally change how things are fulfilled? So, like, do you think if something's purchased through, like, a ChatGPT or, like, a Google or Perplexity, do you think that's gonna actually change fulfillment, or it's just gonna be another order source like, Instagram shops or something?

[00:14:56] Dave Gulas: Yeah. I mean, I don't see, I guess, today how it's gonna change fulfillment because, ultimately, it still has to go to the warehouse wherever that is, and the product has to ship. But, I mean, I think it's just going to continue to, you know, increase the volume and the way people shop and the ability to shop. And as those tools continue to be implemented in everyday life, in all sorts of ways, I mean, it's just, there's just gonna be more and more ecommerce. So, I mean, I think that's the biggest thing that we'll see is it just makes it easier for people to click and buy something, no matter what they're doing, and that bodes well for all of us that are in this industry.

[00:15:36] Kailin Noivo: Very cool. Well, Dave, as we look to wrap up, really appreciate you jumping on this podcast. If anyone has any questions about 3PL, how can they get in touch?

[00:15:47] Dave Gulas: Yeah. So, I'm on LinkedIn. That's the easiest place to find me. Dave Gulas, G-U-L-A-S. If you wanna learn more about our company, it's ezdc3pl.com. You can message me there or just connect on LinkedIn. And then, also, you mentioned the podcast earlier. If you wanna hear some really cool entrepreneurial stories about what the journey is really like and what people go through, you can check out the Beyond Fulfillment podcast, and that's on YouTube, and then everywhere else podcasts are.

[00:16:14] Kailin Noivo: Very cool. Thanks so much for your time, Dave.

[00:16:17] Dave Gulas: Hey. Thank you, Kailin. Appreciate it.

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