Remember when every peak season meant emergency calls to your CFO about blown budgets? When carrier rate hikes felt like personal attacks on your margins? Those days don’t have to be your reality anymore.
Growth-focused 3PLs have figured out something that changes everything: you don’t have to absorb every cost increase that gets thrown at you. In fact, our Peak Season 2025 research shows only 8% of successful supply chain leaders are still playing that losing game.
For the others, this is the year of turning cost pressures into pricing power.
The wake-up call that changed everything
Here’s what caught our attention in this year’s data: only 46% of supply chain leaders expect 2025 to be harder than 2024. Last year, 77% were bracing for disaster.
This isn’t because logistics got cheaper (ha!) or because labor shortages magically disappeared (ha HA!). It’s because the best 3PLs stopped treating every challenge like the end of the world and started building fulfillment tech foundations that actually work when things get tough.
What specialized third-party logistics solutions are 3PLs tapping into to support new complexities like Direct-to-Consumer (DTC)?
84% of supply chain leaders are now feeling more confident about their fulfillment systems. That’s not wishful thinking—that’s what happens when you build operations that perform instead of just survive.
The old playbook is dead
You know the drill: rates go up, you swallow the increase, margins shrink, repeat. Maybe you blame Amazon for “unrealistic” customer expectations. Maybe you complain about labor costs at industry conferences.
Winning 3PLs threw that playbook in the trash. Here’s what businesses are doing instead:
- 76% are raising prices selectively because they are able to prove the value. When you can show clients real-time visibility into their inventory, perfect order accuracy, and zero surprises during their busiest season, price increases become justifiable service upgrades.
- 70% use dynamic pricing that moves with actual costs. No more eating a $200 fuel surcharge because you’re locked into a contract from six months ago. When costs fluctuate, pricing adjusts. Revolutionary, right?
- 68% position inventory strategically to cut shipping costs while improving delivery speed. Clients pay premium rates for a 3PL that invests in advanced capabilities, such as inventory positioning through SCP and distributed fulfillment via OMS.
Only 8% are absorbing costs to maintain competitive pricing in 2025, according to our survey.
Your tech stack is your best sales tool
Proving that you’re worth it
Here’s the thing about justifying higher prices: you need proof that you’re worth it. And the proof is in your warehouse management systems and order management system investments.
When a client can log in and see exactly where their inventory is, when their orders will ship, and how you’re handling any issues in real-time, they stop caring about your rate increase. They start caring about keeping you as their partner.
The 3PLs charging premium rates focus on:
- Real-time cost tracking (32% say this is critical) so they know their true margins at any moment
- Complete data visibility (a priority for 30% of respondents) that clients can actually access and understand
- Cross-border optimization (a priority for 26%) that handles complexity competitors can’t touch
Your WMS and OMS aren’t just operational tools anymore—they’re your pricing justification engine.
Discover ultimate efficiency and opportunities in your 3PL operations. Book a tailored demo to see how our 3PL customers are using technology as their top differentiator.
Putting your money where your mouth is
A great example of how technology modernization leads to growth is our recent work with with ColdTrack. Following their recent implementation of Deposco, they were able to deliver an industry-first 100% Pack Accuracy Guarantee™.
Their investment in Deposco was integral to achieving a 25-30% increase in productivity, 80-90% reduction in customer credits, and zero customer losses due to operational issues.
What your clients’ customers are doing
Investing in technology is enabling 3PLs to raise prices, which clients are willing to pay right now, considering the pressure they are under by consumers to be the best at execution:
- 76% of shoppers are taking longer to make purchase decisions
- 68% are spending less because everything costs more
- 68% are buying more domestic products (good news if you handle those)
- 68% are more price-sensitive than ever
With your retail clients under massive pressure to be efficient, they need a 3PL that can prove ROI. Not just promise it. They’ll pay more for a 3PL partner who has invested in helping them navigate these headwinds successfully.
How 3PLs are tackling peak 2025
The 3PLs we work with no longer approach client conversations from a defensive position. They’re not apologizing for rate increases—they’re explaining why their services are worth more than the competition.
How? They’ve built an operational foundation that works:
- 88% cross-train their workers so they’re never scrambling for coverage
- They use integrated technology that gives them (and their clients) complete visibility
- They’ve diversified their capabilities so they’re not vulnerable to single points of failure
When you know your operations won’t fall apart during peak season, pricing conversations become completely different. You’re selling confidence, not just warehouse space.
The numbers don’t lie
66% of supply chain leaders expect better profit margins in 2025. Not despite cost pressures, but because of how they’re handling them.
When you can demonstrate superior performance, transparent communication, and proactive problem-solving, clients stick with you. They prefer working with partners who charge appropriately for excellent service over bargain providers who might let them down when it matters most.
Examples to inspire you
Ready to see exactly how the winners are pulling this off? Check out what our solutions have enabled for these 3PLs:
- 77% faster order processing times
- 86% reduction in billing time
- Two-hour new client onboarding
- 9x more throughput with the same size staff in its first year with Deposco
- 100% uptime – $0 sales lost to outages
- <1% error rate
Fulfillment Strategies International (FSI)
- 44% increase in total orders picked per month
- 99.88% real-time inventory accuracy
“The efficiency of our promo and ready-to-ship set up with Deposco moved us from a one-off to being able to manage hundreds of thousands of orders really upped our productivity and financials.” – Chuck Slappey, Senior Director of Operations, FSI
- 12x revenue growth over the first nine months
- 4x increase in monthly orders shipped
- Scaled to 1M sq. ft. multi-node warehouse network in the first four years
Stop racing to the bottom
The transformation happening in your industry is pretty simple: the best 3PLs have stopped competing on price alone and started competing on value delivery.
They use technology to prove their worth. They build operations that perform under pressure. They charge what they’re worth and have the technology (and success stories) to back it up.
The result? Better margins, happier clients, and the kind of business you actually want to run.
Because honestly, if you’re still absorbing every cost increase that comes your way, you’re not building a business—you’re managing a charity.
Useful resources
We’re about to release our Peak Season 2025 Report. Follow us on LinkedIn to see when it drops!
In addition, if you serve DTC clients, you won’t want to miss our upcoming DTC webinar:
