Retail Operations
Setting up a warehouse in Asia: 3PL versus own, layout and going live
When outsourcing to a 3PL beats running your own site, what a workable contract looks like, and the go-live sequence that avoids losing a peak season to a migration.
Guide 9 of 9 · 11 min read · Updated 4 August 2026
The warehouse decision gets made once and lived with for years. Retailers usually get the economics roughly right and the exit terms badly wrong, which is why the second decision, leaving a 3PL, is more painful than the first.
This guide covers the choice, the contract, the layout basics and the migration.
3PL or own site
The crossover is rarely about cost per order alone. It is about whether your process is standard. Retailers with unusual handling, kitting, personalisation or strict batch traceability outgrow a shared 3PL long before the cost curve says they should.
| Factor | 3PL | Own site |
|---|---|---|
| Cost shape | Variable per order | Largely fixed |
| Speed to launch | Weeks | Months |
| Peak flexibility | Shared labour pool | You hire and train |
| Process control | Limited to the contract | Full |
| Best fit | Under roughly 1,000 orders/day, or a new market | Stable high volume, special handling |
What a 3PL contract must contain
- Unit rates that are complete, receiving, storage, pick, pack, dispatch, returns, and the surcharges.
- Service levels with a stated measurement method and a remedy, not just a target number.
- Inventory accuracy commitment plus a cycle-count schedule.
- Data access: order and stock feeds you own, in a format you can migrate.
- Exit terms: notice period, stock release timetable, and cost of transfer, agreed on day one.
“Two principles carry most of the value: slot fast movers close to packing, and keep receiving and dispatch physically separate.”
Layout that survives growth
Two principles carry most of the value: slot fast movers close to packing, and keep receiving and dispatch physically separate. Everything else, mezzanines, automation, put-to-light, earns its place only after volume is stable and picking is genuinely the constraint.
Going live without losing a season
- Never migrate inside eight weeks of peak.
- Run parallel for a defined period on a subset of SKUs and reconcile daily.
- Freeze stock movements during the count, and treat the opening balance as the single source of truth.
- Plan for a productivity dip of several weeks; staffing to the steady-state number on day one guarantees a backlog.
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