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.