When Fulfillment Breaks Down: What Growing Brands Get Wrong About 3PL Fit

Here’s the hard truth: Rather than poor performance, mismatched expectations, rigid contracts, and poor fit are why most fulfillment relationships fail. Glenn Gooding and Aaron Alpeter unpack how brands outgrow their 3PLs and what it really takes to stay aligned through scale.

It’s easy to blame service failures or rising costs when a fulfillment relationship goes south. But most of the time, those are symptoms of deeply rooted problems.

In Episode 25 of Parcel Perspectives, Glenn Gooding is joined by izba CEO Aaron Alpeter to unpack why fast-growing brands often burn out their 3PLs, and how the breakdown usually begins not with performance but misalignment.

Here’s what brands need to understand before entering (or exiting) a fulfillment partnership.

1. Fulfillment Needs Change with Every Stage of Growth

Brands evolve, but many of their fulfillment contracts don’t. According to Alpeter, brands typically move through four stages: Idea Validation, Go-to-Market, Hypergrowth, and Exit. Each phase brings unique operational demands—yet many brands keep the same fulfillment setup throughout.

In the early phases of idea validation and go-to-market, brands need speed and flexibility. As they move into hypergrowth, scale introduces new pressures: higher volumes, tighter margins, and process complexity. Eventually, during maturity or exit, stability, cost optimization, and automation take priority.

The challenge? Most brands don’t stop to reassess whether their 3PL still fits. They continue judging the relationship on surface metrics like cost or SLA performance, missing signs of deeper misalignment until it’s too late.

Worse, many operational issues that look like fulfillment failures are actually upstream problems — from forecasting and assortment decisions to unclear handoffs between internal teams. The warehouse is simply where the issue becomes visible.

2. It’s Not the SLAs. It’s the Mismatch.

Most brands don’t leave a 3PL because of a missed KPI. They leave because something more fundamental breaks: trust.

Simply put, fulfillment “failure” often stems from a mismatch in expectations and operating styles. Brands that iterate often—through launches, changes, last-minute pivots—need partners who can flex with them. Others may value predictability.

But unless both sides have made that operating tempo explicit, stress builds up. That shows even before service metrics start to slip: the friction, miscommunication, and burnout of both the brand and the fulfillment partner will say it all.

That’s why brands should regularly step back and ask “why” until they uncover the source of the breakdown, instead of merely patching over the symptom.

3. Contracts Aren’t One-and-Done

Too often, contracts are signed and forgotten. But long-term fulfillment success depends on ongoing alignment, not a static agreement.

Alpeter outlines three valid reasons to revisit your contract: the agreement expires, your business fundamentally changes (e.g., major volume shifts), or the external market shifts (e.g., new tariffs, COVID disruptions).

But brands don’t need to wait for a formal trigger. Strategic relationships should be, in Alpeter’s words, a “perpetual negotiation.” Both parties need to consistently look for operational wins, process improvements, and mutually beneficial incentives.

4. Fit Comes First

Pricing and SLAs matter, but they aren’t the first thing to evaluate. Fit is.

Use inflection points, like volume spikes, as a chance to realign and ask these questions:

• Is your brand iterative or operationally stable?
• Does your partner understand and reflect your pace?
• Are roles, escalation paths, and communication norms clear?
• Is the current setup built for where you’re headed next?
• Should renegotiation start now instead of after problems emerge?

Final Thoughts

Fulfillment is a growth engine when built around trust, transparency, and operational fit. But when relationships are based on mismatched assumptions, or fail to evolve, they can quickly become a liability.

What looks like a warehouse failure often starts upstream. The best protection against potential fulfillment burnout isn’t waiting for performance issues to surface. It’s proactively assessing whether your current setup still reflects how you operate and where you’re headed.

Scaling fast? Connect with iDrive Logistics to evaluate your next move.