The 12-Day 3PL Onboarding Checklist
Legacy 3PLs quote 3–6 weeks for onboarding; some enterprise platforms run 6–12. ShipCube averages about 12 days — and the difference isn’t magic, it’s sequencing. This is the day-by-day checklist we run, written so you can hold any 3PL (including us) to it.
Before day 1: what to have ready
- SKU list with dimensions and weights — drives storage planning and parcel rating.
- Packaging spec — your boxes or the 3PL’s, insert artwork if any (inserts run $0.05–$0.10/unit at ShipCube).
- Channel inventory — which storefronts and marketplaces need connecting.
- Returns rules — what gets restocked, what gets quarantined, who decides edge cases.
- A go-live date with slack — never onboard into your peak week.
Days 1–2: Connect the systems
You: authorize the store connection — with native integrations the actual connect takes about 12 minutes per channel (ShipCube supports 30+, including Shopify, Amazon, WooCommerce, Magento, TikTok Shop and Salla). Map SKUs between your catalog and the WMS.
Your 3PL: assigns your dedicated account manager (day one, not week three), configures order routing rules, sets up your dashboard access, and captures packaging and branding specs as standing instructions.
Checkpoint: a test order placed in your store appears in the fulfillment dashboard within minutes, with tracking-number write-back confirmed.
Days 3–7: Move the inventory
You: ship stock to your assigned facilities. Consolidated inbound saves real money — on ShipCube’s card, pallet unloading is $10–$15 and full containers unload flat ($275–$350 for 20-ft, $500–$650 for 40-ft) versus $1.00–$1.50 per loose box.
Your 3PL: receives, counts and shelves against your SKU map; discrepancies surface now, not at your first stockout. If you’re splitting across regions, this is where AI inventory-split recommendations decide how much goes where — East vs West Coast, or US vs Dubai.
Checkpoint: dashboard inventory matches your shipped quantities, location by location.
Days 8–12: Prove it works
Together: run live test orders through every channel — standard orders, multi-unit orders, and at least one deliberate return to exercise the inspect-grade-restock flow. Verify packaging comes out to spec, tracking flows back to each storefront, and the returns pre-approval loop updates inventory correctly.
Checkpoint: a full order lifecycle — placed, picked, packed, shipped, tracked, returned, restocked — completes without manual intervention. Then flip real volume.
The switchover itself
Don’t hard-cut. Run your old fulfillment (in-house or outgoing 3PL) in parallel through the QA window, drain its inventory naturally on existing orders, and route all new orders to the new provider from go-live day. Month-to-month terms matter here too: ShipCube has no long-term contract and no minimum volume, so the cost of the transition experiment is the transition itself, not a year of commitment.
Red flags that predict a slow onboarding
- No named account manager until after go-live.
- “Integration” means CSV uploads rather than a native storefront connection.
- No test-order phase on the plan — QA is where 12-day onboardings stay 12 days.
- Setup fees that scale with SKU count. (ShipCube’s setup is $100 on Starter, waived above.)
- Returns handling “configured later” — later means never, and inventory data pays for it.
Bottom line
Twelve days is enough — if systems connect natively, inventory arrives consolidated, and QA is treated as a phase rather than a formality. Bring the checklist above to any provider conversation, and if you’d like to run it against ShipCube’s network, estimate your costs first or book a call for the walkthrough.