Outsourcing logistics when you sell fragile products

A brand selling online always ends up asking the same question: keep order picking in-house, or hand it to a provider. The answer rarely comes down to preference. It comes down to numbers, and to a trade.

What logistics really covers

Logistics is often reduced to ‘sending parcels’. On the ground, it adds up at least six distinct operations: receiving and checking goods, storing and tracking them in stock, picking each order, choosing and buying transport, handling returns, and getting all of this to talk to the online shop.

Each of these operations is a cost centre — and a risk centre. A sloppy goods-in check is paid for six weeks later in inventory discrepancies. Careless packing is paid for in breakage, disputes and reshipments.

The honest cost of keeping it in-house

Comparing a provider’s quote to ‘what it costs me today’ only makes sense if you add up everything that in-house preparation actually consumes:

• the fully loaded salary of the person or people doing the picking;
• rent, energy and insurance for the storage space;
• vehicles and journeys linked to shipping;
• the cost of transport, often negotiated alone and therefore more expensive;
• equipment: racking, boxes, packing materials, IT;
• and the invisible cost: management time spent running a warehouse instead of a brand.

Against this, a provider typically bills three lines: a picking fee per order, storage per pallet per month, and transport. On top of that comes a management fee. The comparison then becomes clear.

The tipping point

Below a certain volume, in-house preparation often remains more economical — especially if the person doing the picking also does other work. Beyond it, two effects combine: the provider buys transport at network rates, and absorbs peak periods without hiring.

The real tipping point, though, is not a number of parcels. It’s the moment when logistics starts to stop the brand doing its own job: when a stock-out is no longer caught in time, when a seasonal peak has the sales team packing boxes, when transport disputes take up half a day a week.

Fragile products change the equation

For a bottle, a tube, glass or a cosmetic, the parcel isn’t just a container: it’s part of the product. Empty space causes more breakage than impact does. The box must be chosen for its contents, not grabbed from the pile. Packing is done by hand.

This is the point where a provider’s experience matters more than its price: a breakage rate cut in half is worth more than picking that’s ten cents cheaper.

Five questions to ask before signing

Who does the picking? Trained permanent staff, or temps rotating month to month?

How many box sizes are offered? A provider offering only two or three will ship empty space.

Which carriers, at what price, and who keeps control of the negotiation?

How is the IT connection made with your shop or your ERP system, and how quickly do tracking numbers come through?

What happens in the event of breakage or a return? Photographs, the restocking decision, reintegration into inventory: these rules need to be written down beforehand, not afterwards.

Our position

The group ran this calculation for its own brands, then chose to turn it into a trade rather than a cost centre. That’s how GreenLog, the group’s logistics company, was born: the same warehouse, the same team, the same standard for every parcel — now open to outside brands.