We recently spent a week at the 2026 Toy Preview in Los Angeles. Different booths, different sized companies, most had the same problem - their current 3PL.
Almost every one of them said some version of the same thing.
"I have never heard of anybody happy with their 3PL." We heard that more than once. We asked another company if they could tell us who handled their warehousing and we received two responses: "somebody we don't like," then "somebody that failed us this very week in getting our samples to this show."
These are real complaints, but sometimes they were vague, and vague does not get fixed. Here is what we think is going on under the surface.
Nobody switches because they are a little unhappy. Unhappy is a feeling, and feelings do not get budget. What moves a company is a specific failure it can point at, with a date on it.
That second answer is the one that matters. The word we kept hearing all week was failed. One brand had been through a string of providers and said flatly that every one of them did a bad job. Another had walked four LA warehouses that week and said all four claimed they do everything.
It is almost never one big blowup. It is the ship date that slipped in the only week that mattered. Chargebacks stacking up because nobody read the routing guide. Samples that did not go out. The account manager who answered every call during the sales process and went quiet once the inventory landed. The rate quoted one way and invoiced another way three months in. Any one of those is survivable. Two or three in a season is when the calls start.
Space belongs in this conversation too. One company at the show had a warehouse that allocated them just over 100,000 square feet. But they were completely maxed out, and needed closer to 200,000. Space is rarely what starts the search. It sets the deadline on a decision the service problems already made.
One company we sat with is using a 3PL in California, a second company was using a distributor type relationship acting as a middleman, a third had a distribution center in the Midwest that came with an acquired brand, and a provider on the East Coast for another. We heard from many that split retail program inventory with a 3PL and a second inventory at an ecommerce focused 3PL because one company just couldn't do both effectively!
This is not sloppiness. It is how supply chains evolve on their own at times. You buy a brand and inherit its warehouse. A retailer pushes you toward a preferred vendor. You add a channel, your provider cannot do it, so you add a provider.
The cost shows up quietly. You replicate stock, you lose a clean picture of what you own, and one customer order ships out of three buildings.
This came up in every single meeting. One brand is excellent at retail and has spent years telling retailers that drop ship is not their business. Another is excellent at ecommerce, is now pushing into B2B, and called it a completely different strategy.
Most 3PLs are honestly good at one side or the other. They are built to move pallets out the door, or to put singles in a box. Not many do both well, and fewer do both off the same pallet position.
Ask that question early, because if the answer is no, you will carry two inventories and pay for the privilege.
This is the part we are surest about, because it is what we already do. G&B Fulfillment runs B2B and direct to consumer fulfillment operations out of one facility today, out of one building, off one inventory position. The same stock that ships out as retail replenishment on a pallet gets picked as a single into a box for a consumer, and both sides are run by people who have done that work for years. It is not a capability we are building toward. It is what the building does every day, and we can put you on the phone with a customer doing it.
One company told us their largest retailer asks about marketplace and drop ship every single day, and that a competitor was already doing it. Another set themselves up on marketplace even though that retailer never pushed them, because they could see it coming.
None of these brands woke up wanting a new fulfillment channel. They are being pulled into one. The question is not whether you want to do it. It is what the smallest version looks like that you can run well by the date the retailer expects.
There is no single right answer, and we are not going to pretend there is. Some of you should stay put. We met a company at the show that has used the same warehouse for ten years and has been there once. That is a provider doing a good job.
If you are looking, three questions narrow it down fast.
On the second one, we do not have rack rates. We ask for a little data on how it comes in, how it stores, and what an average order looks like going out. Think of it like a blueprint. Nobody prices a house without knowing how big it is. Get the blueprint right and the number you are quoted is the number you live with.
"Nobody likes their 3PL" is not a plan. A provider that stopped following through, split inventory, a channel you cannot serve, a retailer deadline, and product you cannot move are all specific, and all five are fixable. If two or three describe your building, let's talk. If we are not the right fit we will tell you, and we usually know who is.
If you are a toy, game, or CPG company looking at domestic fulfillment, a new channel, or getting out from under three providers at once, we will make the time to explain why we might be the answer.