It’s a long road between earning a fan and selling them a hoodie.
Third Party Logistics, also known as “3PL,” refers to outsourcing order fulfillment and supply chain management operations to a third party. We’re talking about fulfilling apparel orders for the most part, although many companies use third party logistics partners across different industries. Ideally, though not always, these third parties are specialized firms like Fire Sign Merch, who offer a range of services at an expert level.
The chosen 3PL partner assumes responsibility for tasks such as warehousing, inventory management, order fulfillment, shipping, distribution, and remittance of the artist’s majority revenue stake via regular check or ACH.
Whoever an artist chooses to partner with, they should keep in mind their livelihood may depend on the success of the relationship.
Here’s how third-party logistics works at Fire Sign Merch:
1. Account Management: Together you, your management, and your Fire Sign Merch Account Manager will map out a drop and release schedule, surrounding highlighted points on your schedule (like album releases, tours, and anniversaries).
Per your preferences, in-house and/or external designers will execute cohesive and on-brand collections. You decide which designs become final products and which don’t. We never charge kill fees for designs you don’t use.
Your store will be maintained on the Shopify platform, and our web team is prepared to build to the specs of your brand.
As the artist (or artist’s rep), you retain the full ability to log in to your store to audit sales, inventory, and fulfillment queues.
The customer’s data is available to you at all times, and while we do lead marketing efforts, we also encourage artists to be involved as much as they would like to be. A lot of value can be drawn from your audience, sometimes at will.
2. Warehousing: Fire Sign Merch operates fulfillment centers where we store your merch.
3. Marketing: In partnership with Hyperculture, and in conjunction with Klaviyo, we’ll develop a customer-centric and holistic marketing strategy.
4. Inventory Management: We manage and track your inventory levels. We guarantee accurate and real-time inventory data management.
5. Order Fulfillment: When your fans order from your Shopify, we pick, pack, and ship the products on your behalf. To ensure the best shipping rate possible we check costs against all the major North American carriers: DHL, FedEx, UPS, and USPS.
We do not profit from your shipping markup.
6. Customer Service & Returns Management: In the (hopefully rare) event of returns, we also manage reverse logistics by ingesting returned items, assessing their condition, and either restocking or disposing of them.
Included in our fee is full email-based customer service support to answer any customer inquiries that arise in pre or post-transaction phases.
6. Tour Supply: Many of us at Fire Sign Merch come from a DIY-touring background. It’s because of this that we understand the complications and delicacy of tour life and logistics. There is a ton of work that goes into delivering the band members, the gear, and the merch to a new venue on time every day for a month (or more) straight.
If your business is event-based you can trust our in-house Tour Supply department to work hand in hand with your management while you’re on the road. They will check in regularly to make sure you have what you need to sell. And in a worst-case scenario, we can always fall back on our private airline partner to refill your inventory within 24 hours from the completion of production.
7. Financials: Any physical merchandise or design IP produced by us on behalf of our client remains artist-owned.
Billing for services rendered is executed on Net 45. We don’tcharge storage or racking fees, ingest fees (subject to volume), or mystery “admin fees.”
At the end of the day, the #1 reason to partner with a 3PL provider like Fire Sign Merch is cost savings. The average band or brand doesn’t need to invest in a warehouse or fulfillment infrastructure. Not to mention the countless hours saved in not traveling to and from the UPS Store.
By entrusting logistics to Fire Sign Merch you can focus on your core competencies, like songwriting or performing.