Most eCommerce founders start out packing their own orders. It feels responsible. You built the product, you should be the one shipping it.
For a while, that’s true. Then outsourcing online store logistics stops being optional and starts being the only way the business keeps growing.
Self-fulfilment works right up until it’s the thing capping your growth
Wild Body makes organic, low-tox, size-inclusive performance activewear. The brand exists to close a gap most activewear brands ignore: performance fabric that’s also natural fibre, in sizing that actually includes people.
Before Fulfilpackers, the founder was packing every order herself, from a home warehouse, 3 to 4 hours a day. In her own words: “Great at the start but as you grow it stops growth.”
That’s the pattern. Self-fulfilment isn’t a mistake. It’s a phase that has an expiry date, and most founders don’t notice they’ve hit it until the hours are gone and the growth has stalled with them.
What outsourcing your online store logistics actually costs, versus what changed
| Packing It Herself | After Switching to Fulfilpackers |
|---|---|
| 3 to 4 hours a day, every day, from a home warehouse | Orders picked, packed and shipped without her |
| Growth held back by her own capacity to pack | Growth no longer tied to how many hours she has |
| Overwhelmed, heading toward burnout | Confidence the fulfilment side runs itself |
| Tied to a physical warehouse | Free to build the business from anywhere |
The real cost was never just the hours. It was what those hours were replacing: marketing, product development, and the parts of the business only the founder can do.
The real objection isn’t cost. It’s handing over your baby.
Ask most founders why they haven’t looked at an ecommerce fulfilment 3PL yet and cost comes up first. Push a bit further and it’s trust. Will someone else care about your product the way you do?
That fear was front and centre for Wild Body too, particularly around losing control of dispatch and how exchanges would be handled once someone else was doing the packing.
What settled it was Fulfilpackers founder Gavin, and how he handled the handover. “Gavin and his openness to Fulfilpackers. Happy to answer the 100 questions I had. Understands as founder it is like handing your baby over.”
That’s the part that actually moves a founder from “not yet” to “let’s do it.” Not a sales pitch. A straight answer to every question, and someone who treats the handover with the weight it deserves.
Onboarding wasn’t flawless, and that’s the point worth including
Some stock came through without barcodes. Systems weren’t talking to each other properly at first. If we only told you the parts of onboarding that went smoothly, you’d have every right to be sceptical.
Here’s the honest version, in her words: “Great, was a little messy, some stock not being barcoded, systems not talking to each other. But Fulfilpackers went above and beyond to get it back as quickly as possible.”
How a 3PL handles a problem tells you more than a perfect first month ever could. This is that proof point.
What the switch actually bought her
Ask Wild Body’s founder to rate how much care Fulfilpackers takes with her product, and she doesn’t land on a number out of 10. She says 100 out of 10.
The rest of the numbers back it up:
- At least 20 hours a week back, every week, no longer spent on packing
- 10x growth since switching, by her own account
- Terry, on the Fulfilpackers team, named specifically for catching issues early and dealing with them directly rather than waiting to be chased
Those 20 hours didn’t vanish. They went straight into marketing, product development and customer experience, the work that actually moves an eCommerce brand forward.
“It’s allowed me to grow Wild Body even faster. It’s given me confidence this part of my business is run to perfection. If there’s an issue, it’s solved.”
What she’d tell a founder still packing orders themselves
Her advice is blunt, and it’s not really about fulfilment. It’s about what self-fulfilment quietly costs you that never shows up on an invoice.
“You have to look outside the box. Warehouse fees, wages, packing, payroll tax, all of it. A 3PL allows me to grow Wild Body wherever I would like to. I am not tied to a warehouse.”
That’s the diagnostic question worth sitting with: are you still packing orders because the volume genuinely calls for it, or because handing it over feels like a bigger decision than it actually is? If it’s the second one, the hours you’re spending on tape and boxes are costing you more than they’re saving.
If you’re weighing this decision right now
If you’re spending hours every week packing orders yourself and telling yourself it’s fine for now, it’s worth working out what outsourcing your online store logistics through an order fulfilment 3PL would actually cost, and save, at your volume. Book a 15-minute call and we’ll walk through the real numbers, no pitch attached.