What’s on our minds

Chicago’s O’Hare corridor is one of the best places in America to run fulfillment. You get the second-largest air cargo gateway in the country, direct rail from the West Coast ports, and I-90/I-294 trucking access that reaches roughly 30% of U.S. consumers within a one-day drive. But “near O’Hare” covers a lot of ground, and ...

Both a Foreign Trade Zone and a bonded warehouse let importers defer, reduce, or in some cases eliminate duty on goods before they enter U.S. commerce. They solve a similar problem, but the mechanics are different enough that picking the wrong one leaves cash tied up that didn’t need to be. What a Foreign Trade ...

Returns are the part of ecommerce that rarely gets designed on purpose. Most brands build a fulfillment process, then bolt returns on afterward as a customer-service afterthought. That gap is expensive: a slow, disorganized returns process doesn’t just frustrate customers, it quietly erodes margin on every item that comes back. Why Returns Are a Margin ...

Most 3PLs can pick, pack, and ship your orders. Very few can legally clear those goods through U.S. Customs first. Customs brokerage requires a license from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the overwhelming majority of fulfillment providers do not hold one. If your brand imports its products, that means the typical “logistics partner” only ...

Every product that crosses a U.S. border needs a Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) code, and that ten-digit number determines the duty rate, whether the shipment needs extra paperwork, and how likely it is to get flagged for exam. Misclassify it and you either overpay duties for years without realizing it, or underpay and end up ...

Splitting inventory across a West Coast and East Coast warehouse cuts the distance a package has to travel to reach most customers, which shortens transit time and lowers shipping cost per order. For ecommerce brands outgrowing a single fulfillment center, deciding where to add a second node is one of the highest-leverage supply chain decisions ...

In February 2025, the U.S. eliminated de minimis eligibility for shipments from China and Hong Kong, requiring formal customs entry, an importer of record, and full HTS documentation on packages that used to clear duty-free under the $800 threshold. That change hit ecommerce brands sourcing from China hardest, and de minimis policy has stayed a ...

Kitting and assembly services bundle multiple SKUs into a single sellable unit before an order ships — think gift sets, subscription boxes, retail displays, or multi-part products built to order. For growing ecommerce and B2B brands, moving this work into a fulfillment center instead of handling it in-house pays off fast. It lowers cost per ...