The Barrett Blog

Holiday volume rarely arrives politely. It does not wait for receiving to quiet down, retail orders to clear, or every incoming shipment to find its place. Customers simply begin buying. Promotions launch, popular products accelerate, retailer requirements continue, and inventory keeps entering the building while orders are moving out at an entirely different pace. For an omnichannel brand, that is what makes peak season particularly demanding. The challenge is not merely fulfilling more ecommerce orders. It is sustaining the rest of the business while one part of it becomes considerably busier. Peak Does Not Replace Your Normal Business A holiday forecast might predict a significant increase in direct to consumer orders, but those orders do not exist in isolation. Business to business shipments still need attention. Retail commitments remain. Inventory must be received. Special projects may continue. Personalized orders can require additional touches at precisely the moment speed becomes increasingly important. Harrison Smith , Director of Commercial Revenue at Barrett Distribution Centers, emphasizes the importance of examining these patterns rather than relying on broad annual averages. “It’s looking at yearly trends, looking at within the year, what does that look like? Do you have those peaks?” Understanding the peak is important. Understanding everything happening around the peak is equally consequential. A brand could finish the year with an average of 5,000 monthly orders, for example, while experiencing dramatically different volumes from one month to another. Once promotions, seasonal inventory, retail activity, and multiple sales channels enter the equation, the average begins to conceal more than it reveals. As Harrison explains, “When I work with brands, I wanna understand everything about the business.” That broader perspective gives a fulfillment partner context. It helps explain not simply how much work is coming, but when it is coming, where it is coming from, and what else the operation will be responsible for at the same time. Omnichannel Growth Changes the Peak Season Equation A growing brand may begin with a relatively straightforward direct to consumer model. Success often introduces something more complicated. Retail opportunities emerge. Business to business volume grows. Marketplaces become relevant. New products require different handling. Suddenly, fulfillment is no longer about moving one type of order through one channel. Scott Wilkins has spoken about this progression throughout his years working with Barrett customers. One of the advantages of building an operation capable of supporting multiple channels is that a brand does not have to reinvent its fulfillment strategy every time a new opportunity appears. That experience becomes especially valuable during peak because each channel brings its own requirements. A direct to consumer order and a major retailer order may contain the same product, but they are not necessarily the same fulfillment task. Without the right experience behind the operation, Scott cautions that “brands can get into trouble really, really quickly.” During the busiest months of the year, there is considerably less room for that learning curve. Your 3PL Needs More Than a Forecast Forecasts provide a starting point, but numbers become far more useful when brands explain what is driving them. If marketing is preparing a major promotion, tell your fulfillment partner. If a retailer order is expected during an already busy week, communicate it early. If inventory is arriving later than planned or a particular product is suddenly outperforming expectations, that information belongs in the conversation too. This is where a strong 3PL relationship becomes less transactional. Bryan Corbett at Barrett has described the relationship between brands and their fulfillment partners as one built on expertise, honesty, and trust. His perspective is refreshingly practical: “Sometimes the customer's not always right. And sometimes Barrett's not always right. Sometimes we make mistakes.” Peak season does not eliminate those realities. If anything, increased volume magnifies them. Plans change. Forecasts miss. Unexpected problems emerge. The strength of the operation becomes visible in how people respond. As Bryan puts it, “You show your expertise through your honesty and your trustworthiness. You can’t separate the two.” Growth Should Create Opportunity, Not Fragility The ultimate objective of peak planning is not to construct a perfectly predictable holiday season. That would be unrealistic. It is to build enough visibility, communication, and flexibility into the operation that success does not destabilize everything surrounding it. Your holiday promotion should be allowed to outperform expectations. A retailer opportunity should feel exciting. A sudden surge in demand should represent momentum rather than an immediate operational crisis. That requires a fulfillment partner capable of seeing the entire business, not simply the orders accumulating in one queue. Because when holiday volume accelerates, the rest of your business does not disappear. It keeps moving, and your 3PL needs to be prepared to move with it. Looking for a 3PL that takes the time to understand your business?  Start a conversation with Barrett Distribution Centers.

Customers may never know the names of the people receiving inventory, preparing orders, managing fulfillment, or solving problems behind the scenes. They may never see the warehouse at all. Yet every one of those decisions eventually reaches them. That reality makes the relationship between a brand and its 3PL unusually consequential. Fulfillment may happen outside a company's own walls, but the experience it creates still carries the company's name. Accuracy, presentation, responsiveness, and consistency all become part of how customers perceive the brand itself. For Katherine Wroth at Barrett Distribution Centers, one piece of customer feedback captures exactly what that relationship should feel like. “The biggest thing that I hear from clients and brands is they say, ‘I feel like Barrett is an extension of our brand.’ And that's exactly what we want at Barrett.” An Extension Should Be Able to Evolve With You Becoming an extension of a brand requires more than understanding how to fulfill today's orders. Businesses change, sometimes dramatically, and the operation supporting them must be capable of navigating that progression. Katherine points to customers that may begin primarily in direct to consumer fulfillment before expanding into business to business distribution and, eventually, a broader omnichannel model. Each stage introduces different expectations and complexities. The objective is continuity. “They can stay with Barrett instead of having to go to multiple 3PLs.” For a growing company, that continuity can become increasingly valuable. Expansion should open possibilities for a brand, not automatically trigger another search for a fulfillment provider capable of handling the next stage. Ownership Changes How People Approach the Work The idea of acting as an extension of a customer's brand also depends on the people making decisions inside the warehouse. William Johnson describes an ownership mentality that encourages Barrett employees to consider the consequences of those decisions personally. “Everybody in our building runs this as if they're the owner. So, we're always looking at it from a perspective, if this was my money, how would I spend it?” That philosophy becomes more tangible through Barrett's participation in the Great Game of Business. William explains that Barrett uses profit sharing and open book financial practices to engage employees as owners and give them greater visibility into the financial success of the business. The concept is straightforward but meaningful. When people understand how their decisions influence a larger outcome, their work becomes more than a sequence of individual tasks. They gain context for why those decisions matter. That investment extends to professional growth as well. William describes daily huddles and a workplace where employees regularly progress from hourly positions to leads and from leads to supervisors. The People Behind the Operation Matter Culture can sound abstract until you hear from someone who has experienced it firsthand. In the video, Scott Hothem reflects on his own experience at Barrett with a simple observation: “I love it here. I love the family feeling here.” That sense of familiarity carries into how Barrett wants customers to experience the company. Scott describes Barrett as a family owned business with the scale to support growing brands while retaining the personal connection that can disappear inside a much larger organization. “They know they're not getting a faceless 3PL. They're getting a family-owned business that's large enough to grow their business anywhere.” That distinction matters because fulfillment is ultimately performed by people. Technology can improve visibility. Systems can connect sales channels. Processes can create consistency. Scale can provide room for growth. Yet people still make decisions, communicate when circumstances change, and determine how problems are addressed. A 3PL becomes an extension of a brand when those people recognize that the inventory in front of them represents something larger than products sitting inside a warehouse. It represents a company's reputation and, ultimately, the experience promised to its customers. The warehouse may belong to your 3PL. The experience leaving it still belongs to your brand. Looking for a 3PL that takes the time to understand your business? Start a conversation with Barrett Distribution Centers.

Choosing a 3PL often begins with an immediate need. Order volume may be accelerating, warehouse capacity may be narrowing, or the demands of managing fulfillment internally may be consuming time that could be better invested elsewhere in the business.  Those pressures can initiate the search, but they should not define its entire scope. A fulfillment partnership has implications that extend well beyond the problems a brand needs to solve today. As the business matures, its distribution strategy may expand, customer expectations may evolve, and an operation that once felt perfectly adequate can become increasingly restrictive. The more consequential question, then, is not simply whether a 3PL can accommodate the business as it exists now. Can it continue supporting the brand as its ambitions become larger? Katherine Wroth at Barrett Distribution Centers sees that distinction as central to building enduring customer relationships. “We really want the clients that are vested in their growth, the ones that are planning to really scale their business.” Growth Has a Way of Redefining What a Brand Needs Some companies begin searching for a 3PL amid explosive growth. Others have successfully operated their own warehouses for years, gradually adding volume and complexity until the infrastructure that once served them well begins constraining what they can pursue next. Neither scenario necessarily indicates that something has gone wrong. Sometimes, the business has simply outgrown the environment that helped it reach this point. That is why Katherine describes Barrett as a “forever 3PL,” a partner intended to remain relevant as the business evolves rather than merely providing a temporary answer to an immediate capacity problem. “We will be there through the growth and help you scale to where you want to be.” At Barrett, longevity matters. Katherine points to relationships spanning five, seven, or even 10 years as the kind of partnerships the company strives to cultivate. Over that amount of time, businesses inevitably change. The value of the relationship lies partly in whether the fulfillment operation has the flexibility and experience to change alongside them. Cost Matters. So Do Timing and Fit. Price will always occupy an important place in a 3PL evaluation. Yet reducing the decision to cost alone can overlook the broader consequences of choosing a fulfillment partner. Katherine emphasizes timing and fit as essential considerations for a lasting relationship. A provider must be appropriate for the business entering the warehouse today, but it should also possess the capabilities to support the business that may emerge several years from now. That perspective becomes especially important for brands approaching a turning point. Moving from self fulfillment to a 3PL is significant. Changing providers again after another period of growth can be equally consequential. Evaluating long-term compatibility from the beginning gives brands an opportunity to think beyond the next shipment, season, or sales milestone. Growth will inevitably reshape a business. New opportunities will emerge, expectations will rise, and fulfillment requirements will become more sophisticated. The right 3PL should not merely accommodate that evolution. It should be prepared to grow through it with you. Looking for a 3PL that takes the time to understand your business? Start a conversation with Barrett Distribution Centers.

October has a way of making the holidays feel suddenly close. Marketing calendars are filling up. Promotions are taking shape. Black Friday and Cyber Monday plans have moved from ideas to actual deadlines, and forecasts are being revisited as brands get a clearer picture of what the final months of the year could bring. Meanwhile, somewhere in the supply chain, holiday inventory is moving too. Some of it may already be sitting in a fulfillment center. Some may be arriving this week. Other products could still be in transit, waiting to be received, or scheduled to arrive much closer to the moment customers begin looking for them. Knowing how much inventory you purchased is one thing. Knowing where it is, when it will arrive, and whether it will be ready when demand arrives is another. Peak Season Starts Before the Orders Do Holiday fulfillment conversations naturally focus on outbound orders. How many orders will come in? How quickly can they ship? What happens if a promotion performs better than expected? Those questions matter, but they begin in the middle of the story. Before an order can leave a fulfillment center, inventory has to get there. It needs to be received, accounted for, stored, and ready to move when customers start buying. During a busy season, that incoming flow of product can be just as important as what is heading out the door. Harrison Smith , Director of Commercial Revenue at Barrett Distribution Centers, looks closely at those patterns when learning about a brand. With roughly 20 years in the 3PL industry, he knows that understanding peak is about more than identifying the busiest sales month. As Harrison puts it, “When do you need to bring your inventory in to service that holiday peak, or is it a summer peak because you sell swimsuits or whatever it might be?” The question is simple, but it changes the conversation. If November is your busiest month, what needs to happen in October? And what needed to happen before that? Where Is Your Inventory Right Now? By October, brands should have more than a holiday sales forecast. They should have a clear picture of the inventory expected to support it. That means understanding what has already arrived, what is still on the way, and whether any incoming products could create pressure as holiday activity increases. This is where averages can become misleading. A brand might know its typical monthly inventory or order volume, but peak rarely behaves like a typical month. Harrison emphasizes the importance of looking deeper into the patterns behind the numbers. “It’s looking at yearly trends, looking at within the year, what does that look like? Do you have those peaks?” For holiday planning, those peaks can happen on both sides of the warehouse. Orders may increase just as large amounts of inventory arrive. Suddenly, the operation is balancing receiving, storage, picking, packing, and shipping during the same critical stretch. Visibility helps everyone understand what is coming before the building gets busy. Give Your 3PL the Full Picture Your 3PL cannot prepare for information it does not have. If a large inventory shipment has moved later than originally expected, communicate it. If a promotion is likely to concentrate demand around certain products, share that information. If this year's assortment or sales strategy looks substantially different from last year's, make sure your fulfillment team knows that too. Harrison describes himself as a “data nerd,” and his approach is rooted in understanding as much of the business as possible. “When I work with brands, I wanna understand everything about the business.” That does not mean brands need to predict every holiday order perfectly. Forecasts change. Promotions surprise people. Products sell differently than expected. The goal is not perfect foresight. It is giving the people responsible for fulfillment enough information to make thoughtful decisions as conditions change. At Barrett, those conversations help our teams understand the rhythm behind a customer's business rather than viewing peak as one large number on a forecast. October Is a Good Time to Ask Better Questions Instead of asking only whether your 3PL is ready for holiday volume, October is a good time to look more closely at the inventory supporting that volume. What has arrived? What is still coming? Are there products tied to major promotions? Has anything changed since the original forecast? Are there unusual inbound shipments your fulfillment team should know about? Those conversations may not be the most exciting part of holiday planning, especially compared with campaigns, product launches, and sales goals. Still, they help create the conditions for all of those plans to work. Because by the time a customer clicks buy , a surprising amount of the work behind that order should already be finished. Your holiday inventory should not simply be on its way. You should know where it is, when it is arriving, and what happens next. Looking for a 3PL that takes the time to understand your business? Tell us where you are today, where you want to go, and what you need from your fulfillment partner. Start a conversation with Barrett Distribution Centers.

Five thousand orders a month sounds wonderfully predictable, but averages have a habit of making complicated businesses look simple. Maybe January is quiet, spring brings a major product launch, and summer is when demand really takes off. Then a promotion performs better than expected, inventory arrives earlier than usual, or a retailer places an order that looks nothing like the ecommerce orders moving through the building every day. By the end of the year, the monthly average might still be 5,000 orders, but very few months actually looked average. For a 3PL, that difference matters. Harrison Smith , Director of Commercial Revenue at Barrett Distribution Centers, spends much of his time looking at the numbers behind a brand and understanding what those numbers actually say about the operation. With roughly 20 years of experience in the 3PL industry, Harrison has learned that order volume alone rarely tells the entire story. “When I work with brands, I wanna understand everything about the business.” That means looking beyond the average and finding the rhythm underneath it. Averages Can Make Peaks Disappear Imagine two brands that each ship 60,000 orders annually. On paper, both average 5,000 orders per month, so their fulfillment needs might initially appear similar. Look closer, and they could be completely different businesses. One might consistently ship around 5,000 orders every month, while another moves a significant portion of its annual volume during a handful of promotions or seasonal peaks. The total is the same, but the way inventory, people, space, and orders move through the warehouse is not. That is why Harrison looks at more than annual totals when learning about a prospective customer. “It’s looking at yearly trends, looking at within the year, what does that look like? Do you have those peaks?” Those peaks tell a 3PL when the business changes pace. They also help reveal what has to happen before demand arrives, because a busy sales month does not begin when the first customer places an order. Inventory may need to arrive weeks or months earlier, warehouse space needs to be available, and the operation needs enough time to receive and prepare that product. Your Busiest Month Might Not Be December Peak season is often treated as another name for the holidays, but every brand has its own calendar. A swimwear company may experience its most important stretch during warmer months. An apparel brand might revolve around seasonal collections and launches. Another business may see dramatic spikes around promotions, retailer orders, or events that have nothing to do with the traditional holiday rush. Harrison brings up exactly that distinction when talking with brands. “When do you need to bring your inventory in to service that holiday peak, or is it a summer peak because you sell swimsuits or whatever it might be?” That question sounds simple, yet the answer can influence much more than outbound order volume. If a large amount of inventory arrives ahead of a peak, the warehouse needs somewhere to put it. If demand suddenly accelerates, more handling work follows. If the brand operates across several sales channels, the profile can become even more nuanced. Understanding when those moments happen gives the 3PL a much clearer picture of the business it is preparing to support. The Story Is Usually in the Details Order history becomes far more useful when it has context. What caused last year's spike? Was it expected? Is it likely to happen again? Did a promotion create the increase, or did a new sales channel change the business permanently? When does inventory normally arrive ahead of those periods? Are there months when products sit longer before demand catches up? At Barrett, those conversations are part of understanding the operation before making assumptions about it. Harrison is admittedly a “data nerd,” but his interest in the numbers is ultimately about making the information useful. “The better you understand the data, the better the quote we can offer.” When a brand provides only a partial picture, a 3PL has to fill in the blanks. Harrison explains that those assumptions tend to be conservative because the provider does not want to promise an operation that the available information cannot support. More complete data allows the conversation to become more precise. As Harrison puts it, “the better the data, the better our pricing.” Give Your 3PL the Real Version of Your Business There is nothing wrong with knowing your average monthly order volume. It is a useful number. It just should not be the end of the conversation. Show your 3PL the unusually busy months and the surprisingly quiet ones. Talk about the promotion that changed everything for a week. Explain when inventory begins arriving before your biggest selling season and whether a retailer order can suddenly change the shape of the month. If your business is seasonal, say so. If it is unpredictable, that is useful information too. Your business is constantly moving, and the numbers should tell that story. When your 3PL understands the peaks, patterns, and changes behind the average, they can prepare for the business you actually have, not the one a spreadsheet suggests. Looking for a 3PL that takes the time to understand your business? Tell us where you are today, where you want to go, and what you need from your fulfillment partner. Start a conversation with Barrett Distribution Centers.

A great 3PL partnership is easy to talk about when everything is going according to plan. Orders are shipping, inventory is moving, customers are happy, and everyone can comfortably use words like collaboration and partnership. The more revealing moments tend to come later. What happens when a business becomes more complex? When new sales channels emerge, seasonal inventory arrives while last season's products are still moving out, customization becomes more ambitious, or an unexpected problem lands on everyone's desk?  For SCOUT Bags , those questions are particularly relevant. The 22-year-old, family-owned brand has built its business around colorful, durable bags and accessories designed to combine function and fashion. Its products move through several channels, including direct to consumer, Amazon, more than 1,500 retailers, key accounts, and a growing corporate gifting and customization business. Each channel brings different expectations, timelines, and fulfillment requirements. As SCOUT President Kate explained in a recent conversation with Barrett, the company likes to call itself “a complicated little business.” And complicated businesses need partners willing to understand the complications. Growth Changes What You Need From a 3PL Before coming to Barrett, SCOUT had spent years with another fulfillment provider, growing from a much smaller company into the multifaceted brand it is today. Eventually, the business had evolved enough that SCOUT began looking for something different. The goal was not simply to find another warehouse.

Culture can sound like one of those things that belongs in an employee handbook or on a poster in the break room. Important internally, perhaps, but what does it have to do with the company trusting a 3PL to fulfill thousands of customer orders? Quite a lot, actually. Inside a warehouse, culture quietly influences how people communicate when an order goes wrong, whether someone feels comfortable raising a concern before it becomes a larger problem, how seriously teams take the details of a customer's account, and whether employees see themselves as simply completing a task or taking responsibility for an outcome. Customers may never witness those interactions, but they experience the consequences of them every day. At Barrett Distribution Centers, that connection between culture and customer experience is intentional. Adam Robertson, Vice President of Customer Experience, describes it as something that begins with leadership and travels throughout the organization. “Culture that comes all the way from the top. Our vision statement is to wow our customers. That comes from the top.” Culture Eventually Finds Its Way to the Customer Think about everything that can happen between an order being placed and a package reaching someone's doorstep. There are systems communicating, inventory being located, products being picked, packaging decisions being made, carrier requirements being followed, and people responding when something does not go exactly according to plan. Technology supports that work, but people bring it to life. For Barrett, the guiding vision is to “WOW our customers, partners, and fellow employees with every interaction.” The company's five core values build on that idea through continuous improvement, integrity, dedication to the customer, ownership, and open and honest relationships. Those values become especially meaningful when fulfillment gets complicated. During an easy day, almost any operation can look impressive. What happens during the difficult one? When volume unexpectedly increases, a retailer requirement changes, an inventory question appears, or a customer needs an answer quickly, the habits established within a company begin to show. Does someone take ownership? Do teams communicate openly? Are people willing to raise their hands and solve the problem? That is culture in practice. Give People a Reason to Care About the Outcome Interestingly, one of Barrett's core values is “I Am an Owner.” Barrett operates with an open book philosophy, sharing financial results with employees and allowing them to participate in the company's success when financial goals are achieved. The idea is larger than financial transparency. Barrett wants employees to think and behave with the responsibility of an owner. That sense of involvement has been reinforced through Barrett's participation in The Great Game of Business for the past 20 years. Weekly huddles, forecasting, scoreboards, and other practices give employees greater visibility into how the company performs and how their individual work contributes to a larger result.