FAQ

Whether you own your own warehouse or rent the space from a third party, the outsourcing of warehousing functions almost always saves money. If your business experiences seasonal or other fluctuations, it makes no sense to pay for aisles of empty racking. Nor does it make sense to pay for equipping a warehouse with everything from safety barriers to forklift trucks or adding extra employees.

By outsourcing, the cost is spread among multiple clients. As a result, you can free up capital if you’re renting or even avoid the upfront cost completely if you are choosing between your own warehouse and an experienced third party provider.

In a word: teamwork. First Logistics was founded by Dennis Cole in 2003. The initial team members included a group that had formerly worked together at Sterling Logistics, a company that was sold to a private equity company. The majority of our employees have worked seamlessly together since the early 1980s. You’d be hard pressed to find a level of teamwork and experience like ours anywhere else.

Likely, you’ve had experience with big companies that promise the moon…until they get your business. Even though we’re small, we’re mighty. We can do just about anything they do, requiring buildings, management systems, labor and equipment.

And we can give you something they can’t: responsiveness. You will get your rate quotation quickly – no red tape, no layered management structure to require approvals. When you call First Logistics with an issue, you will speak directly to an owner who will make decisions immediately, saving you time and money.

We do both. We keep the facilities we own very full and productive year round, and also augment owned spaces with leased spaces. By leasing, we add flexibility o manage our customers’ peaks and valleys.

Every account is measured under a standard set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which include on-time shipping, order-picking accuracy, dock-to-stock time frame, driver dwell time and many others. In addition, we develop a customized set of KPS for each account to measure its own specific objectives.

Like most warehouse operators, First Logistics carries general liability insurance and warehouseman’s legal liability insurance. You must also provide your own insurance for product loss or damage related to storage in a 3PL warehouse.

Warehouseman’s legal liability insurance covers a portion of losses caused by any negligence on the part of First Logistics. This coverage is subject to a limitation of liability stated in your rate quotation and contract. This is the most efficient and inexpensive way to insure goods against loss.

Handling charges – which are charged at the time of receipt and includes all in-and-out handling — covers receiving products, placing them into storage, re-warehousing products when necessary, picking products onto orders, and shipping the products as ordered.

Storage fees, assessed at the time of receipt, covers the storage charge for the initial month of receipt.  A storage fee will be assessed each month, as long as the goods remain in storage.

There is also an accessorial charge, an added charge that recovers the cost of non-standard function, and is only applied when approved by our customers and required to complete workloads. We will be happy to discuss the charges – which are typical for our industry – if you have any follow-up questions.

We prefer that a customer maintain enough volume to cover our fixed cost of managing a piece of their business. Typically, we request at least 100 pallets of goods in storage, or activity that is equal to at least 50 orders per month. We generally assess a minimum monthly charge reflecting the storage cost at minimum levels of inventory.

Our holiday schedule includes New Years Day, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and the day after, and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Over the many decades our team has worked together, we have served hundreds of customers and the chances are high that we have handled products very much like yours. We are happy to provide references.