Third-party logistics (or 3PL) refers to the outsourcing of ecommerce logistics processes to a third party business, including inventory management, warehousing, and fulfillment. 3PL providers allow ecommerce merchants to accomplish more, with the tools and infrastructure to automate retail order fulfillment.
We don’t know for sure who coined the term “third-party logistics,” but companies began trending toward outsourcing inbound and outbound logistics services to third parties in the 1970s and ‘80s.
With the introduction and growth of ecommerce in the ‘90s and 2000s, the term 3PL has become ubiquitous, and 3PLs have expanded their services. The supply chain integration of warehousing operations and transportation services has become what we now call third-party logistics.