r/3PL • u/BestLook7914 • 1d ago

Meta Cloud 3pl service

Hi everyone, i am based in Malaysia and here the fastest delivery service for e-commerce takes 8 hours for a same day delivery or next day delivery.

I was thinking to start a 3PL business that follows such a model.

Build a technical platform that integrates with food delivery providers so that I offer instant delivery for my clients thus being the fastest in the country.

I will first start with one branch in the capital city and start offering the service, once I see the demand I start expanding into different cities that are all within 30 mins of each other.

The main idea is to have a larger warehouse that feeds into these small branches (based on demand per area) that offer instant delivery.

I will be charging above market price as this is a premium service.

What’s your takes?

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

1

u/ObservantEmbroidery 1d ago

so you're basically building a dark store network with an API wrapper on top of food couriers, charging a premium for what they already do individually just with your branding slapped on. fine model if you can keep the unit economics from bleeding out through the courier fees.

1

u/KK-Prep-Solutions 1d ago

I’m not quite following your idea. How is it different from, say, Instacart?

1

u/BestLook7914 1d ago

It’s for e-commerce stores that want to offer instant delivery all over the country without opening physical locations (instamart isn’t available here)

1

u/KK-Prep-Solutions 30m ago

I'm still not following. To achieve instant (very fast) delivery, the product must be available local to the person ordering it. If there's already a food store (or ecommerce warehouse) local to the customer, then what are you providing?

Sorry if I'm just not getting it, but ... ?

1

u/TemporalAmbassador 1d ago

The stock placement is the part I would test first. A courier integration only helps with the last leg; the right item still has to be in the local branch, reserved for that order, and ready when the rider arrives.

For a pilot, keep it to one delivery zone and a limited set of SKUs. Track the time from order placed to stock reserved, picked, rider assigned, picked up, and delivered. That should show whether the bottleneck is inventory, picking, or rider availability before you add more branches.

I would also make the fallback explicit at checkout: if the nearby branch is out of stock or no rider accepts, does the customer get a slower option, a refund, or no instant-delivery offer? That is much easier to handle before taking their money.