Quick Jump
Choosing the right third-party logistics (3PL) provider can transform your business operations. Today, we highlight Selery Fulfillment, a 3PL known for its customized solutions and strong customer support. We spoke with Jason Taylor, the CEO of Selery, to learn more about the company's story, its growth, and what sets it apart in the competitive world of logistics. Selery started from a surprising opportunity and has grown into a key player in the industry. Their journey shows what makes a 3PL truly great and how they can help businesses thrive.
Section 1: Background and Company Origin
Can you provide a brief overview of your background and what inspired you to start your 3PL company? What was the vision or mission that drove you to establish your own 3PL business? Could you share any unique or challenging experiences that motivated you to take the entrepreneurial leap into the logistics industry?
Like a lot of things, Selery began out of an unexpected opportunity. I was running a family distribution business based in Dallas and had hired Juston White to sell obsolete inventory on eBay, Amazon etc. A person reached out to us through an eBay ad and asked if we could store and ship his products and asked us how much that would cost. I didn’t know the right amount to charge, and it wasn’t really something I was interested in since that was outside the scope of our business…plus random inquiries from eBay purchasers aren’t usually to be taken seriously, so I told Justin to charge him a price high enough that he would go away and leave us alone. The customer immediately replied and said our pricing sounded great and asked if he could start on Monday. He became our first fulfillment customer and once we learned we could do this and it didn’t require huge capital investments in inventory, we began seeking more clients like this and surprisingly this proved very fruitful very quickly and within about 3 months I opened our first Selery Fulfillment warehouse in Addison, TX. As this business began to grow, I really loved the opportunity to help businesses focus on what they loved and leave the hassle of receiving, storing, picking, packing etc to us. For many years running our consumer electronics distribution business I often thought, how amazing would it be if we could just sit in a nice office and handle our sales, marketing etc. and pay someone else to handle the warehousing side of the business. For my business in particular this was not an option, but I 100% know how business owners feel and how amazing it is to relieve yourself of this stress and obligation.
How did you come up with the name for your company, and is there a story behind it?
I have grown to really like the name Selery and it is unique compared to all the Ship-something’s out there, but I wish I had a good story of how the name came to be. At the very beginning, this was just a side-gig for me, and I just needed a name for the website. Justin mentioned his wife had an old domain she has not used in a long time from when she used to help sell old goods for companies. I saw it was only 6 letters long and was a catchy name so we went with it.
Section 2: Company Growth and Milestones
Since the inception of your 3PL company, what significant milestones have you achieved in terms of growth and expansion?
We have been very fortunate and blessed to have the growth that we have experienced. For the first several years we literally spent zero on marketing….because we had zero to spend, but the business just grew and grew. Our first little warehouse was 15k square feet and I thought it would be fine for a long time. 3 months later it was completely full, so we moved to a 35k square foot warehouse which was HUGE to me and I couldn’t imagine us ever needing more space, so I signed another long term lease. Within 6 months we were turning customers away due to lack of space. We then took a huge, scary leap into a 100k square foot warehouse in Carrollton. The expansion just kept going and now we are approaching 1 million square feet in locations throughout the country. Now, we are actively seeking small fulfillment companies to purchase and bring into the Selery family. This has been a fun process, because in almost every case, the previous owners have stayed on board to run their facility, but now they get to do it with better resources and more support and are able to take home more money personally than they could on their own. We are very fortunate to have these entrepreneurs as part of the Selery team.
Can you describe a defining moment or strategy that played a crucial role in scaling your business?
Really the biggest moment was taking the giant leap to secure that first 100k square foot facility. It was more than we could afford and on paper it was going to put us out of business within 6 months, but based on what we had seen we believed the old Field of Dreams mantra…if you build it they will come. We had this giant empty space (see pic) and just needed paying customers to fill it. Fortunately, at the same time we were moving into the warehouse ourselves, our largest customer to date was moving in at the same time and within the first 30 days a company reached out to us to see if we could store about 2-3k oversized pallets of solar panels for 6 months! That account was literally perfect for us, because it paid the rent for 6 months and about the time we started to need the space for new clients. They moved out, clearing the way for more traditional fulfillment clients.
How have you managed to adapt and stay competitive in the ever-evolving logistics and supply chain industry?
Volume solves a lot of problems. Over the years, as we have grown, our discounts with the freight carriers have gotten deeper allowing us to stay competitive and win larger accounts that were out of reach when we were smaller. In the beginning, we knew very little about fulfillment and just learned as we went along. Since finding customers has never been a big issue for us, we could focus all of our attention on becoming better and more efficient with our processes. As we became more efficient it allowed us to remain and even become more competitive. Funny story on pricing: In the very beginning I had no idea at all how to price fulfillment customers, so I was doing a flat fee. If you said you had 5k orders and I wanted $1 each, I just told the customer their bill would be $5k/mo. We had a grocery account that I was charging $3k/mo to and felt good about the pricing. The customer came to me and said if I prepay for a year can you give me a discount to $30k. I really needed some money to fund the business, so I agreed. He knew exactly what he was doing and almost immediately his orders more than quadrupled. I ended up having to give some of his money back and we decided to part ways. He was the very last customer ever to get fixed pricing!
What sets your company apart from other 3PL providers, and how have you maintained a competitive edge?
This sounds very old school, and it really is, but I think it is important. When NT, my first salesperson, started at Selery, on day 1 I told him to reach out to 10 fulfillment companies and act like a customer and get a quote. He never heard back from 5 of them. 2 responded to his request within a week or so and the other 3 trickled in over an extended period…up to 3 months later. If you email us or fill out an online quote form, you will hear back from us the same day and in most cases in the same hour. Along those same lines, every client has a dedicated account rep that they can email or call anytime. In most cases every client has not only the cell number of their account rep, but they also have the cell number of their salesperson and can reach them very quickly. In my experience and from what I hear from our clients this is extremely rare. I think more than anything, this level of service is what sets us apart and also is what creates a good amount of referrals.
Section 3: Industry Insights and Advice
What are some trends and challenges you've observed in the logistics and 3PL sector over the years?
There has definitely been a move towards more robotics. In most cases, I have found this to be inefficient and cost prohibitive. I absolutely love the idea of robotics and if I could find a way to make it make sense, I would jump on it. Being a 3PL with a lot of ecommerce brands, robotics becomes a challenge because we might be shipping a toothbrush to one customer and a washing machine to the next. One of the challenges that we have all seen, especially in the last 3+ years, is out of control inflation. Labor costs, real estate and supply costs along with freight increases have really impacted our customer base. I think we have done a great job with our increases in efficiency and our freight negotiations to mitigate a lot of these price increases.
What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to start their own 3PL?
Start it and grow it to a couple million in revenue and then call me haha. If I had to give advice to a startup that is bootstrapped, I would suggest focusing on services like kitting, bagging, barcoding etc. These things produce revenue for the company with the only cost being labor. In your early days, with limited funds, you just can’t afford to bring on larger accounts where you have to carry the freight cost. For example, we are in negotiations right now with a client with 75k ecommerce orders per month. If we assume the freight cost is $6 an order that is $450k you will spend in 30 days and then you bill the client who might take up to 30 days to pay you. In this case, you would have outlaid $900k before you ever get paid. This type of client is very difficult for a young startup 3PL.
Could you share any innovative approaches or technologies that have contributed to your company's success?
This business overall is pretty simple. Product comes in and is checked in and put away and then it is picked and shipped to the consumer or retail store. Our software has made great improvements over the years and we are beginning to implement a new feature with all of our clients that will be extremely innovative and offer tremendous insight into our customers at a granular level. This feature will track every minute that employees are involved in any process with a particular client to the point that we will soon know to the penny exactly what every order and every item costs us. This will be very helpful in determining prices for new similar clients and will show us certain clients that might need a rate decrease or increase.
How do you see the future of 3PL and logistics evolving, and what strategies do you have in place to adapt?
More than the 3PL system evolving, I think the consumer is evolving. Amazon has trained people to expect to receive their orders faster than ever. This is why we are expanding our footprint all across the US, Canada, Europe, etc. We want to have facilities in enough places so that we can deliver products as fast and as cost effective as possible.
What tech stack and outsourced service providers do you use at your business?
- ShipHero: Our WMS software has evolved over the years and is very easy for the customer to interface with and integrates seamlessly with most shopping cart platforms. In the future, we expect massive gains in efficiency and tracking KPI’s.
- Pipedrive: We use Pipedrive as our CRM. It has been immensely useful in tracking the stage of our prospects and keeps us on our toes to make sure every appointment or follow up with a prospective client is on time
- Zoho: We use Zoho for our billing platform and it allows an easy payment portal for our clients.
- Freight auditing: We use an outsourced company to audit our freight invoices to insure accuracy and ask for refunds if freight has been overbilled.
Section 4: Personal Insights
In your journey as a 3PL founder, what have been the most rewarding and personally fulfilling moments? Can you share a memorable or inspiring story related to your experiences as a business owner?
Honestly, my most rewarding moments have been seeing some of our clients' businesses blow up, in a good way. One of our best clients came to visit the warehouse about 4 years ago. They had an idea and at the time “hoped to have 1000 orders a month” Now that client on a regular basis has 80-100k orders a month and while the 1000 were all ecommerce, a large amount of the 80-100k are wholesale orders. I expect them to approach 150k orders during peak this year. It couldn’t have happened to a better couple guys and I love being a small part of their success.
What is your leadership philosophy, and how do you inspire and motivate your team?
We have a unique way of managing our teams at Selery. We all know that things can get less personal and more corporate as businesses get larger, but at Selery we run the warehouse as several “small companies” We call them zones, but each zone acts as a small 3Pl within our organization. This allows them to develop relationships, friendships etc. and know each of their clients personally. I feel this keeps morale high and gives a more personal experience to each of our clients.
How do you balance work and life as an entrepreneur in a demanding industry?
I am very fortunate to have a great COO in Rory Bachman. He has been a huge help in building a team and I know if I am away I can trust that things are in good hands with Rory in charge. I make sure to have plenty of time to play along with work.
Closing Remarks
Is there anything else you'd like to share about your 3PL journey or any exciting developments on the horizon for your company?
We are in the fun stage of our business now. Being an entrepreneur, I have a passion for starting and growing businesses, so being in a position to acquire more fulfillment companies and help them reach heights they might not have reached without us is exciting to me. Each new fulfillment company we purchase is an opportunity to learn something new and improve our processes.
