A 3PL RFP that opens with the rate sheet gets you a price for a building you haven’t checked. Choosing a 3PL warehousing partner comes down to six checks you make before you sign, and price comes after all of them: certifications by building, hazard and temperature permits, systems, retail compliance, footprint and inbound modes, and references you call. The table below is the short version. The scorecard shows how to weight it. The 3PL RFP template at the bottom makes every bidder answer the same questions in the same order.
| Check | Ask for | A good answer | A red flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Certifications | The certificate, its scope and the building address | Certificates for the building your product will sit in | “We’re certified” with no body, scope or address |
| 2. Hazard and temperature | Hazard classes permitted per building; temperature ranges in writing | Classes by building, flammables in a permitted H3 room, a range for every room | One temperature for the whole building; “we can store flammables” with no permit to show |
| 3. Systems | Portal, EDI partners live today, integrations, API | A login you can test, a list of live integrations, an open API | “We’ll build that after you sign” |
| 4. Retail compliance | Who owns routing guides; the chargeback process | A named owner and a written chargeback process | “Chargebacks are rare” |
| 5. Footprint and inbound modes | Buildings, dock doors, what can pull up to them | Specs by building: rail, container, ISO tank, tank wagon | One headline square footage for the whole company |
| 6. References | Three programs that look like yours | References you call, with a similar product and channel mix | References that only store pallets |
A certification belongs to a building, not a company. When a 3PL says it is “certified,” ask by whom, for what scope, and at which address. Then ask for the certificate.
For food and beverage, expect FDA registration as a food facility, a Georgia Department of Agriculture food sales license (or your state’s equivalent), cGMP, HACCP, AIB International certification and, if you sell into retail, a GFSI-benchmarked certification such as SQF. Our Atlanta food-grade operation is SQF (GFSI) certified and AIB International certified. Our Pooler building is AIB International certified and runs cGMP and HACCP programs but is not SQF certified. That is the level of specificity to expect from every bidder. If your product is organic, ask whether the 3PL is a USDA Organic certified handler at that building. We are, in both Atlanta and Savannah. The program details are on our food-grade warehousing page and the full list is on our certifications page.
For chemicals, the list is DOT hazmat registration, EPA registration, Tier II (EPCRA) reporting, an SDS management system and, for distributors, ACD Responsible Distribution verification. If your team doesn’t read SDSs every day, our guide on how to read a safety data sheet shows which sections a warehouse should be asking you about.
Important PSA: just because someone claims the ability to store flammables doesn’t mean they can in the eyes of the law. Flammable liquids above the code’s allowable quantities need a high-hazard (H3) room, permitted as such; ours in Atlanta have foam suppression. A general warehouse with sprinklers isn’t that, and if a bidder can’t show you the room and the permit, assume they don’t have it. We explain the occupancy rules in H3 rooms: understanding H3 occupancy compliance.
Ask which hazard classes each building is permitted to hold. Ours are classes 2 through 6, 8 and 9 in Atlanta and classes 8 and 9 in Savannah. The rest is on our hazmat and chemical warehousing page. Temperature works the same way. “Climate controlled” means different things in different buildings, so get the ranges in writing. Ours in Atlanta are conditioned at 60 to 75°F, refrigerated at 33 to 38°F and 40 to 42°F, and frozen at −5 to 5°F. Pooler is ambient and heated only. A bidder that gives you one number for the whole building hasn’t been asked the question very often.
If you can’t see into the warehouse, it will surprise you. Ask what you will log into, what it shows you, and what it costs. Ask whether the 3PL runs EDI for your retailers, how many cart and marketplace integrations it already has, and whether there is an open API for your ERP team. Ours is EDI, more than 50 cart and marketplace integrations, a WMS dashboard at no charge and an open REST API. The details are on our technology integrations page. The specific answer matters less than whether the bidder has one ready.
If you ship to big-box retailers, their routing guides, label specs and ASN rules become your 3PL’s problem the day you sign. Ask who owns the routing guides and how chargebacks get handled. Ask about picking too: a 3PL that picks drums, bags, cases and lots off the same order is a different animal from one that only does cartons. Our B2B order fulfillment page covers how we run it, and our guide to 3PL value-added services lists the relabeling, kitting and lot-tracking work to price in before it turns into a change order.
Ask where the buildings are, how big they are, and what can physically pull up to them. A 3PL that can receive a railcar, a container and an ISO tank on the same campus solves problems a truck-only building can’t. We run roughly a million square feet across two markets: three buildings on Selig Drive SW in Atlanta, one of them a rail-served warehouse in Atlanta with daily service from the Fulton County Railway (an OmniTRAX short line) and CSX as the Class I, and our 230,400 square foot building in Pooler, seven miles from the Port of Savannah. Get each bidder’s footprint by building, and ask what happens when you outgrow it.
Every 3PL will give you references. Call them, and ask the uncomfortable questions: what went wrong in the first 90 days, how the 3PL handled a claim, whether the invoice matched the proposal. Ask for a reference whose program looks like yours. For a top-3 global chemical producer’s Atlanta-area plant, we hold base chemicals and empty packaging, shuttle them into the plant daily, receive finished product back and fulfill it domestically and for export, with haz and non-haz repackaging into IBCs and pails along the way. That is the kind of program worth an hour on the phone. While you’re at it, ask to see how liability and claims are written into the contract, before you need them.
Decide the weights before the proposals land, or the lowest rate will decide them for you. Permits are a gate, not a score: a bidder whose building isn’t permitted for your product doesn’t get scored at all. After that, the weights depend on what you ship.
| Criterion | Hazardous product | Retail food or CPG | Pallet in, pallet out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Permits for your hazard class and temperature | Pass/fail gate | Pass/fail gate | Pass/fail gate |
| Certifications at that building | 25% | 25% | 10% |
| Systems and EDI | 15% | 25% | 15% |
| Retail compliance | 5% | 20% | 5% |
| Footprint and inbound modes | 25% | 10% | 25% |
| References | 15% | 10% | 15% |
| Price | 15% | 10% | 30% |
A cheap warehouse that costs you a chargeback, or a failed audit, isn’t cheap. If you’re still deciding whether to outsource at all, read 3PL vs. in-house logistics and 8 signs it’s time to outsource logistics first. If you’re shortlisting in Savannah, our checklist of five things the better Savannah logistics companies do adds the port-side questions.
Copy this into a document, fill in section A, and send the same version to every bidder. Make them answer in order. It’s the only way to compare proposals side by side.
Use the scorecard above. Score question 1 first. A bidder that fails it is out before anyone opens the pricing tab.
Your product profile (hazard class, temperature range, package type, pallet count, inbound modes), volumes, the channels you ship to and their compliance rules, the systems the 3PL must connect to, the certifications you require by site, and the references you want to call. Make every bidder answer the same questions in the same order.
At minimum: FDA registration as a food facility, a state food license where required (in Georgia, a Georgia Department of Agriculture food sales license), and documented cGMP and HACCP programs. For retail customers you will usually also want a GFSI-benchmarked certification such as SQF, plus AIB International certification. Ask for the certificate, the scope and the site address; certifications are issued per building.
Ask which hazard classes each building is permitted to store, whether flammables go into a permitted H3 room where the quantities require one, whether the 3PL holds DOT hazmat and EPA registrations, how SDSs are managed, and whether it files Tier II reports. Ask to see the permits for the building your product will sit in.
It depends on the integration and the product. A pallet-in, pallet-out program with no system connection starts quickly; a program with EDI to several retailers, hazmat permits and labeling rules takes longer. Ask each bidder for a written onboarding plan with dates and owners rather than a single number.
We’d rather answer section B in writing than talk around it. If you are putting an RFP together for the Southeast, send it over and we will fill it in building by building. Start with our 3PL warehousing and logistics services, or send us a product and a volume and we will tell you if it fits.
