FAQs

Charlotte sits in a centralized position along the East Coast, enabling 2-day ground shipping to a large portion of the population.

The region offers:

• Strong carrier presence (UPS, FedEx, USPS)
• Daily routes to major sorting facilities
• Direct access to key freight corridors like I-77
• Inland positioning for lower costs and faster routing
• It’s also home to Charlotte Douglas International Airport, a major cargo hub with continued growth in freight volume.

This combination of central geography, infrastructure, and carrier access creates a fulfillment environment where speed and cost efficiency work together. Learn more about the benefits of Charlotte, NC, as a strategic fulfillment location on our blog.

Your main contact will be our President, Steve Thomson, located in our headquarters in Charlotte, NC.

We do not require that our customers contract with us for a specified amount of time. Instead, we prefer to ensure that our relationship is fruitful and lengthy, not due to a clause in an agreement, but due to your satisfaction and continued receipt of value from our services.

We recommend that you use the shipping company or common carrier that best satisfies your own requirements on the basis of rate, transit time, amenities, tracking capability, and interface ability.

Sweetwater Logistics has developed a tool that evaluates every order shipment at the time of shipping based on the weight, dimensions, and destination to select the best shipping method available relative to cost and transit time. It is not our intention to profit from the final decision that you make; rather, we want to aid you in choosing the best carrier for your needs.

We will work with you to design the supply chain and logistics solutions that best fit your needs. The fees generally cover the handling in, storage, picking of orders, processing the shipping arrangements and an administration fee. Our intention is to convert as much of your current fixed costs to variable costs.

Fulfillment pricing depends on several factors, including shipping carrier, order volume, packaging requirements, and the distance between the warehouse and the customer. Distance has one of the biggest impacts on shipping costs.

Our centrally located East Coast warehouse allows us to deliver approximately 80% of U.S. packages within two days using ground shipping, the most cost-effective shipping method. Through our global network of more than a dozen fulfillment partners, we can also position inventory closer to customers throughout the U.S. and Canada to reduce shipping costs and improve delivery speed.

Yes. Orders received by 2:00 p.m. ET are shipped the same business day.

Sweetwater Logistics currently supports over 50 eCommerce systems, including shopping carts, marketplaces and ERPs. Click here to see the full list.

Yes, we integrate with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Amazon and dozens more eCommerce platforms. Click here to see the full list.

We work with businesses across a wide range of industries. Some of the products we regularly fulfill include apparel, fashion accessories, beverages, consumer goods, and subscription boxes.

Yes. We provide complete subscription box fulfillment services, including kitting, assembly, inventory management, and on-time shipping to your subscribers.

Yes. We fulfill business-to-business (B2B), wholesale, retail, and direct-to-consumer (D2C) orders.

Our team has extensive experience meeting the strict compliance requirements of retailers and wholesale customers, helping brands avoid costly chargebacks and shipping penalties. We also use automated inventory management systems that keep inventory synchronized across sales channels to help prevent overselling and inventory discrepancies.

Yes, we can handle Amazon FBA prep. Our multiple warehouse locations allow our clients to keep their delivery costs low, improve delivery speed, and meet the 1-2 day delivery expectations that most Amazon customers expect.

Read more on our blog “Why Multi-Warehouse Fulfillment is Becoming Essential for Growing Brands.”

A single-warehouse model can begin eroding margins as order volume increases and customer demand clusters geographically. At the right stage, a multi-warehouse fulfillment strategy becomes strategic. Here are three signs you need to expand beyond one fulfillment center:

• You’ve reached sustainable order volume (5,000+ monthly orders)
• A large percentage of your orders ship to one region
• Your products require specialized handling

Read more on the benefits of multiple fulfillment centers on our blog.

Achieving fast delivery is determined long before an order is placed. The gold standard is 2-day ground shipping, but if your inventory is in the wrong location, you’re forced into air shipping, which can cost up to 20x more than ground.

To keep shipping costs down, a 3PL should have: proximity to major US highways, a location near carrier hubs, and an inland location (not at a port).

Read more on how Sweetwater is positioned to keep your shipping costs down.

Outsourcing fulfillment allows business owners to spend less time packing and shipping orders and more time growing their business.

In addition to saving time, partnering with a 3PL gives businesses access to negotiated carrier rates, warehouse infrastructure, fulfillment technology, and logistics expertise that would be costly to build internally. For many growing brands, outsourcing fulfillment improves efficiency while keeping shipping costs competitive.

The best 3PLs don’t just ship orders accurately. They actively help brands grow, solve problems before they happen, and provide strategic guidance that strengthens customer relationships, retail partnerships, and long-term business performance. You should look at the order accuracy rate, on-time shipping rate, integration capabilities, and inventory visibility.

You also want to make sure your 3PL will be there to help your business grow. Asking, “How do you help your clients grow?” leads you to a better conversation for the future of your brand.

Here’s a guide on the questions we recommend asking when choosing the right fulfillment partner.