Third-Party Logistics (3PL)
Also known as: 3PL · Third-party logistics
Third-Party Logistics (3PL) refers to the outsourced provider that handles warehousing, fulfillment, and shipping on a merchant\'s behalf. A COD-capable 3PL extends the traditional 3PL scope with confirmation infrastructure, cash collection coordination, and merchant transfer.
Traditional 3PLs were built around prepaid e-commerce: receive stock, store it, pick-pack-ship on order, and bill the merchant. The model assumes payment is already collected.
In emerging markets where 35-65% of e-commerce runs on COD, a traditional 3PL is necessary but not sufficient. The merchant still has to find a call center, a remittance partner, and someone to reconcile cash. Stitching multiple vendors together produces operational gaps that destroy unit economics.
A COD-capable 3PL — or more precisely a COD Enablement Platform — owns the full chain, including confirmation and finance ops. This is the structural difference between players like Fufills, Kiki Latam, and Trust Logistics on one side, and pure-3PL players like Cubbo on the other.
See how Fufills runs Third-Party Logistics (3PL) in production →
Multi-carrier execution
Multi-carrier execution is the practice of routing each individual order to the best-performing carrier for its specific destination zone, based on historical delivery success — rather than locking into a single carrier per country.
COD finance ops
COD finance ops is the end-to-end financial workflow that moves money from the customer\'s doorstep to the merchant\'s bank account: cash collection coordination, reconciliation per order, currency conversion, and settlement cycle to the merchant.
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