Quick Answer: A 3PL earns its fee on the stock that ships this week, and bleeds you on the stock that does not. Pull slow movers and seasonal depth into an owned container behind your own base: a 20ft holds about 10 standard pallets, a 40ft about 22, with no monthly meter. Fast SKUs stay at the 3PL. Van Blanc delivers across Ontario in 1-3 days.
In This Guide
Reading time: about 9 minutes.
The Line on the 3PL Invoice Nobody Optimizes
Small e-commerce operators audit their pick fees, fight their shipping rates, and renegotiate their packaging, and then pay the storage line on the 3PL invoice like it is weather. It is not weather. Storage is billed per pallet or per cubic foot per month, it compounds silently as the catalogue grows, and, this is the part worth circling, it charges the SLOWEST inventory the most, because slow stock sits the longest. The pallet of a discontinued colourway that will sell out eventually is paying rent every month to wait.
Canada’s supply-chain profession, SCMAO’s world, calls this carrying cost and treats it as a lever; small-business advocates like CFIB publish endlessly on exactly these quiet overheads. The lever for a small shipper is physical and cheap: a container behind the shop, garage, or rural base, holding the stock that does not need to be fulfillable this week.
Which Inventory Belongs Where? The Fast/Slow Split
The fork, stated honestly, because half this page’s job is telling you what NOT to move. Stock that stays at the 3PL: anything shipping daily or weekly (the pick fee needs the pallet within forklift reach of the packing line), anything in a marketplace program with warehouse requirements (FBA inventory lives where the program says it lives), and anything needing climate control the 3PL provides. Stock that moves home to the depot: slow SKUs that ship monthly, seasonal depth waiting for its season, packaging and dunnage bought in bulk, returns awaiting triage, and the trade-show kit that lives at the 3PL out of habit. Operators who run the split typically discover a third to half their billed pallets did not need to be fulfillable at all, and the depot feeds the 3PL a pallet at a time as velocity demands, same as our records-archive customers discovered about their paper.
Carrying Cost, in One Sentence
Every pallet has two addresses it could live at: the one that charges monthly because it can ship in an hour, and the one you own because it does not need to. Sorting your catalogue by that single question is the whole discipline.
How Many Pallets Fit in a Container?
A 20ft floor takes about 10 standard 48×40 pallets in a single layer; a 40ft takes about 22, and the 40ft high cube adds the headroom that makes double-stacking light cartons realistic. The floor is 28 mm marine plywood over steel, flat and level on proper blocking, which means a hand pallet jack works inside, and ground-level doors mean the pallet rolls from truck gate to depot floor without a dock. Shelving down one wall converts pallet volume into pickable carton faces for the operator who occasionally ships from home. The honest constraint is the door: 2.34 m wide takes any standard pallet, but oversized crated goods get measured before they get promised, ours and yours both.
Christian LeBlanc, second-generation operator: “A candle brand out of Cambridge was paying storage on forty pallets and shipping from maybe twelve of them. We put a 40 high cube behind the owner’s shop, she pulled twenty-six pallets home, and told me the 3PL invoice dropped by more than the container cost within the year. The part she did not expect: returns triage got faster because the reject stock finally had somewhere to be.”
The Q4 Pre-Position Play
The seasonal version of the split is the one that pays for the box fastest. Holiday-heavy catalogues face a September choice: land the Q4 depth at the 3PL early and pay three months of storage on stock that sells in six weeks, or land it late and gamble on receiving queues in the 3PL’s busiest month. The depot dissolves the choice: the ocean or domestic freight lands at YOUR container in September, and pallets feed the 3PL in tranches timed to velocity. The same play runs in reverse in January, when unsold seasonal stock retreats to the depot instead of paying full-rate storage to hibernate. One box, two rescues a year.
Cardboard, Moisture, and the Depot Setup
Inventory in cardboard has one enemy in steel storage and it is the same one every stored thing has: condensation. The setup is standard and non-negotiable: pallets keep cartons off the floor by design, passive vents exchange the air, desiccant handles the swing seasons, and anything moisture-fussy wraps in poly on the pallet, exactly as it crossed the ocean in the first place, because this box’s whole career was keeping cardboard dry at sea. Our condensation guide has the physics. Security is the easy half: lockboxed corten beside your base beats a shared dock, and Wind and Watertight grade does this duty at the friendliest number.
Audit One Invoice Tonight
Count the pallets that did not ship last month. Read us that number and your postal code, and the depot that stops their meter comes back priced the same day.
3PL Storage vs Owned Depot, Line by Line
| Factor | 3PL storage line | Owned container depot |
|---|---|---|
| Cost shape | per pallet, per month, forever | bought once |
| Right stock | fast movers, program inventory | slow SKUs, seasonal depth, packaging, returns |
| Access | portal request, retrieval fee | walk out back with the keys |
| Q4 receiving | their queue, their busiest month | your yard, your schedule |
| Fulfilment | their whole job, done well | none; the depot feeds the 3PL |
| Scale-up | next invoice tier | second container beside the first |
Warehouse overflow has many answers. The hub that ranks every storage option ranks them honestly.
Some inventory needs more than dry: the conditioned paper annex print shops run shows the climate-fitted version of overflow.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a container cheaper than 3PL storage fees?
For stock that is not shipping, almost always: the per-pallet meter runs monthly forever while the container is bought once, and operators typically find a third to half their billed pallets did not need to be fulfillable. Read us one invoice’s pallet count at 519-754-6844 for your version of the math.
How many pallets fit in a 20ft or 40ft container?
About 10 standard pallets single-layer in a 20ft and about 22 in a 40ft, with the high cube adding realistic double-stack height for light cartons. A pallet jack works on the level marine-plywood floor, and ground-level doors take pallets without a dock.
What inventory should STAY at the 3PL?
Anything shipping daily or weekly, anything inside a marketplace program with warehouse requirements, and anything needing their climate control. The depot exists for the rest: slow movers, seasonal depth, packaging, and returns awaiting triage.
Will cardboard inventory stay dry in a container?
Yes, with the standard setup: palletized off the floor, passive vents, desiccant through the swing seasons, and poly wrap on anything fussy, the same protection it crossed the ocean under. Skip the vents and steel condenses; we lead with that instead of hiding it.
Can Van Blanc receive freight for me?
No; we sell and deliver the depot, and your carrier delivers your freight to it. What we do promise is the box on your ground in 1-3 days across most of Ontario, with the real lead time quoted up front, so September pre-positioning actually happens in September.
Sources
- Supply Chain Management Association of Ontario. Supply chain profession and carrying-cost practice. scmao.ca
- Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Small business cost and operations research. cfib-fcei.ca
- International Organization for Standardization. ISO 668, Series 1 freight containers, classification, dimensions and ratings. iso.org
Reach Van Blanc in Brantford
Depot bins for Ontario’s small shippers, from a family yard since 1995. 4.9 stars across 140+ verified Google reviews; walk the rows and pick your unit by its container number.
Van Blanc Ent. Inc., 90 Morton Ave E Unit 1B, Brantford, ON N3R 7J7, +1 888-509-6658
Bring last month’s storage line and the slow-SKU count; the fast-slow split takes one honest phone call.
Call 519-754-6844 Request a Free Quote