3PLs for Apparel Fulfillment: 8 Providers Compared

The best third-party logistics (3PLs) companies for apparel fulfillment are Bergen Logistics, Barrett Distribution Centers, and Boxzooka. Returns handling matters more than shipping speed in this business. This guide compares eight providers; for the general market, see our list of the best order fulfillment companies.

The first is returns. Coresight Research and Alvanon put the U.S. online apparel and footwear return rate at 23.4% in 2025, representing $47.1 billion in returned merchandise on a $201.1 billion market. For context, the National Retail Federation put total U.S. retail returns at $849.9 billion, or 15.8% of all sales, with online returns running 19.3%. Apparel sits well above the online average.

Roughly 70% of online apparel returns are driven by sizing and fit rather than defects or damage, according to the same research. That means most returned garments arrive in resalable condition and need grading, inspection, and often reconditioning before they go back on the shelf. A 3PL that treats returns as a receiving exception rather than a core process will cost you inventory.

The second problem is SKU volume. One style in six sizes and five colors is 30 SKUs. Twenty styles is 600. Pick accuracy that would be acceptable in a category with 50 SKUs becomes expensive when a customer receives a medium instead of a large and returns it, which converts one picking error into two shipments and a reconditioning cycle.

Capability reflects what each provider publishes as of August 2026. Nobody in this set publishes steaming or pressing services, and only Barrett publishes retail routing compliance, which matters if you sell wholesale as well as direct.

1. Bergen Logistics

Bergen is the most fashion-native provider on this list. Lela Rose, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Todd Snyder, and SuitShop all fulfill through Bergen. The company has been owned by Sweden’s Elanders Group since November 2021.

The network runs 18 facilities across nine countries, but only five sit in North America: North Bergen and Rutherford in New Jersey, Cerritos in California, Kennesaw in Georgia, and Brampton in Ontario. Bergen does not itemize apparel capability on its public site, so the specialization is demonstrated by who it works with rather than by a published service list. Ask for the capability detail directly.

2. Barrett Distribution Centers

Barrett has been operating since 1941 and runs eight fulfillment centers across more than 3.5 million square feet, in Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Memphis, New Jersey, New York, and Washington D.C. It publishes hanging garment space and a returns process that inspects, reconditions and restocks rather than simply receiving.

Barrett is the only provider in this comparison publishing EDI and retail routing guide capability. This becomes essential the moment you sell wholesale into department stores alongside your own site. Chargebacks for routing guide violations are a real cost that DTC-only 3PLs are not built to avoid. Delta Galil selected Barrett for Bare Necessities and Organic Basics fulfillment in June 2026.

3. Boxzooka

Boxzooka is small, with four facilities in Secaucus, New Jersey, Middletown, Pennsylvania, and Henderson, Nevada, and it has the strongest named apparel client roster of any provider here. MM.LaFleur, AYR, Lele Sadoughi, Frances Valentine, Sleepy Jones, Cami NYC, and Quince all appear publicly, with testimonials from La Ligne and Bandier.

It also publishes the most granular apparel handling detail. It offers garment-on-hanger storage, poly bagging, documented folding standards, style and size and color verification at pick, defect inspection at receiving, branded unboxing, and kitting. Note that while Boxzooka markets around 16 locations, 12 of those are service-area pages rather than warehouses. The facility count is four.

4. ShipMonk

ShipMonk opened an apparel-specific fulfillment center in Louisville built around returns, SKU complexity, and rework. That is a structural commitment and a clear signal that a generalist 3PL has taken apparel seriously enough to build for it.

The wider network covers five U.S. metros, in Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Dallas-Fort Worth, Pittston, Pennsylvania, and Louisville, plus facilities in Canada, the UK and the Czech Republic. ShipMonk publishes its fee categories but no rates, and it applies a monthly minimum calculated from your order volume, so confirm that figure before you model anything.

5. ShipBob

ShipBob runs more than 60 fulfillment centers globally with a 99.97% order accuracy rate and 99.6% of orders shipping within its service level agreement. In a category where a picking error becomes a return, that accuracy figure carries more weight than it would elsewhere.

ShipBob publishes no garment-on-hanger or returns grading capability. The argument for ShipBob is network reach, integration depth, and measured accuracy, not apparel specialization. If your brand runs on Shopify, our guide to fulfillment services for Shopify covers how it compares on integration specifically.

6. Stord

Stord operates close to 100 fulfillment locations worldwide and reports more than $15 billion in annual gross merchandise value. Its apparel relevance jumped in early 2026 when American Eagle wound down Quiet Logistics. Stord took over the Dallas fulfillment center in February and became the preferred provider for Quiet’s former customers.

That makes Stord the natural first call for any brand displaced by that closure. Stord publishes no rates or minimums.

7. Ryder E-commerce

Ryder E-commerce runs more than 20 ecommerce facilities across seven gateway markets totaling over 10 million square feet, covering New York and New Jersey, Los Angeles, Seattle and Tacoma, Columbus, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, and Dallas-Fort Worth.

This is what Whiplash became after Ryder acquired it for $480 million in a deal that closed in January 2022. Ryder also acquired Dotcom Distribution the same year. Several published apparel roundups still list Whiplash and Dotcom as independent companies. Ryder does not publish apparel-specific capability, so treat it as a scale option rather than a specialist.

8. GXO Logistics

GXO publishes the deepest apparel capability of any provider researched, including garment-on-hanger storage, cleaning and refurbishment, engineered picking for both flat pack and hanging stock, personalized embroidery, gift wrapping, and reverse logistics that includes cleaning, refurbishment, retagging and garment repairs.

The proof point is Versace, a relationship approaching two decades and renewed in January 2025. This covers roughly 2.4 million pieces a year across two Italian warehouses. GXO runs more than 60 fashion-focused sites in Europe. This is enterprise contract logistics, the fashion depth is Europe-weighted, and a brand shipping 3,000 orders a month cannot buy it. See our top 3PL companies ranking for where GXO sits in the wider market.

How ShipStation Supports Apparel Brands

Returns are apparel’s defining cost, and in many 3PL contracts the return leg still sits with the brand rather than the provider. That is where shipping software comes in.

ShipStation runs a branded returns portal from its Standard plan at $29.99 a month, so customers generate their own return labels without contacting support and without landing on a third-party page that does not look like your brand. It compares rates across more than 200 carriers on both the outbound and return legs. That matters when roughly a quarter of what you ship comes back and you are paying for two movements per sale. Plans start at $14.99 a month for Starter with up to three users, with a 30-day free trial and no credit card required.

It holds a 4.3 rating across 624 Shopify App Store reviews, the largest review base of any shipping platform on that marketplace. For the wider category, see our comparison of ecommerce shipping platforms.

Pro tip: Ask for a returns quote separately from the fulfillment quote. At a 23.4% return rate, returns processing can touch close to a quarter of your order volume. Our explainer on post-purchase evaluation covers why that experience drives repeat purchase.

• Quiet Logistics: Shut down. American Eagle Outfitters announced on Jan. 26, 2026 that it was winding down the 3PL it acquired for roughly $360 million in 2021, saying it had struggled to attract enough business. The Boston, Dallas, and La Palma facilities closed through the first half of 2026, and Atlanta was retained for American Eagle’s own brands. It still appears on most published apparel 3PL lists.
• PFS and Dotcom Distribution: Neither is independent. GXO acquired PFS in 2023 and Ryder acquired Dotcom in 2022.
• ShipHype: Ranks first for this search on its own service page, but it has 10 to 49 employees, was founded in 2020, is headquartered in Toronto with only two U.S. warehouses, and carries four third-party reviews in total. It publishes a 100% order accuracy rate as a service level with no methodology behind it, which is not a credible claim in an industry where the strongest audited figure is 99.97%.
• Buske Logistics and ShipCalm: Both real logistics companies whose apparel specialization is content marketing rather than capability. Buske’s own apparel page names no apparel clients and displays PepsiCo, Ford, and Toyota logos. ShipCalm publishes no apparel-specific capability anywhere on its site, and its apparel presence is a blog post competing for this keyword.
• Red Stag Fulfillment: A strong provider for heavy and oversized goods, which makes it a poor structural fit for apparel.

• Pick and pack per order, with the second and each subsequent unit priced separately, since apparel orders frequently contain multiple sizes of the same style.
• Storage by pallet and by hanging linear foot as separate lines. If a provider cannot quote hanging storage, it does not really offer garment on hanger.
• Returns processing per unit, split between restock and recondition. These are different amounts of labor and a single blended rate hides which one you are actually buying.
• Poly bagging, tagging, and relabeling per unit, which are standard apparel touches that often appear as special project charges later.
• Peak season surcharge and how capacity is committed, since apparel demand concentrates around seasonal drops and holiday.
• Disposition of unsellable returns, including whether you pay storage on goods that cannot be resold.

• How are returns graded, and who decides resale condition? Ask whether that judgment sits with a trained inspector or a general warehouse associate. At a 23.4% return rate, this determines how much inventory you recover.
• Do you offer garment on hanger, and at what storage rate? Only three providers in our comparison publish it at all.
• How are size and color variants handled at pick? Look for scan verification at the variant level rather than at the style level.
• Do you support retail routing guides? Essential the moment you sell wholesale, and only one provider here publishes the capability.
• How is peak capacity committed? Get it in the contract rather than in an email. Apparel peaks are predictable and providers oversell them.
• What happens to unsellable returns? Confirm whether the provider handles liquidation, donation, or disposal, and what each costs.

If apparel is your whole business and you sell wholesale as well as direct, Barrett Distribution is the most complete option on published capability, with hanging garment space, a real returns reconditioning process, and the only retail routing compliance in this comparison. For contemporary and designer brands, Bergen Logistics has the client roster that proves it understands fashion, and Boxzooka is the pick if you want granular handling and a named account more than you want scale.

ShipMonk is the strongest general 3PL for apparel because it built a facility for it, and ShipBob remains the right answer when delivery speed and integration depth matter more than specialist handling. GXO and Ryder are enterprise tiers most brands cannot buy, and Stord is the obvious first call for anyone displaced by the Quiet Logistics shutdown.

Whoever you shortlist, price the returns separately. At 23.4%, returns are not an exception to your fulfillment operation. They are roughly a quarter of it, and the provider that handles them badly will cost you more than any difference in pick rates.