Benefits of Multiple Fulfillment Centers (Los Angeles + New York)

Multi-Warehouse Fulfillment: When Does It Make Sense for Your Shopify Brand?

At Handled Commerce, we provide bi-coastal fulfillment solutions from our strategically located centers in Los Angeles and New York. For many fast-growing brands—especially those on Shopify—deciding whether to fulfill from one warehouse or multiple locations is a major strategic choice.

Should you distribute inventory across multiple regions, or concentrate it in one place? Let’s explore.

Does Multi-Origin Fulfillment Make Sense?

The answer: it depends on your brand’s profile.

A multi-warehouse strategy tends to work well when:

• Your orders are concentrated around a smaller number of high-velocity SKUs
• Your customers are evenly distributed across the country
• You're looking to reduce time-in-transit without relying on expensive air services

But it’s not always the right move. You may be better off with a single warehouse if:

• You have a broad or unpredictable SKU mix
• Your customer base is concentrated in one region (e.g. 80% in California)
• You have limited ability to increase inventory levels

Benefits of Multiple Fulfillment Centers (Los Angeles + New York)

The top benefits of a dual-location strategy are:

• Lower shipping costs by reducing shipping zones
• Faster delivery—often enabling 2- or 3-day ground coverage nationwide
• Saturday delivery (especially via USPS)
• Resilience against weather, labor, or carrier disruptions in one region

For Shopify fulfillment, this translates to shorter delivery windows, improved conversion rates, and a stronger customer experience.

When Fewer Locations Work Better

Multi-warehouse strategies come with trade-offs. Without careful planning, they can lead to:

• Split shipments, where one order is sent from multiple locations
• Stockouts at one warehouse, even if the product is available elsewhere
• A need for higher inventory levels, increasing carrying costs and complexity

That’s why we always run a full supply chain and shipping analysis before recommending a bi-coastal setup.

Our Framework for Decision-Making

At Handled, we analyze:

• Parcel shipping savings from better zone alignment
• Delivery speed improvements with ground vs. air
• Freight impact for inbound and transfers
• Inventory requirements and associated carrying costs

Let’s look at two real-world examples to bring this to life.

Case Study 1: Origin + Carrier Optimization Saves 30%

One brand shipping over 2,000 monthly orders—including lightweight DTC shipments and heavy B2B cartons—was fulfilling 100% of orders from New England, using UPS exclusively.

Step 1: Evaluating Shipping Origin

We analyzed 12 months of parcel data and modeled the impact of shifting fulfillment to Southern California using ZIP-to-ZIP zone calculations.

Savings from zone improvements alone? Just 5%—lower than expected. Why? Their UPS contract offered similar rates across zones due to a weight-based structure.

However, the Los Angeles fulfillment center brought meaningful delivery speed gains:

• 3-day ground coverage increased from 31% to 57%
• 1-day improvement for roughly half of all shipments

And critically, the closer origin allowed us to shift volume to USPS without any decline in delivery speed—something that wasn’t feasible from New England.

Step 2: Optimizing Carrier Selection

Digging deeper, we found:

• 30% of shipments were under 5 lbs.
• 70%+ incurred UPS residential surcharges
• 35%+ incurred UPS delivery area surcharges

These are USPS’s sweet spots. Since USPS delivers to every address daily (including Saturdays), they don’t charge extra for residential or remote delivery.

By introducing USPS from the Los Angeles fulfillment center, we reduced parcel spend by 30%, while maintaining or improving delivery times.

Case Study 2: When a Single Warehouse Wins

A $3M apparel brand using Shopify and carrying over 1,400 SKUs asked us whether adding Los Angeles fulfillment to their New York base made sense.

Here’s what we found:

• Their most popular SKU appeared in fewer than 3% of orders
• To fulfill just 50% of orders, they needed coverage for 100+ unique SKUs
• Most orders included multiple SKUs, increasing risk of split shipments
• Freight costs were similar no matter where the inventory was sent
• Their customer base leaned heavily East Coast
• They were already optimized for carrier selection, using both USPS and UPS effectively

Conclusion: To support a second fulfillment location, they’d need to replicate a large portion of their catalog, raising inventory costs by 30%—all to achieve shipping savings under 5%.

We recommended they stick with a single, well-optimized New York fulfillment setup.

What’s Right for Your Shopify Fulfillment Strategy?

Whether you’re operating a lean DTC business or scaling a high-volume Shopify store, fulfillment choices matter.

At Handled Commerce, we combine:

• Los Angeles fulfillment for West Coast speed
• New York fulfillment for East Coast density
• Deep experience with Shopify fulfillment and order routing
• Hands-on operational support, not just dashboards

We help you weigh real trade-offs and execute with confidence.

Want a Free Shipping & Fulfillment Assessment?

Our team has built enterprise-grade shipping systems and helped brands reduce parcel spend by 30% or more. We offer a free shipping origin and carrier optimization analysis to identify savings and service improvements tailored to your unique order mix.

👉 Contact us today and let’s talk fulfillment strategy.