3PL · Ecommerce Fulfillment Same-day Austin fulfillment for Shopify, Amazon FBA, and ecommerce brands. 5 PM CT cutoff, custom-scoped pricing, no annual contract.
Trusted by brands shipping across central us
Toyota
Pacific Foods
Rad Power
Mystery Ranch
Brooklyn Bicycle
Cobian
BOCCI
Merkury
Written by the Vertex operations team
Marco, Kim, Tom & Sara · Receiving, Pick & Pack, FBA Prep, Account Management
Last reviewed by our team on May 10, 2026 against current CBRE Austin Industrial + AUS cargo + FTZ #183 + Triple Freeport data.
Most brands shopping for a 3PL in Austin think the value is "Silicon Hills tech hub" or "fast-growing DTC market." That misses the actual story. Between Q1 2025 and Q4 2025, Austin became the first US metro to absorb a complete Taiwanese OEM and ODM cluster on the ground.
Compal Electronics signed Austin's #1 and #4 industrial leases of 2025 (579,000 square feet across Taylor and Georgetown). Pegatron bought a building in Georgetown as its first US manufacturing facility. Tesla now leases 11 million-plus square feet across the Austin MSA, anchored by Samsung Taylor running a $16.5 billion 8-year AI6 chip contract through 2033 from a fab that sits 30 kilometers from GigaTexas.
The honest "Austin 3PL" address is Pflugerville, Round Rock, Georgetown, San Marcos, or Buda, and the buyer wins by knowing which has Triple Freeport and FTZ 183 pre-approval. We operate from the Austin area as part of our 20+ warehouse US and Canadian network. This page covers what we ship from where, what we charge, where we win, and where we send you to a competitor.
Key takeaways
Austin is the only US metro where a Taiwanese ODM (Compal, Pegatron), a Korean chaebol (Samsung), and an American auto OEM (Tesla) share a 30-kilometer trucking lane. The Samsung-Tesla AI6 contract runs $16.5 billion through 2033 (Yole Group, Bizjournals).
Every "Austin 3PL" is actually in Pflugerville, Round Rock, Georgetown, San Marcos, or Buda. We operate from the Austin metro area inside Triple Freeport jurisdiction (Williamson County and Travis County both opt in) with FTZ 183 5-county pre-approval, so inventory turning inside 175 days carries zero state inventory tax.
CBRE Q1 2026 Austin Industrial: 14.5 percent vacancy (a 20-year high, 47 consecutive quarters of positive absorption), rents softening (-1.1 percent YoY per Matthews), 385,000 SF Q1 absorption, 15.3M SF underway. Speculative big-box ran ahead of demand, which means a sub-50K SF tenant can negotiate Class A space at concessions impossible in 2021 to 2023.
We fit brands shipping 500+ DTC orders per month with significant Central US, Texas Triangle, or Mexico-bound demand. Below 200 orders per month, smaller Austin boutique 3PLs (Amplifier, ATX Fulfillment, El Famoso, Simpl) beat us on cost, and we say so on the discovery call. Hazmat goes to Chem-Ware. Cold-chain freezer is not us.
Why Austin
Compal Electronics, the Taiwanese ODM, signed Austin's #1 and #4 largest industrial leases of 2025, a combined 579,000 square feet across Taylorport Rail Park (Taylor) and Georgetown Logistics Park (Aquila, January 2026). Pegatron, the Taiwanese Apple and Tesla assembler, bought Blue Springs Business Park Building 3 in Georgetown as its first US manufacturing facility (168,784 SF, Q4 2025). Tesla now leases 11 million-plus square feet across the Austin MSA (Bizjournals, May 2025), including 296,960 SF at Austin Hills Commerce Center and a fully-leased 183K SF Taylorport Rail Park Building 2 right next door to Compal. Samsung Austin Semiconductor's $17 billion Taylor fab is anchored by a $16.5 billion 8-year contract with Tesla for the 6th-generation AI6 autonomous-driving processor that runs through 2033 (Yole Group, July 2025; Sammy Fans, April 2026). Yole Group's exact phrasing: "Taylor sits roughly thirty kilometers from Gigafactory Texas, allowing Tesla to collapse a trans-Pacific supply chain into a day-trip trucking lane." That sentence is the whole thesis. For an ecommerce or B2B brand landing an Austin 3PL today, the biggest tenants are no longer DTC. They are nearshoring supply chains chasing CHIPS Act and IRA credits, and the spillover is what makes Williamson County (Taylor / Georgetown / Round Rock) the new industrial center of gravity, not Austin proper.
CBRE Q1 2026 Austin Industrial reports 14.5 percent vacancy, a 20-year high, with the fifth consecutive quarterly increase. Matthews Q1 2026 confirms asking rents softening, -1.1 percent year over year, with 15.3 million square feet under construction. Net absorption was 385,000 SF in Q1 per CBRE (678,000 SF per Matthews methodology), the 47th consecutive quarter of positive absorption, and quarterly leasing activity hit 3.2 million SF, the highest since Q2 2023. Austin's total industrial inventory crossed 100 million square feet in Q3 2025 per Colliers, growing 74 percent since 2019. The 2025 Austin Chamber recap shows 10,621 announced jobs (up from 10,194 in 2024), with semiconductors and electronics at #1 (2,638 jobs), energy and battery at #2 (2,145), and logistics and distribution at #6 (660 jobs, including TransPak's 275 jobs in Manor). The honest credibility paragraph for an Austin 3PL is this: spec big-box ran ahead of e-commerce demand, so vacancy is at a 20-year high and rents are down. For a sub-50K SF DTC tenant, that is the leverage moment. We hold capacity in Pflugerville and Round Rock at the regional rate, not the in-town Austin or South Lamar premiums.
AUS Bergstrom moved 276,375,963 pounds of cargo in 2025 (Community Impact, February 2026) and closed a $1.18 billion bond expansion, the largest-ever City of Austin bond sale. FTZ #183 (Central Texas) covers the entire 5-county Austin MSA under a 2012 streamlined procedure, so any Austin-MSA business can pre-qualify for Foreign Trade Zone designation in under 30 days through the Round Rock Chamber. Texas's Triple Freeport Tax Exemption (Tax Code 11.251) zeros out inventory property tax in counties and cities that opt in, for goods moving out of Texas within 175 days. Round Rock, Pflugerville, Hays County, Williamson County, Buda, Kyle, Hutto, San Marcos, and Manor are all triple-freeport. For a DTC brand shipping nationally from Austin, every SKU that turns inside 175 days carries zero state inventory tax, a structural margin advantage California, NY, and even DFW cannot match at Austin's current concessions. Austin does not have a deepwater port, so inbound is AUS air cargo, Pflugerville and Round Rock truck consolidation, or Laredo land-border crossing (3.5 hours south down I-35 NAFTA, the busiest US-Mexico land port at $296.2 billion in 2025 trade per BTS). For brands routing Mexico-finished goods or importing through Houston with a Texas Triangle deconsolidation, Austin sits at the intersection.
What it unlocks
We operate in the Austin area as part of our 20+ warehouse US and Canadian network, positioned for AUS Bergstrom air cargo, the SH-130 toll bypass for inbound, the I-35 NAFTA corridor south to Laredo for Mexico cross-border, and inside Triple Freeport jurisdiction (Williamson County and Travis County both opt in to the 175-day rule).
Texas Tax Code 11.251 zeros out state inventory tax on goods leaving Texas within 175 days. Round Rock, Pflugerville, Williamson and Hays Counties have all opted in. Most national 3PLs treat this as boilerplate; Amplifier and Austin Tenant Advisors are the only Austin operators that actually market it. We tag every inbound unit with a 175-day clock on receipt.
Compal Electronics signed Austin's #1 and #4 industrial leases of 2025 (579K SF combined). Pegatron bought Blue Springs Building 3 in Georgetown as its first US manufacturing facility. Samsung Taylor runs the $16.5B Tesla AI6 chip contract through 2033. Yole Group calls it collapsing a trans-Pacific supply chain into a day-trip trucking lane. The supplier ecosystem and labor pool come with it.
We route direct to Amazon AUS2 (5-story robotic), STX6, and STX9 (1-story robotic + same-day delivery station). Austin sits 3.5 hours from Laredo on I-35 NAFTA (the busiest US-Mexico land port at $296.2B in 2025 trade), 30 minutes closer than Houston, with DDP/DDU to Monterrey, Saltillo, and Mexico City via Estafeta and DHL Express Mexico.
Austin sits at 14.5 percent vacancy (a 20-year high) with rents softening (-1.1 percent YoY) and 47 consecutive quarters of positive absorption. We hold capacity in the broader Austin metro at the regional rate, not the in-town Austin or South Lamar premiums (which charge 30 to 50 percent more).
For Shopify brands
An Austin 3PL is the right call for a Shopify brand when Central US ground reach, Triple Freeport tax savings, Texas Triangle distribution, or Mexico cross-border via Laredo matters most. Houston or Dallas are the right call when Gulf Coast inbound or DFW air-cargo dominance is the priority. Below 200 monthly orders, an Austin 3PL almost never pencils out, and a smaller Austin boutique (Amplifier, ATX Fulfillment, El Famoso, Simpl) will beat us on cost.
Yes if
No if
If "yes" lands on you, the next question is which Shopify-side workflow tests separate ops-grade Austin 3PLs from ones that look good on a sales call. Six questions to ask any operator below.
| Workflow | What should happen | What usually breaks | Question to ask |
|---|---|---|---|
| New order arrives | In the pick queue near real time | Polling intervals over 5 minutes; orders missed during peak | How often does your sync run, and what is the worst-case lag? |
| Inventory level changes | Pushes back to Shopify in real time | Daily batch updates → oversells during peak hours | Is inventory sync push or pull, and at what frequency? |
| Tracking number written | Posts to Shopify the moment carrier scans | Manual upload at end of day; customer emails arrive late | When exactly does tracking hit Shopify? |
| Pre-order / backorder | Order holds, ships when stock arrives | Order silently fails or ships partial without notice | How does your WMS handle backorders without losing the customer relationship? |
| Returns refund trigger | Refund triggers on return scan-in (or on inspection pass) | Returns sit unprocessed for days, customer service workload | What event triggers the refund: receipt, inspection, or restock? |
| Subscription orders | Routed separately, with subscription-specific packouts | Sub orders treated as one-time DTC, no recharge protection | How do you tag and prioritize Recharge / Skio subscription orders? |
For Amazon FBA brands
An Austin 3PL alongside Amazon FBA gets specific value when you want first-port prep before routing to Amazon's Austin fulfillment centers (AUS2 5-story robotic, STX6 + STX9 robotic + same-day delivery station). Pure FBA-only domestic-supplier brands rarely need it.
Yes if
No if
Most multi-channel Amazon sellers with Texas Triangle demand benefit from an Austin 3PL specifically because Triple Freeport zeros out inventory tax inside 175 days and gives you optionality on FBA versus DTC routing per SKU.
Scope
A common mistake brands make when scoping an Austin 3PL is treating it as a generic warehouse. Warehouses store things. A 3PL is closer to an operations team that happens to live in a warehouse. Knowing the line between what we own and what stays with your team prevents the most common onboarding fights.
✓ The 3PL owns
✗ The brand owns
Order flow
Austin does not have a deepwater port. Inbound is AUS Bergstrom air cargo, San Antonio truck-in from Port Houston transload, or Laredo cross-border truck on I-35 NAFTA. Once a shipment clears the airport or the border, the truck moves the cases to our Pflugerville / Round Rock / Georgetown industrial dock and the customer parcel scans on their porch from there. Here is the exact path. Ten steps, mapped to who does what and where the typical 3PL drops the ball.
Your supplier or freight forwarder sends an ASN (Advance Shipping Notice) or simple email with PO, expected SKUs, container or pallet count, and ETA. We pre-allocate a receiving dock window.
An ASN is a structured file (EDI 856 or our standard CSV / spreadsheet) that lists every SKU, expected quantity, container or pallet ID, and ETA before the freight arrives. With an ASN, our receiving team pre-prints labels, pre-assigns rack locations, and starts unload the moment the truck checks in. Without an ASN, every container takes 2 to 4 extra hours because we have to reverse-engineer the shipment on the dock. We accept both EDI and a simple template if your supplier is small.
Inbound arrives at our Austin-area facility via AUS air cargo trans-load, truck-in from Port of Houston deconsolidation, Laredo cross-border truck, or domestic LTL pickup. Driver checks in, dock door is assigned, unload begins.
Austin does not have a deepwater port, so inbound is AUS air cargo (276 million pounds handled in 2025), Austin metro truck consolidation from Houston Port containers transloaded at the Gulf, or Laredo land-border cross-docking (3.5 hours south on I-35 NAFTA). All three modes hit the same dock; the WMS just receives them differently. For brands routing Mexico-finished goods from Monterrey or Saltillo, the I-35 NAFTA corridor delivers Laredo-cleared trucks to our dock the same day.
Cases are unloaded, scanned, counted against the ASN. Discrepancies (short / over / damaged) are flagged and photo-documented inside 24 hours.
Every case gets a barcode scan against the ASN line item. If the count matches, the SKU moves to putaway. If it does not (short ship, over-ship, damaged outer), our team photo-documents the variance with timestamps and dock-door ID, then logs it in our exception queue. You get an email within 24 hours with the photos, the variance, and our recommended next step (claim with carrier, request supplier credit, accept and adjust on-hand).
SKUs are binned to designated rack or floor locations using our WMS inside Triple Freeport jurisdiction. Lot codes and expiry dates captured at this step for food / supplements / beauty SKUs.
Putaway is the act of moving received cases from the dock to a permanent rack or floor location. Our WMS assigns the location based on velocity (fast-movers near the pack table, slow-movers in deep storage), pallet height, and lot rotation rules. Because we sit in Triple Freeport jurisdiction (Round Rock, Pflugerville, Williamson County, Hays County), every SKU that turns inside 175 days carries zero state inventory tax under Tax Code 11.251. We tag inventory on receipt with the 175-day clock so you can see which units are inside the freeport window in your monthly report.
A good WMS pulls orders from Shopify, Amazon, BigCommerce, and your ERP near real time. New orders appear in the pick queue automatically. We run Datex Footprint for this.
Order sync is the live link between your sales channels and our pick queue. A good WMS polls Shopify, Amazon Seller Central, BigCommerce, and ERP systems frequently so the order is in the pick queue shortly after checkout. We run Datex Footprint for this. Inventory levels push back to your store when the pick is confirmed, which prevents oversells during traffic spikes.
Orders are batched into pick waves based on carrier cutoff time. DTC same-day orders run first, B2B and retail run second.
A wave is a batch of orders released to the floor as a single pick task. We organize waves by carrier sweep time (UPS at 4 PM, FedEx at 5 PM, USPS at 5:30 PM CT) and by service level. DTC same-day orders run in the first wave because their cutoff is tightest. B2B and retail outbound run in later waves where the carrier sweep is later. This sequencing keeps small fast orders from waiting behind a large pallet pick.
Pickers scan each item against barcode and bin location. A good WMS rejects mispicks before they reach the pack table. That is how an operator holds pick accuracy in the high-nineties consistently.
Picking is the moment a worker grabs the right SKU off the shelf for an order. A good WMS forces a barcode scan at every pick, comparing the scanned SKU against the order line. If they do not match, the system blocks the pick and routes the worker back to the correct bin. That double-check is what keeps a 3PL at high-nineties shipped-correct accuracy across high order volumes.
Packers select carton, add inserts, generate carrier label, weigh, and tape. Each pack table runs a triple-check process before the parcel leaves the station.
At the pack station, the worker selects the right-size carton (we calculate dim weight to keep your shipping costs low), adds any inserts (thank-you cards, samples, marketing flyers you supply), prints the carrier label, weighs the parcel, and tapes. Three checks happen before the parcel leaves: SKU match, label match, and weight sanity check. If any fail, the parcel goes to a re-pack station before it ships.
Parcels stage by carrier (UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL, Estafeta for Mexico, Canada Post via our Canadian network). Carrier sweeps happen at fixed daily windows. Tracking pushes back to Shopify and Amazon automatically.
Parcels stage in carrier-specific zones near the loading dock. UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL, our Mexico cross-border partner (Estafeta or DHL Express Mexico, depending on rate card), and Canada Post (via our Canadian network) each have their own daily sweep window with us. The moment a carrier scans a label at sweep, that scan event pushes back to your Shopify or Amazon order page so the customer sees a tracking number in real time. No manual tracking uploads, no end-of-day batch lag.
Inbound returns are received, inspected against your disposition rules (restock, refurbish, scrap), and the result writes back to inventory. You get a daily returns report.
Returns come back to a dedicated returns dock. Our team inspects each item against your disposition rules (which you set during onboarding): restock if A-grade, refurbish if B-grade and re-label, scrap if damaged. The result writes back to your inventory in real time. Your refund logic can fire on any of three triggers (parcel scan-in, inspection pass, or restock complete) so you control whether the customer gets refunded fast or only after we confirm condition.
Pricing reality
Most 3PL pricing comparisons get hung up on pick-and-pack rates, which are usually within a penny or two between providers. The real difference shows up in receiving, storage, and how exceptions are billed. Here is where to look:
| Cost area | How it's charged | What raises the invoice | What you must define |
|---|---|---|---|
| Receiving | Per pallet or per container | Mixed SKUs per pallet, no ASN, damaged outers | ASN format, palletization standard, damage tolerance |
| Storage | Per pallet / per cubic foot / month | Long-tail SKUs, slow-movers, packaging that wastes airspace | Submarket of the warehouse. In-town Austin and South Lamar warehouses charge 30 to 50 percent more than the broader Austin metro corridor. |
| Pick & pack | Per order, per item, sometimes per SKU | Multi-item orders with kitting, gift wrap, custom inserts | Standard SKU vs kit, included vs add-on packout steps |
| Carrier costs | Pass-through, sometimes with markup | Use of 3PL's carrier account vs your own, dimensional weight pricing | Whose carrier account, who pays surcharges (residential, peak) |
| AUS air cargo | Per shipment | High-value or time-sensitive inbound; AUS expansion construction windows during the $1.18B bond build | Trans-load election, who books air cargo, dwell tolerance |
| Laredo cross-border | Per shipment + customs entry | DDP vs DDU election, classification disputes, returns from Mexico | IOR (importer of record), tax rate, Section 321 vs formal entry |
| FBA inbound prep | Per unit prepped | Polybagging, FNSKU labels, bundle requirements; AUS2 vs STX6 vs STX9 routing | Prep scope, who buys polybags, which FBA codes you ship to |
| Returns | Per return + handling | Inspection beyond visual, refurbishment steps, photos required | Disposition rules: restock / refurbish / scrap, photo requirements |
Failure modes
Five failure modes specific to LA-region fulfillment. Not generic 3PL problems. The ones that hit when port congestion stacks with peak-season demand and shared labor goes thin.
| Failure mode | Why it happens | How Vertex handles it |
|---|---|---|
| Speculative big-box rent surprise | Austin industrial sits at 14.5 percent vacancy (a 20-year high) with rents softening, but 15.3M SF is still under construction. Some operators chase headline new-build rates and reclassify slow-mover SKUs into higher tiers when the spec landlord pushes back on concessions. | We hold capacity in the broader Austin metro at the regional rate, not the in-town premium, send a monthly slow-mover report, flag any SKU approaching the tier breakpoint, and write a clear-out plan into onboarding. |
| Inbound takes 5+ days to pickable | Receiving team buried under stale POs, no ASN discipline, AUS air cargo dwell during the $1.18B bond expansion construction windows. | We enforce ASN format upfront, cap unannounced inbound, and hold relationships with three air-cargo handlers at AUS plus three Austin-area drayage carriers so we are not waiting at the ramp. |
| Same-day cutoff slipping | Pickers shared with retail B2B during peak; carrier sweep moved up without notice (UPS pickups during BFCM run earlier). | We staff a dedicated DTC labor pool and lock carrier sweep windows in writing during onboarding. |
| FBA inbound rejected | Polybag or FNSKU spec changed without notice; wrong FBA code routed (AUS2 5-story robotic versus STX6 1-story robotic same-day delivery station mix-up, per a current AmazonFC operator on r/AmazonFC). | We subscribe to Amazon prep updates, re-validate FNSKUs on a recurring cadence, and route by ZIP rather than salesperson preference. AUS2 is multi-shift 5-story robotic; STX6 and STX9 are 1-story robotic + delivery station for same-day Prime. |
| Triple Freeport 175-day window missed | Inventory sits past the 175-day rule and becomes taxable under Texas Tax Code 11.251. Amplifier and Austin Tenant Advisors flag this; most national 3PLs treat the freeport benefit as boilerplate and miss the clock. | We tag every inbound unit with a 175-day clock on receipt, send a monthly report showing how many days each SKU has been on hand, and flag any SKU approaching day 150 so you can decide to move it, clear it, or accept the tax hit before it triggers. |
When this isn't a fit
We are not the right 3PL for everyone shipping from Austin. Here is the honest list of cases where you should pick someone else.
You ship under 200 DTC orders per month. Smaller Austin boutique 3PLs (Amplifier with explicit Triple Freeport positioning, ATX Fulfillment owned and operated since 2012, El Famoso with Live Music Capital merch positioning, Simpl Fulfillment, Glover Logistics, Texas Logistic Services) and 3PL match-services (Fulfill.com, Third Person, WareMatch) will run cheaper at your volume. We work best at 500 orders per month and up. The Reddit thread is honest about this: per u/barrettshepherdsimpl on r/smallbusiness, "I've run a boutique 3PL for ~8 years now based in Austin, TX, and we get a lot of ex-ShipBob clients who want a better experience." That is the right tier under 500/month.
You need hazmat / dangerous-goods fulfillment (batteries, coatings, chemicals, life sciences). Our Austin facility is not DG-certified. Chem-Ware Logistics in South Austin runs 2-day shipping nationwide on dangerous goods, and that is the right call.
You need cold chain (frozen or refrigerated). Our Austin facility runs ambient-only.
You need bonded customs warehouse / Customs Bonded Warehouse status. FTZ #183 pre-approval is real (5-county Austin MSA covered under the 2012 streamlined procedure), but we are not a designated FTZ ourselves. For brands where the FTZ math justifies the overhead, we point you to FTZ #183 zone operators directly.
You only want a single fulfillment node, and your demand is heavily Northeast or West Coast. We can split your inventory across our Austin + LA + East Coast + Canadian nodes (and we will quote that), but if you want a single-node setup with no inventory rebalancing, an LA or Philadelphia operator is cheaper.
You need nearshoring contract manufacturing or assembly. That is Compal's and Pegatron's role at Taylor and Georgetown ($579K SF combined across 2025 leases, 900 announced jobs). We ship the finished good; we do not build it.
You require unstable or undefined inbound (no ASNs, surprise containers, ad-hoc SKU labeling). We can onboard this, and we will quote with a higher cost-to-serve to match.
Reach from Austin
From our Austin footprint, your inventory reaches a defined 1-day and 2-day ground zone, plus cross-border to Canada through our Canadian network. No separate Canadian 3PL setup required.
1-day delivery
Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Mexico, most of Mississippi
2-day delivery
75% of U.S. homes, including Chicago, Atlanta, Phoenix, and the Mountain West
Cross-border to Canada
1 business day to Toronto and Vancouver via our Canadian network.
5 PM CT
Same-day cutoff
2.5M (Austin-Round Rock MSA)
Metro pop served
3+
FBA codes routed
Comparison
A few honest comparisons. We're not the right fit for every brand shipping from LA, and where we're not, here's where we'd send you.
Austin-area footprint + Triple Freeport (175-day rule) + FTZ #183 pre-approved + Laredo cross-border + 20+ warehouse US/Canadian network
Boutique / e-commerce-native (Amplifier, ATX Fulfillment, El Famoso, Simpl)
The honest "Austin 3PL" zip codes (Dimerco Tesla-proximity specialist, Cart.com Austin HQ scale-up, NXTPoint Logistics, Buske, Omni, AIT, Scan Global, RK)
Austin is one of 30 to 60 fulfillment centers (ShipBob, Cart.com, Flowspace)
Not a 3PL competitor; the real gravity well for Austin industrial real estate
Vertex pricing
Pick-and-pack starts at $1.05 per DTC order. Everything else — receiving, storage, FBA prep, kitting, returns — is scoped to your SKU mix, channel set, and packout spec. Show us your current 3PL invoice and we'll tell you where we beat it, line by line.
Pick & pack
Per DTC order, standard SKU
from $1.05 /order
Everything else
Receiving, storage, FBA prep, kitting, returns, multi-channel routing — quoted on a call against your real order volume and SKU profile. We do not publish a per-pallet or per-cu-ft rate sheet because the honest answer depends on what you ship.
Bring your current invoice
Already at another 3PL? Send us your last three invoices. We will reply with a side-by-side and tell you whether we can beat it. If we cannot, we will say so.
What every brand gets
Bring your current invoice. We will reply with a line-by-line comparison.
FAQs about Austin fulfillment
We operate in the Austin area as part of our 20+ warehouse US and Canadian network, inside Triple Freeport jurisdiction (Williamson County and Travis County both opt in). The honest "Austin 3PL" address is Pflugerville, Round Rock, Georgetown, San Marcos, or Buda. Our footprint sits in the metro at the regional rate, well below in-town Austin and South Lamar premiums.
It is where the Taiwanese supply chain physically landed. Compal Electronics signed Austin's #1 and #4 industrial leases of 2025 across Taylor and Georgetown (579,000 SF combined). Pegatron bought a building in Georgetown as its first US manufacturing facility. Tesla leases 11M+ SF MSA-wide. Samsung Taylor is running a $16.5B 8-year Tesla AI6 chip contract through 2033 from 30 km away. For our DTC tenants, that means deep carrier capacity, deep labor pool, and Triple Freeport tax savings.
Texas Tax Code 11.251 lets counties, cities, and school districts opt out of taxing inventory that leaves Texas within 175 days. Round Rock, Pflugerville, Hays County, Williamson County, Buda, Kyle, Hutto, San Marcos, and Manor are all "triple freeport" (county + city + school district have all opted in). For a DTC brand shipping nationally from Austin, every SKU that turns inside 175 days carries zero state inventory tax, a structural margin advantage California, NY, and even DFW cannot match. We tag every inbound unit with a 175-day clock on receipt and flag any SKU approaching day 150 so you can decide to move it, clear it, or accept the tax hit before it triggers.
No. We are not a designated Foreign Trade Zone, but FTZ #183 (Central Texas) covers the entire 5-county Austin MSA under a 2012 streamlined procedure, so any Austin-MSA business can pre-qualify for FTZ designation in under 30 days through the Round Rock Chamber. For brands where direct duty deferral inside FTZ #183 is the right answer, we point you to zone operators directly. For most ecommerce brands, the Triple Freeport 175-day exemption pays back better than the FTZ overhead.
Orders placed before 5 PM CT ship the same business day. Orders after the cutoff ship the next business day. Saturday cutoffs are available on request for high-volume DTC programs.
Yes. We prep and route to AUS2 (5-story robotic, multi-shift), STX6, and STX9 (1-story robotic with same-day delivery station) directly from our Austin-area facility. FBA labeling, polybagging, and inbound shipment plans are all included. We re-validate FNSKUs on a recurring cadence so Amazon spec changes do not cause inbound rejections.
Yes. We are 3.5 hours north of Laredo via I-35 NAFTA, the busiest US-Mexico land port (handled $296.2 billion in trade and 2.85 million truck crossings in 2025 per BTS). Austin is 30 minutes closer to Laredo than Houston is. We run DDP and DDU shipments to Monterrey, Saltillo, and Mexico City via Estafeta and DHL Express Mexico, handling Section 321 entry, customs paperwork, and tax election in one workflow.
Yes. Cross-border to Canada is 2 to 3 business days from our Austin footprint via our Canadian network (covering Toronto and Vancouver). We handle Section 321 entry, DDP / DDU shipping, and customs paperwork in one workflow.
AUS Bergstrom moved 276,375,963 pounds of cargo in 2025 and closed a $1.18 billion bond expansion, the largest-ever City of Austin bond sale. We hold relationships with three air-cargo handlers at AUS for high-value or time-sensitive inbound. AUS is closing the air-cargo gap versus DFW for DTC electronics and high-value goods, and we trans-load AUS-cleared cargo to our Austin-area dock the same day.
Austin sits at 14.5 percent vacancy, a 20-year high, with rents softening. The honest answer: spec big-box ran ahead of demand. But Austin is also at 47 consecutive quarters of positive absorption and Q1 2026 leasing activity hit 3.2M SF (highest since Q2 2023). For a sub-50K SF DTC tenant, that is the leverage moment, not a warning sign. We negotiate Class A space at concessions impossible in 2021 to 2023.
We work best with brands shipping 500+ DTC orders per month or running B2B and retail replenishment programs. Below 200 orders per month, smaller Austin boutiques (Amplifier, ATX Fulfillment, El Famoso, Simpl) and 3PL match-services (Fulfill.com, Third Person, WareMatch) will beat us on cost. We say so on the discovery call.
No. Our Austin facility is ambient-only and not DG-certified. For hazmat / dangerous-goods fulfillment (batteries, coatings, chemicals, life sciences), we refer to Chem-Ware Logistics in South Austin, which runs 2-day shipping nationwide on dangerous goods. For cold chain (frozen or refrigerated), we point you to GMP-certified Austin-area operators.
Standard onboarding runs 1 to 2 weeks: discovery call, integration setup (Shopify, Amazon, your ERP), SOP design, and first inbound receiving. Brands with clean SKU data and a single sales channel can be live in under a week.
No. We use service agreements, not contracts. You can pause, scale up or down, or move volume across our nodes (Austin, LA, Atlanta, Houston, US, Canada) without penalty. Termination is 60 days written notice.
Datex Footprint paired with TechDynamics. The combination gives us near-real-time inventory sync to Shopify and Amazon, barcode scanning at every pick, and EDI-compliant retail outbound for B2B programs.
Returns are received and inspected against your written disposition rules (restock, refurbish, scrap). The result writes back to your inventory in real time. You get a daily returns report. Refunds can trigger on receipt, on inspection, or on restock. You pick during onboarding.
More cities
Each city is its own market. If your customers cluster somewhere else, start here.
TX
3PL Dallas
Dallas is the only US inland city officially classified as a port
Read the page
TX
3PL Houston
Houston 3PLs are quietly the #1 US tariff sanctuary
Read the page
TX
3PL San Antonio
San Antonio is the only US metro 2 hours from both Laredo and Eagle Pass
Read the page
OK
3PL Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City is the only US metro on both I-35 NAFTA and I-40 transcontinental
Read the page
Ready to ship from Austin?
Get a custom quote in 24 hours, based on your SKU mix, order volume, and Central US delivery needs. 5 PM CT cutoff. 24-hour receipt-to-pickable. No annual contract.
5 PM CT cutoff · 24h receipt-to-pickable · No annual contract
