A warehouse customer is not buying space. They're buying the moment a box leaves your dock on the day they were promised. Online brands that outgrow a garage or a spare room are the clearest example: they have stock, they have orders, and they have a growing pile of boxes that someone else could be handling.

To find them, you need to know who has the problem, what they compare, and how to give a quote they can read in two minutes. Below is a quote sheet with a worked monthly cost for 200 orders, and the outreach that gets it in front of the right person. The rates are illustrative. Use your own.

Who needs a warehouse partner, and when

The buyers are operations or supply chain managers at distributors and manufacturers, and the founders or operations leads of online brands. For small brands the founder is often also the person packing boxes at night. The trigger is rarely "we want a warehouse." It is one of these:

  • Peak season is eight to twelve weeks away and last year's shipping delays were painful.
  • Orders have outgrown the garage: stock is stacked to the ceiling, or the founder spends 15 hours a week packing.
  • The current provider makes mistakes: wrong items, late receiving, lost pallets.
  • A new retail channel starts requiring pallets and compliant labeling.

Online brands outgrowing a garage

The strongest early customers are small. A brand shipping 150 to 600 orders a month is too big for a spare room and too small for the large national 3PLs, which often have minimums they don't. That is your gap. They need someone who answers the phone and can start next week.

You can spot them from outside. Look for brands that publish "ships in 3 to 5 business days" and complain about it in reviews, brands launching on a second sales channel, and brands with seasonal products. For the brand's side, see getting customers for an ecommerce brand.

Finding ecommerce and distribution companies by name

Use three sources. Marketplace and category pages show brands by product type. Trade-show exhibitor lists give you brands and distributors with names and titles. Local business registries give you distributors in your area. Aim for 40 names: founders or operations leads for the brands, supply chain or logistics managers for the distributors. The decision-maker guide shows how to confirm who runs fulfillment, and the lead list guide covers the tracking sheet.

The quote: storage, receiving, pick and pack

Customers compare 3PLs on a few line items. Put them on one page in this order:

  • Storage: $18 per pallet per month. Small items on shelving, $4 per bin per month.
  • Receiving: $14 per pallet received.
  • Pick and pack: $3.25 for the first item in an order, $0.75 for each additional item.
  • Packaging materials: $0.85 per order for a standard box and filler. Special packaging at cost plus 10 percent.
  • Shipping: at carrier rates, passed through with no markup, or at a stated discount.
  • Monthly minimum: $500.
  • Setup: no charge for up to 10 SKUs.

Now the worked month. A brand ships 200 orders with an average of 1.6 items per order, stores 10 pallets and receives 2 pallets of new stock.

  • Storage: 10 pallets at $18 is $180.
  • Receiving: 2 pallets at $14 is $28.
  • Pick and pack, first item: 200 orders at $3.25 is $650.
  • Pick and pack, extra items: 200 orders times 0.6 extra items is 120 extra items at $0.75, or $90.
  • Packaging: 200 at $0.85 is $170.
  • Total before shipping: $1,118. That is about $5.59 per order.

The minimum of $500 doesn't apply, because the bill is well above it. Show the customer the per-order figure, since that is what they compare with their current cost of packing orders themselves or paying another provider. Don't hide shipping: say plainly that carrier cost is separate.

A first email to an operations manager

Subject: Fulfilling 200 orders a month: $5.59 per order before shipping

Hi Dan, I saw Northfield Outdoor is adding a second sales channel this fall. If you're packing orders yourselves, a rough guide: for 200 orders a month, 10 pallets stored and 2 received, our fulfillment comes to about $1,118 before shipping, or $5.59 an order. Everything is itemized on the attached one-pager. I'd like to offer a trial month at your actual volume so you can compare. Rosa Kim, Eastgate Fulfillment, [mailing address]. Reply "no" and I won't write again.

The trial month is the first offer: a set volume, the quote above, and a clear end. Make it real. Define the volume ("up to 250 orders"), the start date, and what happens after.

Following up before peak season

Peak season is the deadline. Anyone moving inventory needs to do it well before the rush, so a warehouse conversation that hasn't started by the end of summer is probably a conversation for January. Send a follow-up three days after the first email with your dock hours and receiving process. Ten days after that, mention capacity: "I have room for two new brands starting before November 1." If it's true, scarcity is information, not pressure.

Onboarding without losing the first shipment

The first shipment is when you earn the account. Ask for an advance shipping notice with SKU counts, label cartons, and receive within 24 hours. Send the customer a count report and a photo of the pallets. Then pick and ship the first ten orders yourself, check them and text the customer the tracking numbers. A customer burned by a former provider remembers the first week more than the price.

For delivery-side businesses, see courier clients. Rocketship finds the operations managers and online-brand founders by name, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, and books the call on its own. Plans that get you customers start at $24.99 a month (Launch), and both Launch and Frontier start with a 7-day free trial, card required. See the AI workers.