How a Winnipeg 3PL went from no new brands since March to 7 brand meetings in 5 weeks and a new brand live in month two
A founder-led 3PL in Winnipeg, Manitoba, hadn’t signed a new brand since March 2026, because the cold email their own salespeople sent had stopped working. We turned the extras they already gave brands for free into one clear offer and wrote to brands one product category at a time, from new sending domains instead of the client’s own. The first email went out on August 24, 2026, and we booked 7 brand meetings in the first 5 weeks, the first of them four days after that email. One of those brands referred another brand to the client, and the client started fulfilling for that referred brand in the first week of October 2026.
A founder-led 3PL in Winnipeg
The client’s founder started the company at 22, out of his apartment. Six years later they run their own warehouses in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and a Toronto warehouse is planned for 2027.
They fulfill for DTC and B2B brands in apparel, footwear, camping and outdoor gear, toys, and big and bulky goods. High SKU counts are where they’re strongest. Their first client had about 200 SKUs, and their WMS slots the fast movers using 12 months of sales data.
Winnipeg is about two days from either coast, and they run their own B2B trucking fleet and a freight brokerage. If a brand wants to move, they’ll pick up its inventory from its current 3PL at no extra cost.
Locating in Winnipeg means it’s a strategical advantage to us that both East Coast and West Coast is two days away from us.
When we started, they had about 11,000 sq ft free, and their longest fulfillment client has been with them three and a half years.
Any company that we close with our fulfillment, they never left us yet.
Why new brands stopped coming in
The client’s three salespeople did their own prospecting with Apollo and ZoomInfo. Their sequence was 4 emails, two weeks apart, followed by a three-month pause.
It worked at first. Then it stopped.
The first, let’s say, three months, we closed five clients, but the last three months, we didn’t close any client and not able to get any lead on our calendar.
The last new brand they signed was in March 2026.
They’d also been paying a 3PL matchmaking marketplace a monthly fee plus a fee per lead. Over several months it sent about 8 leads. Two of them didn’t fit: one was in the wrong location, and the other needed more pallet space than the client had.
Large Canadian 3PLs were dropping their monthly minimums hard, and that squeezed mid-size operators like this one. The founder blamed the slowdown on tariffs:
The reason we are thinking is because of the tariffs that came to, like from US to Canada.
We ended up using the tariffs in one of the campaigns, aimed at US brands selling into Canada that would rather hold stock in Canada than pay tariffs on every shipment.
The four things we changed
The discovery call was on July 27, 2026, and the proposal went out on July 29. On August 7 we sat down with them and rebuilt the offer. The first email was sent on August 24.
We built the offer from what they already gave away
The client already gave brands a lot for free, but none of it had been put together as an offer. We packaged it into one: free inventory pickup from the brand’s current 3PL, no monthly minimums, no setup or integration fees, two days to either coast from Winnipeg, and a 30/60/90-day opt-out for new brands.
We split the targeting by product category
The founder told us, “Our categories are very generic.” One list of ecommerce brands would have gotten generic replies, so we wrote to one category at a time. Apparel and high-SKU brands went first. Outdoor and camping gear came next, for brands that need seasonal space, then toys and games ahead of the Q4 peak, then big and bulky goods. US brands selling into Canada were their own group. Each category had several angles, and we A/B tested them every week.
We sent from new domains, never the client’s own
We set up 20 new sending domains and 40 mailboxes with their DNS records, then warmed them for 21 days before the first send. The client’s own domain never sent a cold email, so their everyday email was never at risk.
We handled the replies and booked the brand meetings
On this engagement our team answered every reply and called the warm leads. We booked brand meetings straight onto the client’s calendar, and before each one the client got a summary of the lead.
A brand meeting led to a referral, and the referral signed
We booked the first brand meeting on August 28, 2026, four days after the first email. In the first 5 weeks we booked 7 brand meetings.
One of those brand meetings was with a sustainable products company, and that company referred another brand to the client. The client signed the referred brand and started fulfilling for that brand in the first week of October 2026, about six weeks after our first email.
We didn’t book the brand that signed. We booked the brand meeting that led to it.
Two more are still in the pipeline. A footwear brand from one of the brand meetings has received the client’s service agreement, and another brand wants to reconnect early in 2027.
What we’d tell any 3PL in the same spot
A generic list gets generic replies, so write to one product category at a time.
This client’s categories are broad, and splitting them gave every campaign one kind of brand to talk to.
The extras you already give away for free are your offer.
Free inventory pickup and no monthly minimums were already how this client worked. They only had to be written down.
Never send cold email from the domain your business runs on.
Every email for this client went out from 20 new domains warmed for 21 days, and their own domain was never touched.
A booked brand meeting can pay off after the meeting ends, because brands know other brands.
This client’s first new brand came through a referral from a brand the campaign had put in front of them.
Questions about this case study.
How do 3PLs get new ecommerce brand clients?
How long does it take to get the first brand meeting from cold email?
Should a 3PL send cold email from its own domain?
What should a 3PL put in its cold email offer?
About six weeks after the first email, the client was fulfilling for its first new brand since March, and a footwear brand had the service agreement in hand. The campaigns are still running, one product category at a time.
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