Size sorting, scan-verified picking, hang tag application, branded poly-bagging, retail-ready folding, and same-day returns processing — fulfilled from our Gardena and Burbank, California warehouses for DTC fashion brands, wholesale apparel companies, Amazon FBM sellers, and subscription clothing services across activewear, streetwear, intimates, kids, footwear, and accessories.
Pick accuracy
Ship cutoff
Removal/application
Same-day processing
Apparel inbound on hangers, folded, or bulk packed via container, LTL, or small parcel. Sorted by SKU, size, color, and style at receiving. Condition verified for transit damage, fabric defects, or quality issues before stock enters inventory.
Climate-managed warehouse storage. Structured garments — blazers, dresses, suiting, outerwear — stored on hanging racks. Folded items — t-shirts, sweaters, denim, knitwear — shelved in size-separated bins with dedicated location codes per size, color, and style variant.
Size-specific pick from organized bins. Every garment scanned against the order line before it leaves the bin. Wrong-size scans flagged immediately, preventing the wrong-size-shipped errors that drive apparel returns and damage brand trust.
Folded or hung per your brand standard — sleeve fold method, size sticker placement, tissue wrap for premium pieces. Branded poly-bag applied per spec. Hang tags, care labels, security tags, or marketing inserts added if required for retail or DTC presentation.
Carrier-optimized routing — poly-mailer for soft goods, structured box for delicate or premium pieces, garment box for hanging items. Multi-carrier rate shopping at the order level to balance cost and delivery promise per shipment.
Apparel returns received, inspected for condition, odor, fabric damage, and completeness. Sellable returns re-folded to your standard, re-poly bagged, and restocked same day. Return reason codes tracked by size and style to surface fit, sizing chart, or quality issues at the source.
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We document and follow your exact folding standard — sleeve fold method, neckline orientation, size sticker placement, tissue paper layering for premium pieces, ribbon ties for luxury garments. Photographed reference standards ensure consistency across every packer and every shift.
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Apparel returns hit 30-40% in fashion categories. We process returns same-day with garment-specific inspection — checking for wear, odor, makeup transfer, deodorant marks, and fabric damage. Sellable returns re-folded, re-poly bagged, and restocked within 24 hours of receipt.
Apparel fulfillment is significantly more complex than standard ecommerce fulfillment for three structural reasons.
First, every garment carries multiple attributes that must all be correct on every order — size, color, style, fit, length, sometimes inseam or cup size. Shipping a customer the wrong size is operationally identical to shipping the wrong product entirely, but the error rate is far higher because warehouse staff must distinguish between visually similar items dozens of times per pick.
Second, apparel has the highest return rate of any major ecommerce category — typically 30% in standard fashion and climbing to 40% or higher in fit-sensitive categories like denim, footwear, and intimates. A 3PL without a dedicated apparel returns operation will accumulate weeks of unprocessed returns, lock up working capital in the returns queue, and lose track of which units are actually sellable.
Third, presentation matters enormously. A wrinkled, sloppily-folded shirt arriving in a crumpled poly-bag damages your brand the moment a customer opens the package. The unboxing photo posted to Instagram becomes the customer's first and only physical brand impression, and apparel customers expect retail-store-quality presentation when buying online.
3PLCity is purpose-built for apparel. Our bin system prevents size mix-ups before they happen, our scan-verified picking catches the rare ones that slip through, our folding protocols match your brand standard exactly, and our returns operation processes garments same-day so you never have inventory tied up in the returns queue.
Every size, color, style, and fit variant has a dedicated bin location in our warehouse with a unique location code. Pickers scan the barcode of each garment before placing it in the order, and our WMS validates the scan against the order line in real time. If the scanned SKU doesn't match the order's size requirement, the pick is flagged immediately and the garment is rejected. This systematic approach achieves 99.8% size pick accuracy across millions of apparel units.
Yes. Structured garments — blazers, suiting, dresses, outerwear, gowns — are stored on hanging racks to preserve garment shape and prevent wrinkles. Folded items — t-shirts, denim, knitwear, sweaters, activewear — are shelved in size-separated bins. We document your preferred storage method per SKU during onboarding so structured and folded inventory are handled correctly from receiving through ship.
Apparel returns are processed same-day at our facility. Each returned garment is inspected for visible wear, odor, makeup transfer, deodorant marks, fabric damage, and completeness of original packaging and tags. Sellable returns are re-folded to your brand standard, re-poly bagged, and restocked within 24 hours. We track return reasons by SKU, size, and style to surface fit issues, sizing chart problems, or quality defects before they generate more returns.
Yes. We apply hang tags, price stickers, security tags, RFID tags, SKU labels, and care label additions per retail account requirements. If you have different prep specifications for different retail accounts — Nordstrom requires one tag format, Target requires another, your boutique wholesale accounts have a third — we maintain separate prep instructions per account and execute the correct prep based on the destination of each shipment.
Yes. Children's apparel sold in the U.S. requires CPSIA tracking labels listing manufacturer, country of origin, batch number, and date of manufacture on every garment. We verify CPSIA label compliance at receiving, can apply tracking labels during fulfillment prep if your manufacturer didn't include them, and maintain documentation for compliance audits or recall events.
DTC fashion brands selling on Shopify, TikTok Shop, and their own websites. Amazon FBM sellers and brands prepping for FBA. Wholesale apparel companies shipping to department stores, boutiques, and big-box retailers. Subscription clothing services and monthly styling boxes. Activewear and performance apparel brands. Kids and baby clothing brands with CPSIA requirements. Footwear, accessories, intimates, swimwear, denim, and outerwear. Every apparel category we serve gets the same size precision, branded presentation, and returns workflow.
