If Pricing Is Your Only Strategy, You’ve Already Lost.

Margins are thinner. Contracts are shorter. Procurement is louder.

But the biggest risk for 3PLs isn’t price pressure. It’s positioning failure.

In 2025, only 14% of shippers rank price as a top-three decision driver. Yet most 3PLs still lead with it and lose.

“We sold ourselves short. The customer was willing to pay for value. We just weren’t showing them any.”
- VP of Sales, $300M logistics firm.

What Shippers Actually Prioritize (Per PATH’s CX Benchmark):

• How fast you fix problems when something goes wrong

• How easy you are to do business with – the top driver of loyalty across roles

• Responsiveness during peak periods – a major frustration for passive customers

• Technology that actually makes their lives easier – still falling short of expectations

Top-performing 3PLs are flipping their QBRs. They aren’t just focusing on transit time and OTP to customer value metrics. They’re bringing is customer-driven value. And they are keeping margin while doing it.

If your positioning says “low-cost,” you’ll never be considered mission-critical.

The best 3PLs use PATH’s benchmark to align their positioning with what shippers are really buying. Want to see what they see?