u/BeginningFill1268

Hey everyone. Been in this situation for about 2 months now and could use some perspective. Also thank you everyone for replying to my last post trying to learn about how to go about implementing WMS. Really helpful insights. But rn I dont think that should be my focus and you will know why below.

I got brought into a small warehousing/logistics business through a family friend. (50,000sqft) The deal is: if I work hard and bring in clients, I can eventually get a share of the business and have real autonomy over how it runs. Long term I want to modernize the whole operation: implement a WMS, clean everything up, make it actually efficient. But that’s years away.

Right now the operation is entirely manual. No WMS, no real systems just guys receiving, dispatching, and running everything by hand. I mentioned a WMS on day one and my partner was open to it, but nothing has moved since it would be on me to drive it, and I don’t feel like I have the standing to push for big operational changes without having closed a single client yet.

On the sales side I’ve had a few meetings and sent out some quotes, but nothing closed yet. I’m also working with a marketing agency that’s presenting a client acquisition strategy to me next week. So things are moving, just slowly.

My awkward problem: I feel this pull to be at the warehouse, but when I go there’s literally nothing for me to do. My job is to bring in clients, not receive freight. So I just end up sitting around while the guys do their thing 😂
Has anyone been in a similar position? kind of an outsider trying to earn their way in while also trying to modernize a business? What should I be focused on right now?

Ps. Im not complaining or anything. Feel extremely blessed to have this opportunity. And I’m not getting payed for doing nothing. Will start getting payed when I bring in clients. But I also feel lost because there’s really no one management side that goes to the warehouse every day. They work away and rarely show up to the warehouse.

I recently joined a 3PL that somehow operates without a WMS — and honestly, it’s blowing my mind.

We bring in cargo, store it, and distribute on demand. There’s one guy who tracks everything by hand and knows exactly where each box is in a 50,000 sq ft warehouse with roughly 3,000+ boxes. Impressive, but clearly not scalable.

Just today we received a shipment of at least 200 boxes shrink-wrapped on pallets, and he had to go through every single one manually to verify what arrived. That’s when it really hit me — we need a WMS.

On top of that, when clients want to pick up their inventory, they have to call or message a lady in the office, who then manually submits the order on their behalf. No client portal, no self-service, no online payment — just a human relay for every single order. It’s 2026 and we’re running a medieval help desk.

The challenge is I don’t know where to start. The initial data entry alone sounds like a nightmare — counting and logging thousands of boxes by hand before we can even go live with any system.

Has anyone gone through a WMS implementation in a similar environment? What software would you recommend for a small-to-mid size 3PL — ideally one that includes a client-facing portal where customers can place pickup orders and pay on the spot without having to contact anyone? Any advice on how to approach the initial inventory count and onboarding process would be hugely appreciated.

It’s honestly crazy how we have a full warehouse but I guess the demand is there. We just need to level up and hopefully bring some more of that demand through our doors by having more efficient processes.