Arvato Supply Chain Solutions: Overview & Alternatives

Arvato Supply Chain Solutions is often named when organisations weigh up whether to hand their warehousing, fulfilment and distribution to an outside specialist. It is a large third-party logistics and supply chain outsourcing provider, part of the Bertelsmann group, and it serves as a useful example of a whole category rather than a one-off choice. This overview explains what providers like Arvato do, who outsourcing suits, the general pros and cons of handing your supply chain to a 3PL, a checklist for evaluating one, and where in-house procurement software such as ProcureWave fits alongside an outsourced operation rather than in competition with it.

What Arvato Supply Chain Solutions is

Arvato Supply Chain Solutions is a provider of outsourced supply chain and third-party logistics services, operating as part of the Bertelsmann group. In plain terms, it is a company that other companies pay to run parts of their physical supply chain on their behalf. Rather than a brand selling software you log into, it is a service business that supplies warehouses, people, transport arrangements and the operational know-how to move goods from a storage point to the end customer and back again.

Because the arrangement is a service rather than a product, the precise scope varies with each client and contract. A provider of this kind typically works across areas such as storing stock, picking and packing orders, arranging distribution and handling returns, and it wraps those activities in reporting and account management. The important point for a buyer is not the exact menu on any given day, but that this is outsourcing: you are transferring the running of an operation, along with much of its cost and complexity, to a specialist who does it at scale for many clients at once.

Treating Arvato as one example of a category is the most useful frame. There are many large logistics outsourcing firms competing for similar work, and the questions you would ask any of them are broadly the same. Understanding the category clearly is what lets you compare providers fairly and, just as importantly, tell the difference between a service that runs your goods and software that governs your buying.

What third-party logistics providers actually do

A 3PL takes on the operational stages of the supply chain that sit between having goods and delivering them. The core activities are recognisable across the industry even though every provider packages them differently. Knowing these building blocks helps you scope what you would actually be outsourcing and what you would keep in-house.

• Warehousing and storage. Holding your stock in the provider's facilities, managing space, and keeping an accurate physical count so orders can be met.
• Order fulfilment. Receiving customer orders, then picking, packing and preparing them for despatch, often at speed and high volume during peaks.
• Distribution and transport. Arranging the onward movement of goods to customers or stores, coordinating carriers and managing delivery across regions.
• Returns handling. Processing goods that come back, inspecting and restocking or disposing of them, and closing the loop on reverse logistics.
• Value-added services. Extras such as labelling, kitting, light assembly or customer contact, layered on top of the core flow where a client needs them.

These map onto the wider discipline of logistics, the part of the supply chain concerned with the storage and movement of goods. What a 3PL adds is scale and specialisation: because it runs these operations for many clients, it can invest in facilities, systems and staff that would be hard to justify for a single business. That is the essential promise of outsourcing, and it is also the source of its trade-offs, which we come to below.

Who supply chain outsourcing suits

Outsourcing the physical supply chain is not right for every organisation, and the honest way to judge fit is to look at your volumes, your geography and how much logistics matters to your competitive position. The providers make their money from scale, so the fit is strongest where scale, complexity or seasonality make self-operating expensive or distracting.

It tends to suit e-commerce brands and retailers whose order volumes spike sharply and who would rather not own fulfilment centres that sit half-empty out of season. It suits businesses expanding into new regions who want distribution reach without building it from scratch. It suits publishers, manufacturers and consumer brands whose core skill is making and marketing products rather than running warehouses. In each case the appeal is the same: convert a fixed, capital-heavy operation into a flexible service you pay for as you use it, and free your own team to focus on the parts of the business that differentiate you.

It suits you less well in a few common situations. If logistics is itself a differentiator, a same-day promise or a bespoke unboxing experience that customers choose you for, handing it to a shared provider can blunt the very thing that sets you apart. If your volumes are modest, you may struggle to command attention or good rates from a large provider. And if your goods or processes are unusually complex, the cost of getting an outside team to run them precisely can outweigh the saving. Naming which camp you fall into is the first real decision, well before you compare any two providers.

The general pros and cons of outsourcing

Every outsourcing decision is a trade of control for leverage, and it helps to see both sides plainly rather than through a vendor's brochure. The table below sets the common advantages against the common drawbacks so you can weigh them against your own situation.

The pattern is familiar from any make-or-buy decision. Outsourcing buys you reach, flexibility and focus, and it charges you in control, dependence and the friction of ever changing your mind. None of these drawbacks is fatal, and each can be managed with clear service levels, honest reporting and a deliberate exit plan. But they are real, and the organisations that outsource well are the ones that go in with eyes open rather than dazzled by the promise of someone else running the hard part.

A checklist for evaluating a 3PL

Whichever provider you consider, Arvato or another, the criteria that separate a strong partner from a risky one are broadly consistent. Agree them before you sit through a single pitch, weight them with the people who will live with the relationship, and hold every candidate to the same grid so a confident sales team cannot quietly reset your priorities.

• Operational fit. The provider should already handle goods, volumes and order profiles like yours, not adapt to your world for the first time on your account.
• Geographic coverage. Its facilities and networks need to reach the markets you actually serve, at the speed your customers expect.
• Systems and integration. Its technology has to exchange data cleanly with your own systems, so orders, stock and status stay in step rather than drifting apart.
• Scalability and peaks. It must absorb your busiest periods without service falling over, and flex back down when demand eases.
• Reporting and visibility. You should be able to see stock, orders and performance in near real time, and report on them without begging for spreadsheets.
• Commercials and exit. The pricing, minimums and the terms for changing or leaving should be clear from the outset, before dependence sets in.

Score each criterion, weight it, and total the columns, exactly as you would for any major supplier. The exercise rarely crowns a surprise winner, but it surfaces the trade-offs and leaves you a defensible record of why you chose as you did. And whatever the outcome, notice that most of these criteria concern how the provider runs goods, not how you decide what to buy. That decision, and its governance, stays with you, which is exactly where a procurement platform earns its place.

Where in-house procurement software fits alongside a 3PL

A third-party logistics provider and a procurement platform solve different problems in the same chain, and the best setups use both. The 3PL runs the outbound side: storing goods and moving them to your customers. Procurement software governs the inbound side: how you source suppliers, raise and approve orders, control spend against contracts and keep supplier data clean. One executes the physical flow; the other controls the buying decisions that set that flow in motion. They are complements, not competitors.

This is where ProcureWave sits. It is a purpose-built procurement platform that governs the front door of the chain, where forecast demand becomes a real commitment to a supplier and where spend is either controlled or quietly lost. Sourcing, guided purchasing, approvals, receiving, invoice matching, supplier management and spend analytics share a single record, so a request carries its context all the way through to payment without anyone re-keying it. Because it is designed to integrate with the systems around it, the clean order and supplier data it produces can feed naturally into an outsourced operation. You can explore how the ProcureWave platform connects the buying cycle to see how that front-door layer joins up.

Run the two together and each does what it is best at. Your 3PL executes fulfilment and distribution at scale, while you retain full control of what you buy, from whom, at what price and under what approvals. The provider receives a clean, well-governed flow of orders rather than a stream of one-off exceptions, and you keep the strategic knowledge, the supplier relationships and the spend visibility in-house where they belong. Outsourcing the doing does not have to mean outsourcing the deciding, and pairing an outsourced operation with strong in-house procurement is how you get the reach of a 3PL without surrendering control of your buying.

Alternatives and how to think about 2026

If a large outsourcing provider is not the right answer for you, the realistic alternatives fall along a spectrum. At one end you can build and run your own warehousing and distribution, keeping total control at the cost of the capital and management it demands. In the middle sit smaller or more specialist 3PLs that may give a modest operation more attention than a giant would, or regional providers who know a specific market intimately. A hybrid is common too: self-run your core, steady volumes and use a 3PL to absorb peaks or reach distant markets. There is no universally best answer, only the one that matches your volumes, geography and how much you value control.

Whichever way you lean, the surrounding trend in 2026 is toward joined-up data. As supply chain management moves from spreadsheets and disconnected systems onto connected platforms, the value increasingly lies in the clean flow of information between the parties who buy, hold and move goods. An outsourced operation is only as good as the orders it receives, and a procurement platform is only as useful as the downstream systems it can feed. The organisations that get the most from either are the ones that treat information as the thing that ties the chain together. Our complete guide to supply chain management sets out that discipline in full, and our guide to logistics and supply chain management goes deeper on the movement side that a 3PL runs.

So use Arvato Supply Chain Solutions as it is most useful: as a clear example of what supply chain outsourcing looks like, and a prompt to ask the right questions. Decide honestly whether outsourcing suits your operation, evaluate any provider against a weighted checklist, and keep the buying decisions in your own hands. When you want to see how a connected procurement platform would sit alongside an outsourced logistics operation, you can talk to us about your own categories and workflow and judge ProcureWave where it counts.

Frequently asked questions

What does Arvato Supply Chain Solutions do?

Arvato Supply Chain Solutions is a third-party logistics and supply chain outsourcing provider, part of the wider Bertelsmann group. In broad terms it takes on physical supply chain operations on behalf of other companies, typically covering areas such as warehousing, order fulfilment, distribution and returns handling, along with the technology and staff to run them. The exact scope of any engagement is agreed contract by contract, so treat it as a category example rather than a fixed list of services.

Is a 3PL the same as procurement software?

No. A third-party logistics provider runs the physical movement and storage of goods for you, supplying warehouses, labour and transport as an outsourced service. Procurement software governs how you source suppliers, raise and approve orders and control spend inside your own organisation. One executes the flow of goods; the other controls the buying decisions upstream. Our guide to supply chain management software explains where each sits.

Who should consider outsourcing their supply chain to a 3PL?

Outsourcing tends to suit organisations whose volumes, geographies or seasonality make it costly to build and run their own warehousing and distribution. Retailers, e-commerce brands, publishers and manufacturers often use a 3PL to gain reach and flexibility without the capital of owning fulfilment centres. It suits you less well when logistics is a core differentiator you want to control directly, or when volumes are too small to interest a large provider.

Can you use procurement software alongside a 3PL like Arvato?

Yes, and the two are complementary rather than competing. A 3PL handles the outbound movement and storage of goods, while a procurement platform controls the inbound side: how you buy, from whom, at what price and under what approvals. Running both means clean order and supplier data flows into the physical operation, and the 3PL executes against decisions you have already governed. They solve different problems in the same chain.

What are the main risks of outsourcing supply chain operations?

The usual trade-offs are reduced direct control, dependence on a single provider, and the effort of switching later if the relationship sours. Service quality becomes something you manage through contracts and reporting rather than by walking the warehouse floor. Data visibility can suffer if systems do not integrate well. These are manageable with clear service levels, good reporting and retained control of your buying and supplier decisions, but they are real considerations to weigh before signing.