3PL research and statistics for better fulfillment decisions

There are roughly 72,235 third-party logistics businesses operating in the US (IBISWorld, 2025) — the most commonly cited industry figure. The operating 3PL count is in the thousands; the exact number depends on how strictly you define a 3PL.

DTC fulfillment costs $8–$15 per order in 2026, including domestic shipping. The fulfillment-only portion runs $3.50–$8.00; loaded with hidden fees the realistic cost moves to $10–$15+. This article breaks down 2026 3PL pricing by service tier, fee line item, order volume, product type, and the indirect costs that don't appear on a typical 3PL invoice.

About 116,000 commercial ships trade at sea as of January 2026, but only ~62,000 are ocean-going cargo vessels and just 6,706 carry containers. Original breakdown of the fleet by type, how many containers fit on the biggest ships, how fast they sail, and what they weigh.

The World Shipping Council counted 1,478 containers lost at sea in 2025 — 0.0005% of the roughly 280 million shipped, and 2.6 times the 2024 total. The "1,700 a year" figure still quoted everywhere dates to a 2014 survey. Here's the real trend, the Red Sea effect, and the wrecks that skew the averages.

USPS publishes three different answers to a question that sounds like it has one: 26,147 Post Offices, 30,972 Postal Service-managed retail offices, and 32,907 total retail locations in fiscal year 2025. This breaks down what each figure counts, traces the network back to its 1901 peak of 76,945 offices, and explains which number to cite.

About 13,400 ships and 489 million PC/UMS tons cross the Panama Canal each year, and more than 40% of U.S. container traffic depends on it. Original breakdown of the cargo mix, the ACP-vs-PortWatch methodology gap, and what the 2023-24 drought did to transits and slot prices.

The Suez Canal's record 2023 — 26,434 transits, nearly 1.57 billion net tons, 22% of global container trade — collapsed to half-speed when Red Sea attacks rerouted the container fleet around Africa. Original analysis of why tonnage fell harder than ship counts, and where the 2026 recovery actually stands.

Roughly 3,000 commercial vessels a month and about 30 million TEU of annual container throughput depend on the Strait of Hormuz — and most of it isn't oil. Original port-by-port analysis plus what the 2026 closure did to consumer and business freight.

TikTok Shop doesn't publish an order count, so we derived one: an estimated 300 million U.S. orders in 2025 (roughly 800,000 a day) on about $15.5B in U.S. GMV, cross-checked against buyer counts. Global GMV hit $64.3B, implying well over a billion orders worldwide.

Amazon employed 1,576,000 full-time and part-time workers at the end of 2025, but that 10-K figure excludes ~390,000 delivery drivers, seasonal temps, and gig workers. Here is the full breakdown of who works for Amazon, where, and how the count has changed.

Ecommerce returns average roughly 19.3% of online sales, far above the in-store rate, and they cost retailers tens of billions in reverse logistics every year. This data study breaks down return rates by category, the true cost of a single return, fraud estimates, and the seasonal spike that makes January brutal for fulfillment operations.

Shopify no longer publishes merchant counts. Third-party trackers put the live-store figure anywhere from 2.85 million to 6.9 million in 2026 — here is why the numbers diverge and what each one actually measures.

Processing an online return costs retailers an average of about 21% of the order's value, and far more for apparel. This data study breaks down the cost as a share of the sale, the per-item cost stack, how it climbs by category, and the national-scale numbers worth citing.

Roughly 82% of Amazon sellers use Fulfillment by Amazon and about 34% self-fulfill through FBM, with a large overlap that runs both. There is no official Amazon census, so every figure traces to seller surveys. This breakdown shows the split, why estimates vary, and what the number actually means.

Amazon has never published an order count. The best third-party estimate puts it at 5.57 billion orders per year — but orders, items, and packages are three different numbers, and most cited figures mix them up.

The US generated 23.1 billion parcels in 2025, about 63 million packages every day. Daily volume for Amazon Logistics, USPS, UPS, and FedEx, plus global totals, growth forecasts, and why carrier numbers rarely match.

Amazon operates roughly 1,200 logistics facilities worldwide, but only about 350 are true fulfillment centers. We break down the counts, the 751-million-sq-ft real-estate ledger from Amazon's own 10-K, and why every published estimate differs.