Georgia has become one of the most contested distribution markets in the country, and for a specific reason: it is one of the few states where a fast-growing deepwater port, a national interstate and air-cargo hub, and a mature foreign trade zone framework all sit inside the same footprint. Each is useful alone. Together they change the math on landed cost.

 Aerial view of Komar Distribution Services' sustainably focused 760,000 sq ft Savannah distribution center near the Port of Savannah 

This guide is written for the person doing the evaluation, not the person already sold. It covers what a 3PL actually does, how the pricing is assembled, what separates the Savannah and Atlanta markets, and the nine questions worth asking any provider before a contract gets signed. Where Komar Distribution Services fits is stated plainly in its own section near the end, including where we are the wrong answer.

A note on who wrote this: Komar Distribution Services operates 3PL facilities in Georgia, so we have an obvious interest in the topic. This guide is written to be useful whether or not you ever contact us. The evaluation criteria below are the same ones we would want a prospect to hold us to, and several of them are questions we have failed to answer well in the past.

What a 3PL actually does

"Third-party logistics" covers providers that do very different things. Some are warehouse operators. Some are freight brokers who own no buildings. Some are technology platforms that subcontract the physical work. Before comparing quotes, it helps to know which functions you are actually buying, because a low rate on one line often means a function has quietly been left out.

Most scopes are assembled from five categories:

The five service categories that make up a typical 3PL scope

Category	What it includes	Ask about
Warehousing	Receiving, put-away, racked or floor storage, cycle counting, climate control where the product needs it	How storage is measured and billed
Fulfillment	Pick, pack, and ship for ecommerce, marketplace, wholesale, and retail orders, plus returns processing	Order cutoff times and same-day ship rules
Transportation	Port drayage, transloading, cross-docking, LTL and truckload, parcel rate shopping	Owned fleet or brokered capacity
Value-added services	Kitting, poly-bagging, labeling, ticketing, garment on hanger, light assembly, display builds	Whether the work is quoted or hourly
Technology and compliance	WMS, EDI and API connections, inventory visibility, retailer routing-guide compliance, customs and FTZ recordkeeping	Who owns chargebacks when a rule is missed

The two most often underestimated are value-added services and compliance. A brand moving from pure ecommerce into big-box retail discovers that every retailer has a routing guide governing label placement, carton marking, appointment scheduling, and ASN timing, and that violations come back as chargebacks. A provider who has never shipped to that retailer will learn on your account, at your expense.

Two of these categories are deep enough to deserve their own treatment. Systems are covered on 3PL technology, and the operational disciplines behind inventory accuracy on 3PL warehouse management.

Why Georgia attracts so much distribution capacity

Georgia's position in national distribution is not a marketing story. It is the result of three independent pieces of infrastructure that happen to overlap: a deepwater port, a highway and rail network built around a single inland hub, and a foreign trade zone framework that predates the current wave of investment.

The Port of Savannah

Savannah is the largest single-terminal container facility in North America and the 4th busiest container port in the United States, and it grew faster than the Northeast gateways through 2025 at roughly 12.5%. The harbor has been deepened to 47 feet, and the Georgia Ports Authority is backing continued growth with a $4.5 billion expansion program, including a new Savannah Container Terminal expected to add substantial capacity by the mid-2030s.

Two features matter more to a distribution decision than the headline volume. The first is the Mason Mega Rail terminal, the largest port-owned on-terminal intermodal rail facility in North America, which moves containers inland by rail without a separate drayage move to an off-dock ramp. The second is that terminal capacity has broadly kept pace with volume, which is why Savannah has avoided the multi-day anchorage waits that have periodically hit other U.S. gateways. For an importer, dwell time and chassis availability affect landed cost far more directly than a port's rank on a volume list.

Official reference: Georgia Ports Authority

The inland network

Georgia's interstate system converges on Atlanta: I-75 north to south, I-85 northeast, I-20 east to west, and I-16 connecting the corridor to Savannah and the coast. Norfolk Southern and CSX both operate major intermodal facilities in the state, and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport handles significant air cargo volume alongside its passenger traffic.

The practical consequence is reach. A distribution point on the Georgia coast reaches roughly 70% of the U.S. population within a two-day ground transit via I-95 and I-16, and coverage improves moving inland along the Savannah-to-Atlanta corridor. For a direct-to-consumer brand, that often means a single well-placed Georgia node can cover most of the country on a one- to two-day delivery promise, without the cost and inventory-split complexity of a multi-node network.

Foreign trade zones

A foreign trade zone (FTZ) is a designated site inside the United States where imported merchandise is treated, for customs entry and duty purposes, as though it were outside U.S. customs territory until entered for domestic consumption. Georgia's FTZ network is organized around three gateways: FTZ 26 in the Atlanta area, FTZ 104 in the Savannah area, and FTZ 144 in Brunswick.

For a distribution operation, the three benefits that most often justify the compliance overhead are duty deferral while goods sit in inventory, no U.S. duty on merchandise later re-exported without entering U.S. commerce, and reduced merchandise processing fee exposure through authorized weekly entry.

Official references: CBP - What is a Foreign-Trade Zone?  |  ITA - About FTZs

Savannah or Atlanta: choosing a location inside Georgia

Once a brand has settled on Georgia, the next question is where in Georgia. The honest answer is that it depends on which cost you are trying to reduce, because the two markets optimize for different things.

How Georgia's two distribution markets compare

Factor	Savannah area	Atlanta metro	Who it favors
Import drayage cost	Lowest; short port moves	Adds a long-haul or rail leg	Container importers
Demurrage and per diem risk	Lower; containers clear sooner	Higher; more handoffs	Container importers
National ground reach	Strong via I-95 and I-16	Strong via I-75, I-85, I-20	Roughly even
Air cargo access	Regional	Hartsfield-Jackson, far stronger	Air freight shippers
Labor and real estate	Generally lower, tightening	Higher, deeper labor pool	Depends on headcount
Best overall fit	Import-heavy, FTZ programs, coastal-first	Domestic sourcing, air freight, Southeast retail	Follow your inbound

The rule of thumb: if a meaningful share of your inventory arrives in an ocean container, the port-adjacent option usually wins on total landed cost, because drayage and demurrage are recurring costs while the inland ground-transit difference between the two markets is often a matter of hours. If your goods are domestically sourced or arrive by air, that logic reverses.

Both markets get a dedicated treatment in this cluster: 3PL Savannah covers port proximity, drayage economics, and container turn times, and 3PL Atlanta covers the inland hub, interstate reach, and air cargo.

How 3PL pricing works, and where the surprises hide

Almost no 3PL quotes a single price. Rates are assembled from separate line items, which makes proposals genuinely hard to compare and creates room for a quote to look competitive while costing more in practice. Understanding the structure is the most useful preparation a buyer can do.

Common 3PL cost components and what drives each one

Line item	Typically billed by	What makes it move
Receiving	Container, pallet, carton, or labor hour	Floor-loaded containers cost far more than palletized freight
Storage	Pallet, bin, or square foot, per month	Whether it is measured monthly, twice monthly, or on peak occupancy
Pick and pack	Order, then per additional line or unit	Average lines per order, and single-item order share
Packaging materials	Cost plus markup, or per unit	Branded inserts and custom cartons versus stock materials
Parcel and freight	Pass-through, or 3PL-negotiated rates	Dimensional weight, zone mix, whose carrier contract is used
Value-added work	Labor hour or per-unit quote	Whether the task was scoped at onboarding or added later
Returns	Per return, sometimes tiered by disposition	Inspect-and-restock versus simple receipt
Account and technology	Monthly minimum, per integration, or per user	Number of sales channels and EDI trading partners

The most reliable way to compare two proposals is to stop comparing rate cards and start comparing invoices. Send every provider the same twelve months of order history, SKU profile, seasonality, and inbound container schedule, and ask each one to produce a modeled monthly invoice from that data. Differences that were invisible on a rate sheet become obvious the moment they are multiplied by your real order mix.

That advice cuts against the interest of any 3PL, including ours. It is still correct. A rate card with fewer, larger line items is easier for your finance team to audit, which means disputes resolve in days rather than quarters, and it removes the incentive for a provider to find revenue in accessorial charges you never anticipated.

Nine questions to ask a Georgia 3PL

These are diagnostic rather than rhetorical. Each has a weak answer and a strong answer, and the difference is usually specificity. A provider who can name a system, a number, or a designation is describing something that exists. A provider who responds with adjectives is describing an aspiration.

Evaluation criteria for a Georgia third-party logistics provider

Ask	Why it matters	A strong answer sounds like
Are you FTZ designated, and CBP activated?	Only activation permits admitting foreign merchandise	A zone or subzone number and current activation status
How far to the port, and do you own drayage?	Owned equipment controls chassis days and demurrage	A mileage figure and a tractor and chassis count
What WMS do you run, and who built the integrations?	Determines visibility, order sync speed, and error rates	A named platform and a live demo, not a screenshot
What are your accuracy and on-time ship rates?	These are the two metrics customers feel first	Numbers with a measurement definition attached
Have you shipped to my retailers before?	Routing-guide inexperience becomes your chargebacks	Named accounts and specific routing-guide pitfalls
What is your average employee tenure?	Constant retraining reproduces the same errors	A tenure figure, and a willingness to discuss it
How do you plan capacity for peak?	A gridlocked warehouse cannot receive your containers	They ask for your projections before you ask for theirs
Can I see a modeled invoice for my volume?	Rate cards conceal what order mix reveals	A pro forma built from your data, assumptions listed
Can I tour the building and call a current client?	Condition and morale predict execution quality	An open invitation and a reference of similar profile

On the last one in particular, walk the floor. A facility's physical condition and the demeanor of the people working in it tell you things a proposal cannot, and any provider unwilling to host a visit before a contract is signed has answered the question anyway.

Can this provider grow with you?

Most 3PL relationships fail not at onboarding but eighteen months later, when a brand's volume, channel mix, or seasonality has outgrown what the provider was built to handle. Four signals are worth checking before you sign.

Matching a provider to your channels and category

Beyond geography and price, fit is mostly a question of whether a provider has done your specific kind of work before. Two dimensions matter: where you sell, and what you sell.

Where you sell

A Shopify-native DTC brand, an Amazon seller, and a wholesale brand shipping to big-box retailers place almost entirely different demands on a warehouse. The DTC brand needs fast order sync and clean branded presentation. The Amazon seller needs either compliance with delivery-speed standards or prep work to Amazon's inbound spec. The wholesale brand needs EDI, routing-guide compliance, and ASN accuracy. Providers that do all three from one inventory pool exist, but the capability should be verified rather than assumed.

What you sell

Category drives handling requirements more than most buyers expect. Apparel carries high variant counts, sharp seasonality, garment-on-hanger handling, and return rates that make reverse logistics a primary operation rather than an afterthought. Beauty and electronics need stable, monitored storage. Food and beverage adds temperature control and lot traceability. Furniture and other oversized goods need equipment and dock configuration that not every building has. Automotive and industrial parts often run on just-in-time schedules where a missed window stops a line.

Apparel has the most Georgia-specific depth in this cluster, given the state's port volume in the segment.

When outsourcing makes sense, and how long it takes

Outsourcing is not automatically correct. Brands with stable, simple, low-volume order profiles and space they already pay for often do better in-house. The case for a 3PL strengthens when several of these are true at once:

• Volume is seasonal enough that in-house staffing is either idle or overwhelmed
• You are adding sales channels faster than you can build integrations
• Fulfillment labor management is consuming leadership attention that belongs on product or demand
• You are opening retail or marketplace channels with compliance requirements you have not run before
• Imported inventory sits long enough that duty timing affects working capital
• A lease decision is coming and the capital would otherwise go into racking rather than growth

On timing, plan realistically. A straightforward ecommerce transition can move in several weeks. A program involving EDI trading partners, multiple sales channels, value-added work, or FTZ procedures more typically runs 30 to 60 days from signature to go-live, and FTZ onboarding carries its own sequence of feasibility review, importer and broker setup, SKU and HTS data mapping, systems testing, and standard operating procedures.

The most common scheduling mistake is transitioning during or immediately before peak. If your peak is Q4, the transition should be finished by late summer, not started in October.

Where Komar Distribution Services fits

Everything above applies to any Georgia 3PL. This section is about ours specifically, so you can measure it against the same criteria.

KDS is a division of Komar, an apparel and consumer goods company founded in 1908. The 3PL business began in the late 1990s, when Komar had seasonal warehouse capacity sitting idle outside its own peak and started selling it to brands whose peak ran opposite. That origin matters for one reason worth stating plainly: we spent years as the customer of other 3PLs before becoming one, which is where most of the evaluation advice above comes from.

 Interior of Komar Distribution Services, Savannah fulfillment center

Our primary Georgia facility is a company-owned, climate-controlled 760,000 sq ft Class A distribution center 24 miles from the Port of Savannah and 2.5 miles from the Hyundai Metaplant, operating within Foreign Trade Zone 104. Additional Savannah-area capacity and an owned drayage fleet came through the acquisition of a regional trucking company, and KDS has also received Foreign-Trade Zones Board approval for Subzone 104W in Pooler.

Key capabilities

• 55,000 pallet positions with scalable storage and 132 cross dock doors
• Pick and pack, kitting, garment on hanger, transloading, and value-added services
• 99.98% on-time shipping, 99.95% inventory accuracy, 99.93% operational compliance
• Manhattan WMS with real-time visibility and 75+ marketplace integrations
• KDS Customer Success Portal for live inventory availability and compliance tracking
• Fulfilled by Amazon and Seller-Fulfilled Prime support, plus B2B and D2C capability from one SKU pool
• Owned drayage: 80+ tractors and 300 chassis under direct KDS control via Savannah Logistics Services
• 2.5 MW solar array, among Georgia's largest at a single industrial site

A coast-to-coast network

Georgia is one node of three. That matters for the scaling question raised earlier: if your volume or customer geography shifts, a second location can be added on systems you have already implemented rather than through a second integration project.

Where we fit well: import-heavy supply chains that benefit from port proximity and FTZ status; apparel and consumer goods brands with high variant counts and real returns volume; and brands expanding from a single channel into a mix of ecommerce, marketplace, and brick-and-mortar retail, which is the transition our own routing-guide experience was built on.

Where we do not: if your inventory is domestically sourced, arrives by air, and never touches a port, most of the Georgia coastal advantage disappears and an inland provider may serve you better. If you ship a handful of SKUs in low volume with no retail compliance requirements, you can likely do it yourself for less than any 3PL will charge you. We would rather say that during a sales conversation than eighteen months into a contract.

Key takeaways

Frequently asked questions

What does a 3PL in Georgia do?

A Georgia third-party logistics provider receives, stores, picks, packs, and ships goods on a brand's behalf from a facility inside the state. Most also offer drayage from the Port of Savannah, value-added services such as kitting and labeling, warehouse management technology with inventory visibility, and returns processing, so the brand does not have to lease, equip, and staff its own distribution center.

Why do so many brands choose Georgia for fulfillment?

Three things overlap in Georgia that rarely overlap elsewhere: the Port of Savannah, the 4th busiest container port in the U.S. and one of the fastest growing; an inland network of interstates, Class I rail, and Hartsfield-Jackson air cargo centered on Atlanta; and an established foreign trade zone framework covering Atlanta, Savannah, and Brunswick. Together they shorten both import timelines and domestic delivery timelines from a single origin point.

How much does a 3PL in Georgia cost?

There is no single rate, because pricing is assembled from separate line items: receiving, storage, pick and pack, packaging materials, parcel and freight, value-added work, returns, and account or technology fees. The variables that move the total most are how storage is measured, average lines per order, whether containers arrive floor-loaded or palletized, and whose carrier contract is used. The only reliable comparison is to give each provider the same twelve months of order history and ask for a modeled monthly invoice.

Should I choose a 3PL in Savannah or Atlanta?

If a meaningful share of your inventory arrives in ocean containers, the Savannah area usually wins on total landed cost, because drayage and demurrage are recurring costs while the inland ground-transit difference between the two markets is often only hours. If your goods are domestically sourced or arrive by air, Atlanta's deeper labor pool, interstate convergence, and Hartsfield-Jackson air cargo access are likely to matter more.

How far can I ship from Georgia in two days?

A distribution point on the Georgia coast reaches roughly 70% of the U.S. population within a two-day ground transit via Interstate 95 and Interstate 16, and coverage improves moving inland along the Savannah-to-Atlanta corridor. For many direct-to-consumer brands, that means a single Georgia node can support a one- to two-day delivery promise to most of the country without splitting inventory across multiple warehouses.

Does a foreign trade zone eliminate tariffs?

No. An FTZ defers duty while goods remain in the zone, generally avoids U.S. duty on merchandise later re-exported without entering U.S. commerce, and can reduce merchandise processing fees through authorized weekly entry. Classification, country of origin, zone status, and trade-remedy measures still determine what is owed on goods entered for domestic consumption. FTZ Board designation and CBP activation are also two separate approvals, and only activation permits a site to admit foreign merchandise.

What should I ask a 3PL before signing a contract?

Ask for the named WMS platform and a live demo, a mileage figure to the port, a tractor and chassis count if drayage is included, inventory accuracy and on-time ship rates with their measurement definitions, average employee tenure, named retailers they already ship to, how they plan peak capacity, a modeled invoice built from your data, and a facility tour with a reference client of similar profile. Specific answers describe something that exists. Adjectives describe an aspiration.

How long does it take to transition to a new 3PL?

A straightforward ecommerce transition can be completed in several weeks. Programs involving EDI trading partners, multiple sales channels, significant value-added work, or FTZ procedures more typically run 30 to 60 days from signature to go-live. Whatever the scope, finish the transition well before peak season rather than during it.

Sources and further reading

• Georgia Ports Authority - port volume, terminals, and infrastructure
• Georgia Department of Economic Development - Logistics in Georgia
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection - What is a Foreign-Trade Zone?
• International Trade Administration - About Foreign-Trade Zones
• Official FTZ Information System - FTZ 104 Savannah
• Official FTZ Information System - FTZ 26 Atlanta
• CBP - Merchandise Processing Fee rates
• U.S. Census Bureau - population estimates and regional growth

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