When a brand decides to enter a new market, the first structural decision is not which marketplace to list on or what the launch price should be. It is who does the work — and the answer usually comes down to two very different kinds of partner that get discussed as if they were interchangeable: the distributor and the 3PL. They are not interchangeable. They differ in who owns the inventory, who carries the compliance burden, who controls pricing, and where the risk sits. Choosing the wrong one is one of the most common — and most expensive — early mistakes in cross-border e-commerce.
What a distributor actually does
A distributor buys your products. From that point the stock is theirs: they hold it in their warehouse, sell it through their channels, set the retail strategy within whatever terms you agreed, and carry the inventory risk if it does not sell. You get a wholesale order and a partner with skin in the game.
Because the distributor is the seller of record in the destination market, the regulatory stack lands on their desk, not yours: VAT registrations, EPR and packaging schemes, WEEE for electronics, and — since December 2024 — the GPSR responsible-person requirement for products sold to EU consumers. For a brand outside the region, that is often the single biggest hidden value of the model. The obligations do not disappear; they are simply owned by a company that already has them running.
- You get: a purchase order, local channel access, compliance handled, one commercial relationship to manage.
- You give up: direct control of retail pricing and channel mix, the end-customer relationship, and some margin — the distributor's cut pays for the risk they carry.
- Best fit: brands entering an unfamiliar market who want revenue and presence without building a local operation.
What a 3PL actually does
A third-party logistics provider moves boxes. You send stock to their warehouse; they store it, pick it, pack it, ship it and usually process returns. It is a fee-for-service relationship — per order, per pallet, per month — and the stock remains yours the whole time.
That last sentence carries more weight than most brands expect. Because you remain the seller of record, everything commercial and everything regulatory stays with you: the marketplace accounts and listings, the pricing, the customer service, the VAT registrations in each country you sell into, the EPR and packaging registrations, the responsible-person role. A 3PL solves warehousing and delivery speed. It solves nothing else.
- You get: full control of brand, pricing, channels and customer data, plus local delivery times that convert.
- You take on: the entire compliance stack, channel management in local languages, customer service coverage, and demand risk — unsold stock is your problem.
- Best fit: brands with an established team, existing demand in the market, and the operational maturity to run everything except the warehouse.
The middle path: consignment and operator models
Between the two sits a model that gets less attention than it deserves: consignment with an operating partner. You place stock in the partner's warehouse but retain ownership; the partner runs the channels, the fulfillment, the compliance and the customer flow; you are paid for what sells. It combines the low commitment of a 3PL relationship with the operational coverage of a distributor — at the cost of a revenue share rather than a flat logistics fee.
How we run it. JTI Ventures operates all three models from our warehouse in Helsingborg, Sweden — as buying distributor, on consignment, and as last-mile fulfillment partner — for international brands entering the Nordics and for Nordic brands expanding into the EU. Which model fits is usually clear after one conversation about your inventory position, your team and your stage.
Five questions that decide it
- Who should be the seller of record? If you cannot or do not want to hold VAT, EPR and GPSR obligations in the destination market, you need a distributor or an operator model — not a 3PL.
- Who owns the channel relationships? If the value of the market is locked behind retailers and marketplaces you have no access to, a partner who already sells there beats a warehouse that just ships there.
- Where should the inventory risk sit? A distributor pays you whether the product sells or not. With a 3PL, capital sits in stock you still own, in a country you may never have sold in.
- How much control do you need? Brands with strict pricing architecture and premium positioning often prefer consignment or fulfillment models, where they keep the steering wheel.
- What does your team actually have capacity for? The honest answer to this question eliminates one of the models more often than any spreadsheet does.
The bottom line
A 3PL is a logistics vendor; a distributor is a commercial partner; consignment sits in between. Match the model to the stage: distribution when you want presence without an operation, consignment when you want control without the full stack, 3PL when you already are the operation and only need the warehouse. The brands that get this decision right in the first meeting save themselves a restructured partnership eighteen months later.