3PL in Australia: what warehousing, delivery and returns really cost for strollers, cots and other bulky products

Australia is huge, but its people are not spread out. New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland hold 77% of the population, and about half of all Australians live in just three cities: Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane (ABS, 30 June 2025). One warehouse in Melbourne or Sydney can reach most buyers.

THE POINTThree east-coast states hold more than three in four Australians.

Melbourne is a common first choice. The Port of Melbourne is Australia's largest container port. It handled 3.52 million TEU (standard container units) in 2025–26. China supplies about half of its container imports, and furniture and toys are among the top goods coming in (Port of Melbourne, 2025; Container News, 2026). Melbourne warehouse rents are also lower than Sydney's, as the next stop shows. Western Australia has 11% of the population and is a long way from the east coast, so serve it from the east at first and tell Perth buyers honestly how long delivery takes.

Your own warehouse is a fixed cost: you pay the rent and the wages whether you sell ten strollers or ten thousand. A 3PL is pay-as-you-go: you pay for the pallets you store and the orders you send.

THE POINTA small warehouse of your own costs about A$90,000 a year before you send a single order.

On these example numbers, the gap between the two would pay the packing fee on roughly 27,000 to 34,000 orders a year. Few brands reach that in their first years. Start with a 3PL, and do the sums again when your volume is steady.

For parcels over 5 kg in your own box, Australia Post charges on the real weight or the “cubic weight”, whichever is greater. Cubic weight is the volume of the box in cubic metres multiplied by 250. Its parcel service also has hard limits: 22 kg, 105 cm on the longest side and 0.25 cubic metres (Australia Post, 2026). Here are three example boxes.

THE POINTA stroller that weighs 8 kg is billed as 18.6 kg, and a flat-packed cot is too long for the post.

Two things follow. First, every centimetre you take off the box saves money on every order, for as long as you sell the product. Ask the factory for a tighter fold or a flatter pack before production, not after. Second, standard cover is small. Australia Post's regular parcel service includes up to A$100 for loss or damage (Australia Post, 2026). A stroller is worth more than that, so ask your 3PL about extra cover.

Australians spent A$82.6 billion online in 2025, about 24% of all retail, and 73% of online shoppers say a good delivery experience makes them more likely to choose online shopping (Australia Post, 2026). What counts as good? In Shippit's 2026 survey, shoppers ranked low-cost delivery first (40%) and fast delivery second (34%). Two in three said an accurate delivery date before they buy is essential or very important.

THE POINTParcels arrive in about 2 days on average, but stores promise about 5. An honest date costs nothing.

Two more numbers set the frame. The average standard delivery fee charged to shoppers rose to A$11.30, and the average free-shipping threshold rose to A$135 (Shippit, 2026). Yet Australia Post's list price for a 3–5 kg parcel in your own box is already A$24.45 (2026), and a stroller is billed at 18.6 kg. So decide early how much of the delivery cost sits inside the product price. These averages also cover all parcels. For a cot sent by a bulky-goods carrier, ask the carrier for real delivery times and show those.

Australian consumer law treats two kinds of return very differently (ACCC, 2026).

THE POINTA change of mind is your choice. A fault is your cost.

So a faulty cot can cost you two bulky deliveries: one out and one back. Plan for it in three ways. Agree a returns price with your 3PL. Keep spare parts in Australia, so a broken wheel means posting a wheel, not collecting a stroller. And write a returns page that matches the law: an ACCC sweep of more than 2,000 retail websites found lines such as “no refunds on sale items”, which can mislead shoppers about their rights (ACCC, 2025). Good returns also sell. One in four shoppers said they would not buy from a store without free or easy returns, yet only 11% of retailers now offer free returns, down from 49% in 2018 (Shippit, 2026).

THE POINTThe warehouse is the small part of the bill. The last leg is the big one.

Read the docket from the bottom up. All the warehouse work for one stroller costs about what a shopper is used to paying for delivery alone. The delivery itself, on a box billed at 18.6 kg, will cost more than a small parcel does. And one faulty return can wipe out the profit on several sales. That is where to spend your effort.

• SAVE1
  Shrink the box first

  Box size is paid for on every order. Fix it at the factory.

• SAVE2
  One warehouse, one coast

  Start in Melbourne or Sydney. Add a second site only when Perth or Brisbane orders justify it.

• SAVE3
  Send less, more often

  Storage is billed per pallet, per month. Slow stock costs money every month it sits.

• SAVE4
  Sell before you ship

  Take pre-orders through a community first, so the first container is sized by real demand.

The fourth one is what we do through Baby Island, our community platform with 10,000+ members. Parents there tell us which colour, which size and how many, before a brand books a container. DAY Concept has helped 6 brands enter Australia, and this step sits in the middle of our six-step process. To see how we find those first buyers, read how we reach Asian-Australian consumers. Next in this series: step 05, choosing your launch channels.

Want us to look at your box sizes and a 3PL quote? Talk to us.

Questions about warehousing and 3PL in Australia