Toys and gifts live or die on the fourth quarter. For many brands, the holidays are the bulk of the whole year's sales, packed into a few frantic weeks. On top of that peak you have gift wrap to apply, bundle sets to kit, retailer rules to follow, and safety papers to keep on file. Miss capacity in November and you miss the year. We plan your Q4 in June, so the busy season is a busy season, not a crisis.
Why the holidays break most 3PLs
A warehouse sized for your normal months cannot absorb a Q4 spike. When the orders triple, picks back up, boxes sit, and shipments slip past the dates customers need for gifts. That is when brands get the dreaded "we're full" call in November, with no time to move. We avoid it by planning surge capacity months ahead: we scale pack staff and reserve seasonal space starting in June, and we tell you the inbound deadlines that get your stock on the shelf before the peak shipping windows close.
What we handle for toy and gift brands
- Seasonal surge capacity, scale up Q4 without changing 3PLs
- Gift wrapping and tissue-and-ribbon presentation options
- Gift message printing and insertion at pick-and-pack
- Multi-item gift set kitting, bundle SKU assembly
- Amazon FBA prep, poly-bag, FNSKU, bundle labeling
- B2B retail distribution, Target, Walmart, specialty toy retailers
- EDI compliance for major retail routing guides
- CPSC documentation handling for toy imports
Gift wrap and messages, at the pack station
A gift order is not a normal order. It needs to look like a gift and carry the buyer's note. We handle that at pick-and-pack: tissue and ribbon, kraft wrap, or a branded gift box, triggered by an order tag or the gift option at checkout. Gift messages are printed and slipped in the box. Standard orders get a clean standard pack-out. You set the rules once and every box follows them, so the person opening it gets what your customer paid for.
Retail-ready for the big accounts
Selling into Target, Walmart, TJX, or specialty toy stores means playing by each retailer's routing guide. We prep wholesale shipments to those rules: GS1-128 carton labels, UCC-128 EDI labels, the right poly-bagging, and master carton counts. Most major routing guides are already on file, so a new retail account does not mean starting over. Our in-house print shop can also run your gift cards, inserts, and branded packaging in the same building that ships the toys.
Toy safety papers, kept on file
Toys come with paperwork. We receive and store your CPSC Children's Product Certificate and test reports alongside your inventory records. To be clear, we do not create these documents, that is your manufacturer's job, but we keep them on file, include them with shipments when needed, and pull them during a returns inspection. So the compliance trail stays with the stock instead of in someone's inbox.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. We plan for Q4 capacity increases starting in June. We scale pick-and-pack staff and allocate additional warehouse space for seasonal inventory builds. Contact us by September to onboard and receive Q4 inventory in time.
Yes. We offer tissue wrap + ribbon, kraft wrap, and branded box gift presentation. Gift wrapping is triggered by an order tag or gift option at checkout. Gift messages are printed and inserted at pick-and-pack.
Yes. We handle retailer routing guide compliance for major toy retailers including carton labeling, EDI, poly-bag requirements, and master carton configurations. Most major retail routing guides are already on file.
We receive and store CPSC Children's Product Certificate (CPC) and test reports with your inventory records. We do not generate these documents, that's your manufacturer's responsibility, but we can include them with shipments or reference them during returns inspection.