2023 was a generally downtrodden year for 3PLs, with plummeting transportation rates and shippers focused on right-sizing inventories and reducing logistics costs.

Third-party logistics providers enjoyed another growth year in 2022, driven by inventory buildup from past supply chain disruptions and decreasing purchased transportation costs.

Strong consumer demand, continued supply chain bottlenecks and tight carrier capacity sent air, ground and ocean transportation rates soaring to historic levels in 2021 as shippers leaned on third-party logistics providers to bolster inventories and avoid product stockouts.

The COVID-19 outbreak created a volatile U.S. third-party logistics market in 2020, which presented growth opportunities for 3PLs with strong carrier management, e-commerce and airfreight forwarding capabilities, while other 3PLs did not fare as well.

Coming off an extraordinary growth market in 2018, third-party logistics companies operating in the United States experienced a more mixed year in 2019.

The two main drivers of growth for logistics companies in 2018 were an inventory buildup to beat tariffs and solid expansion in the domestic economy.