Puma and Columbia Sportswear are deepening long-term partnerships with major logistics providers as brands increasingly turn to 3PLs to manage complex distribution operations.
In late September, Puma unveiled it expanded its relationship with Maersk, tasking the ocean carrier giant with managing three of its automated U.S. distribution centers.
The facilities, located in California, Arizona and Indiana, span a combined roughly 2.3 million square feet and support the footwear brand’s retail, wholesale and e-commerce operations.
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Meanwhile, Columbia Sportswear has entered a 10-year strategic logistics partnership with GXO in Europe, with the contract logistics provider taking over operations at the outdoor brand’s primary continental European distribution hub in France.
The agreements come as fashion companies face a supply chain environment defined by higher costs, trade uncertainty, shifting consumer demand and the need to move inventory across multiple channels without building a larger internal logistics organization on their own.
According to the 2027 Third-Party Logistics (3PL) Study from NTT Data, Penske Logistics and the University of Tennessee’s Global Supply Chain Institute, 86 percent of shippers said they are increasing their use of outsourced logistics services. Research from Gartner released in July indicates that one in three supply chain leaders expect their logistics outsourcing budgets to increase by at least 10 percent over the next two years.
Thanks to its outside investment, Puma is bringing robotics into the Maersk -run trio of warehouses via AutoStore automated storage and retrieval technology.
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