Evaluate road and rail connectivity to major trunk routes, transit times to primary domestic markets, last-mile carrier density, and proximity to ports for export. Prioritize 3PLs with established parcel integrations, multi-carrier options, and documented carrier SLAs to maintain consistent delivery windows.

Dordogne often offers lower rent and land costs than coastal and metropolitan hubs, which reduces fixed overhead. Expect lower carrier density and potentially longer lead times to some metros; mitigate with multi-node inventory strategies, scheduled carrier consolidation, and capacity agreements for peak seasons.

Require WMS/WCS integration, real-time inventory visibility, automated picking or scalable manual operations, dedicated returns processing, temperature-controlled storage if needed, and API connectivity for order routing and parcel label generation to maintain SLA consistency.

Track OTIF (on-time in-full), order cycle time, picking accuracy, cost per order, inventory turnover, dock-to-stock time, and claims rates. Require regular operational dashboards and root-cause analysis for exceptions to manage cost-to-serve and continuous improvement.