Shimane's coastal ports and direct highway links shorten sea-to-truck and truck-to-customer legs for western Honshu. That reduces transit times for regional lanes and increases options for short-sea carriers, scheduled trucking, and consolidated distribution, improving reliability for eCommerce and B2B replenishment.

Assess racked storage capacity, temperature-controlled zones, order-picking technologies, and returns processing. Evaluate SLAs for pick-and-pack, FIFO/LIFO handling, and connectivity to your OMS/WMS for real-time inventory and multi-channel order routing.

Primary cost drivers include land/lease rates, local wages, utility costs, and transport access. Look for municipal incentives, lower property taxes, and grants that can offset fit-out costs. Model cost-to-serve by SKU velocity and last-mile density to determine optimal facility scale.

Monitor on-time shipment rate, order accuracy, inventory accuracy, dock-to-ship cycle time, and claims/returns ratio. Also track carrier mix, average transit days to core markets, and cost per order to validate the 3PL's performance against your SLAs.