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3PL Central taps fresh investor funding to acquire fellow WMS vendor

Buying CIO Technologies and its CartRover product will help 3PLs to add new merchants for their omnichannel fulfilment services, 3PL Central says.

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Ben Ames
By Ben AmesDec 01, 2021
Ben Ames
Ben Ames has spent 20 years as a journalist since starting out as a daily newspaper reporter in Pennsylvania in 1995. From 1999 forward, he has focused on business and technology reporting for a number of trade journals, beginning when he joined Design News and Modern Materials Handling magazines. Ames is author of the trail guide "Hiking Massachusetts" and is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism.
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Logistics software supplier 3PL Central has acquired fellow tech vendor CIO Technologies, saying its flagship product CartRover will help third party logistics providers (3PLs) to easily add new merchants to their omnichannel fulfilment business flows.

The move marks the latest jump in growth for El Segundo, California-based 3PL Central, which has now made three acquisitions in six months following an injection of $45 million into the company in April by its private equity owner, Mainsail Partners.

Both Santa Barbara, California-based CIO Technologies and 3PL Central provide warehouse management system (WMS) and order management system (OMS) software via software as a service (SaaS) channels to third party fulfillment centers and retail merchants.

CIO Technologies’ CartRover specializes in creating e-commerce integrations between order sources—such as shopping carts and marketplaces—and order destinations, such as order management systems, warehouse management systems, and 3PLs. The software provides standard integrations for major shopping cart and marketplace names like Shopify, Amazon Seller Central, eBay, Magento, and Big Commerce.

That CartRover product will now be merged with the two other recent acquisitions made by 3PL Central; Skubana’s advanced order management system and Scout Software’s WMS for privately owned brands.

Together, the three units will enable the seamless flow of data from external commerce engines, transforming the fulfillment process for customers of Skubana, Scout, and/or 3PL Warehouse Manager. Users of those tools will now be able to integrate their systems with any of the more than 100 e-commerce shopping carts and marketplaces they support, 3PL Central said.

“Today’s e-commerce brands need a platform that provides flexibility to facilitate growth throughout their lifecycle,” 3PL Central CEO Andy Lloyd said in a release. “Currently, 3PLs and brands have to piece together disparate solutions to build out their omnichannel fulfillment capabilities. CartRover’s integration capabilities connect Skubana OMS, 3PL Warehouse Manager, and Scout to any commerce platform, making it simple for any brand or 3PL to support flow of orders from new sales channels.” 

Addressing current CartRover customers, Lloyd said users “can rest easy,” saying CartRover will continue to operate as an independent product and will be available whether or not you are a 3PL Central, Skubana, or Scout customer. “Further, they will continue to expand their support for order destinations and fulfillment software,” Lloyd said in a blog post. “Over time, we will more tightly integrate them with our product set, but we intend to continue to support the merchants, 3PLs, and software providers they support today.”

ArticleTechnologyWarehousing 3PLSC Services
3pl central
ArticleTechnologyWarehousing 3PLSC Services
3pl central

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