3PL Warehousing in Delhi NCR: What You Outsource, and What Stays Yours (2026 Guide)

In 3PL warehousing in Delhi NCR, you hand over four things and keep five. The operator takes the building and its running cost, the warehouse labour, the storage, picking and packing of your stock, and the dispatch paperwork that travels with each order. Ownership, the buy decision, your selling price, the customer relationship and the tax invoice on your buyer stay with you. The split below is the whole decision.

Key takeaways

• A 3PL takes the facility, the shift labour, the bin-level stock records, the pick-and-pack and the dispatch documents. Ownership of the goods and every commercial decision about them stay with you.
• Quotes rest on three bases: per sq ft per month, per pallet position per month, and per unit handled in and out. Lozy publishes the space bases as floors — ₹12 per sq ft per month on warehouse space for rent, ₹13 on commercial space and ₹14 on business and on-demand space. Each is a basis, not a quote.
• Onboarding runs about four weeks: scope and slotting in the first ten days, stock transfer and first dispatches to day 30, closed with a cycle count of your fastest lines.
• Positions are named rather than generic — Jamalpur, Manesar, Kherki Daula, Faridabad's DLF Industrial Area, Ghevra and Dwarka — inside a network of 77+ warehouses and over one million square feet of live space.

Most businesses do not decide to "use a 3PL". They decide to stop running a shed — a lease that ends, a supervisor who resigns before the peak, an order book that has outgrown the person packing the parcels. What decides the outcome is which activities you hand over, on what basis they are priced, and how you get the stock back.

What 3PL warehousing in Delhi NCR means, and where it stops

Third-party logistics means the storage and movement of your goods is run by a business that neither makes nor sells them. You are the first party, your buyer the second, the operator holding the stock the third. Everything inside that boundary is a service you can describe, price and replace; everything outside it is still your business.

Delhi NCR makes the boundary consequential, because the region is four jurisdictions wearing one name. Stock inside the capital faces entry timing restrictions that a Haryana-side facility does not, and a truck can run from Kundli to Palwal on the expressway arc without entering Delhi. The National Highways Authority of India maintains those corridors, which is why the same stock held at one address serves the region cheaply and at another does not. Lozy's locations page maps the positions available, and the Gurgaon warehousing guide shows how differently the western belt behaves.

The other half of the boundary is skill. An operator earns its margin by repeating the same movements many times a day for many clients, and the Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority and DPIIT both publish on the trade and the policy around it.

2PL, 3PL and 4PL in one line each

2PL is the asset owner — a transport company with trucks, or a landlord with a shed: capacity, not operations. 3PL is the operator that stores, picks, packs and dispatches inside a managed facility, under your instruction and on your records. 4PL is the coordination layer above both, managing several 3PLs and carriers while owning little of the estate. A shortlist of warehousing companies in Delhi NCR is worth reading because the types you meet quote on different bases, and only some run operations at all.

The activity split: what transfers to a 3PL, what stays yours

A 3PL engagement is not one transfer but seven, and they do not have to go together. Read the table row by row and mark what you want to hand over; most disputes come from a row handed over without being offered, or kept without the operator knowing.

Two rows cause more trouble than the other five. Records: a spotless bin file can drift from your ledger for months and surface at a year-end audit, so agree the reconciliation rhythm — what report, in what format, how often, and who owns a variance. Dispatch documents: your tax invoice comes from your registration, while the operator's manifest records what left the building. Both belong in one handover file, signed at the dock.

What the table leaves out is the stock itself: ownership, insurance and the risk of loss stay with you in every ordinary arrangement. If a provider offers to carry that risk, it is a separate agreement in writing, not a remark at the dock.

The three commercial bases, and which one Lozy publishes

A 3PL quote is rarely one number. It is a storage figure on one basis plus a handling figure on another, and in Delhi NCR those figures come from three bases. Comparing two quotes without knowing which basis each uses is the fastest route to buying the wrong thing.

• Per square foot per month. You pay for area — a bay, a demarcated block, a racked row. Best when the stock is dense and the requirement stable, because the bill does not move when the pallet count dips. This is the basis Lozy publishes a floor for: warehouse and godown space for rent from ₹12 per sq ft per month, commercial space from ₹13, and business or on-demand space from ₹14.
• Per pallet position per month. You pay for the slots your stock occupies, filled or not — suited to standard palletised stock and volumes that swing. Ask whether racking is included, rented on top, or yours to bring, because that difference moves the real cost further than the headline rate.
• Per unit handled. You pay for each carton or unit as it moves in and out, with storage bundled low or charged separately. It suits fast-moving order profiles such as marketplace sellers and spare parts, and it makes the storage line on a quote look impressively small.

What Lozy publishes is the first basis, as a floor, plus monthly plans that are not priced per square foot at all: inventory-led storage from ₹4,499 per month, a long-term booking from ₹1,199 per month, and on-demand space booked as needed. A per-unit handling tariff is published nowhere, and should not be: it depends on what your stock is, how it is packed and how many touches a line needs, and it is quoted after the requirement check. Wherever a rate carries the word "from", read it as a floor on a basis, not a quote.

How to compare a per-pallet quote with a per-sq-ft quote

Use your own throughput, not a conversion factor. Count the standard pallets your stock occupies at peak, and the touches a month it generates — cartons in plus cartons out. Multiply the per-pallet rate by your peak pallet count to see the storage bill being proposed; a per-sq-ft rate gives the floor cost, to which you add the handling charged per touch. The city-wise per sq ft cost guide breaks the floor down by market, and the on-demand pricing explainer covers month-by-month booking.

What to keep in-house even when you outsource

Outsourcing the operation is not outsourcing the business. Six things belong on your side of the line.

1. Ownership and the insurance decision. The stock is yours, so the policy that answers for fire, water and handling loss is your call about your own value at risk. Get the operator's answer on what it holds in writing, and let your broker read it.
2. The buy decision. Which lines you carry, in what depth, replenished when. A provider can advise on stock cover from the data it holds; handing the forecast over is handing over the margin.
3. The customer relationship. Contact, promise dates and service recovery stay yours. The operator executes against instruction; it does not negotiate for you.
4. Pricing and the tax invoice. Your invoice, your registration, your description of goods. Read any clause that would make the provider a seller of record.
5. Access control. A written list of who may enter, what each person may withdraw, and what authorisation a withdrawal needs, updated when a role changes.
6. Your stock data. The right to a full bin-level export in a readable format, on request and at exit. Ask for a sample report before signature, not the week you leave.

Two more sit on the boundary: the outbound freight contract can stay yours even when the operator books the vehicles, and return-to-vendor should always be an execution against a decision you have made rather than the decision itself. For a first outsourced arrangement, managed space with the freight kept in-house is often the middle ground, and the Ministry of MSME covers the vendor-management side of that choice.

The first 30 days of onboarding

Onboarding decides whether the next twelve months are quiet or not. Four weeks is a realistic horizon for a mid-sized Delhi NCR requirement; a single rack starts faster, and a transfer across two nodes takes longer.

Days 1 to 10: scope, slotting and the paperwork

This stage is desk work, and it is the one buyers most want to skip. Give the operator your SKU master with dimensions, weights and pack type, plus a view of which lines move fastest; in return you should get a slot plan and written operating rules — the daily cut-off for same-day dispatch, the dock access window, pack and label formats, the invoice fields you need, the report format and frequency, and an escalation path with names attached. No sample stock report by day ten is worth knowing about before the stock moves.

Days 11 to 20: the stock moves in, line by line

Goods arrive, are checked against your list, and the condition of what arrives is recorded rather than assumed. A discrepancy note signed by both sides, with photographs where a carton is crushed, settles the argument you would otherwise be having in month three. A partial first transfer is usually better: send the fastest-moving lines and keep the slow stock where it is until slotting, reports and cut-off times have been proven on real orders.

Days 21 to 30: first dispatches and a closing count

Run the first pick waves against real orders with someone from your side watching one full cycle, checking the label against the order, the manifest against the parcels and the handover record against the courier's acknowledgement. Close with a cycle count of your fastest lines, and agree in advance what variance triggers an escalation.

What 3PL warehousing in Delhi NCR costs

A 3PL bill normally has three parts: storage, handling, and value-added work such as labelling, kitting or repacking. Only the first is a rate you can see coming, and only the first is negotiated.

Lozy publishes space bases rather than a single regional average, because an average without its basis misleads more than it informs. On the basis you intend to occupy, the floors are ₹12 per sq ft per month for warehouse and godown space for rent, ₹13 for commercial space and ₹14 for business or on-demand space, with inventory-led storage from ₹4,499 per month and long-term bookings from ₹1,199 per month where those shapes fit better. The figure you can plan against follows once you describe your goods, your throughput, your term and the node, which is what the pricing page and a short requirement check produce.

Two effects explain most of the surprises. Storage is the visible number and handling is the moving one: a low storage rate with a per-touch tariff can cost more across a month than a higher rate with handling included, once your own volume is applied. And area is not volume — a bay sized for your peak pallets may be half empty in a quiet month, which is where a plan priced off usage beats a rate off area. The monthly warehousing explainer sets that out.

What moves the number

• The node. Land under a shed in the Gurugram belt and land near Kundli are not priced alike, and the difference surfaces in the rate before it surfaces in your transport bill.
• Size and racking. A few racked rows and a full bulk bay are different products, and whether racking is included, rented or yours to bring changes the real cost.
• The touches. In and out handling, per-line picking, kitting and labelling — the part of the bill that grows with success.
• Add-ons. Anything beyond ambient storage, insurance, packaging material and overtime dock use. Describe your goods accurately and you are quoted for the extras you need.

A worked example: a Karol Bagh appliances distributor

A distributor of small kitchen appliances sells through dealers in Karol Bagh, Sadar Bazaar and Pitampura and to two marketplace accounts. It holds stock in a Naraina godown with overflow in a Karol Bagh back room, and peaks around the festive season. One route is to keep both spaces and add a third person for the peak. The other is to hold the fast-moving dealer stock in a managed facility, keep the slow heavy lines in a smaller self-run space, and let the operator pick, pack and manifest the marketplace orders from the same stock — which costs more per square foot on paper, because the managed rate includes labour and housekeeping the business was supplying for free.

The arithmetic that decides it is throughput, not rent. On the published floor of ₹12 per sq ft per month, 4,000 sq ft is a space cost of about ₹48,000 a month before handling — arithmetic on a floor, not a quote, since node, racking and term all move it. Against that, count the marketplace orders you would hand over: on a per-order handling tariff the handling line grows with every order while the storage line stays flat. A dealer-led business will find the space basis favours it; one whose order count is rising fast should model the handling line first.

The place names are not decoration. A position at Jamalpur or Kherki Daula shortens the run to the western dealer base and the expressway; a Delhi-side position at Ghevra or Dwarka keeps the Karol Bagh and Sadar Bazaar runs short, and the warehouse-in-Delhi guide covers what is available inside the boundary. Sellers whose revenue is mostly online should read the same decision through a fulfilment lens, which the e-commerce warehousing service describes.

What people get wrong, and the red flags in a 3PL contract

Four mistakes that recur

1. Comparing quotes on different bases. A per-pallet rate beside a per-sq-ft rate is two products; convert both to a monthly cost at your own peak pallet count and order volume first.
2. Reading the storage rate as the cost. Handling, kitting, peak surcharges and packaging sit outside it, and for a fast-moving business they are the larger part of the bill.
3. Moving everything in week one. A partial transfer protects you while slotting, reports and cut-off times are still being proven.
4. Leaving the exit until later. Notice, final count, withdrawal window and data handover are agreed easily at signature and awkwardly at month nine.

The clauses that matter

• The facility must be named — an address and a shed, not "a facility in Delhi NCR". A provider that will not commit to the building cannot commit to the dock, the cut-off or the fire clearance.
• The handling tariff belongs in an annexure: in, out, per line, per label, kitting, repacking, overtime dock use. A storage rate with handling "to be agreed" is not a price.
• Any minimum storage commitment must be explicit. Take-or-pay is normal in dedicated arrangements and unusual in shared ones; know what a quiet month costs.
• Escalation should point at something. "Market rate" can only be argued about; a review date against a named index can be checked.
• Liability and insurance need a written answer — who answers for damage in handling, what the operator's cover includes, and what you must hold.

Exit and notice, decided at signature

Most 3PL relationships end for boring reasons: the business outgrows the facility, a lease is won on the other side of the city, an in-house operation becomes viable again. That ending should be a schedule, not a negotiation. Settle five things at signature — the notice period and whether it runs with the billing cycle; the withdrawal window in which stock can physically leave; who arranges and pays for the exit movement; the final cycle count and how a variance is resolved; and the format your stock data comes back in. Add the small print that gets forgotten: racking you paid for, and accrued handling. Your entity-level compliance leaves with you — the GST portal publishes the rules on registration, invoicing and e-way bills, and an operator issuing warehouse receipts as an instrument of trade sits under the WDRA framework instead. A client storing its own inventory needs the tax invoice, not the receipt regime.

How Lozy fits this decision

Lozy runs managed space and storage operations rather than a freight fleet, so it sits on the operator side of the split above — and the honest version of that is that not every business should outsource. If stock moves a few times a year and one person can look after it, a straight space booking is cheaper and simpler. If goods move every week and need picking, packing and dispatch documents, the split above is the one worth running.

Where Lozy is useful is in the two rows clients most often get wrong. On space, the network covers 77+ warehouses and more than a million square feet of live space with a Delhi NCR base and a PAN-India footprint, so a requirement can start on the western belt and add a position as the dealer base shifts — browsing what is listed shows what is available. On records, inventory-led storage keeps stock recorded as it moves, with a check-in list and photo inventory behind the handover; the inventory warehousing guide describes that reporting month to month.

For a business choosing between buying space and buying an operation, the three routes are business warehousing for racked, managed positions, inventory warehousing for a plan priced off stock and records, and warehouse for rent when you intend to keep running the floor yourself. Everything Lozy operates is listed on the services page, and the FAQ together with the contact page is where the requirement check starts. Bring your pallet count, your order volume and the node you have in mind — the reply is a rate, the options available now, and an honest answer on whether rented space would serve you better.

Related guides

• warehousing for 3PL partners
• contract logistics in India
• warehouse management services
• warehousing companies in Delhi NCR

Sources. Rates, facility details and network counts are Lozy's own published information. Trade and operator-side context comes from the Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority; logistics policy from DPIIT; highway context in Delhi NCR from the National Highways Authority of India; GST registration, invoicing and e-way bill rules from the GST portal; warehouse receipt regulation from the WDRA; and small-business outsourcing context from the Ministry of MSME.

Last updated: 14 October 2026. Have a question the FAQ below does not answer? Call +91 93547 12345 or email care@lozy.in.