Is Your Brand Ready to Go Viral? Why CPG and Wellness Brands Need Omnichannel Fulfillment Providers

For growing CPG brands, going viral is the new dream. But the rewards and risks of overnight success require young companies to be prepared to scale quickly into omnichannel fulfillment earlier than ever before—fundamentally changing how they plan for growth and what kind of 3PL partner is best suited for their operations.

Every modern founder dreams of waking up to their product on their main feed—but are any of them planning for the flood of demand that comes after?

For today's consumer brands launching in the health, wellness, and CPG space, overnight success is a real and increasingly common milestone. Rhode Skin exploded in popularity in 2024 with the help of influencer marketing and viral products like the Lip Gloss Case, taking it from a small line of D2C products to over $210 million in omnichannel sales in 2025. PacSun sold 11,000 pairs of jeans in 48 hours after a creator with just 5,000 followers posted a single video. Viral growth is a real strategy for success—if you can handle it.

To understand what growth-stage D2C brands actually need from a logistics partner to be prepared for long-term success—and where most get caught off guard—we spoke with Steve Syverson, Vice President of Sales at ITS Logistics.

Steve Syverson has over 20 years of supply chain and logistics experience, during which he has focused on helping direct-to-consumer brands build better ecommerce strategies and expand into B2B omnichannel.

Going Viral: The New Dream for CPG Brands

Not long ago—though it may seem that way—the dream for launching a consumer brand was methodical, not viral: launch a good product with ecommerce, build a loyal fan base, grow steadily, and eventually earn a spot on retail shelves. Founders could plan their supply chain around predictable growth and manageable order sizes.

That model still exists, but it's no longer the only one—or the one many CPG brands strive for. Social media has fundamentally changed what growth looks like for consumer brands, enabling them to blow up overnight, sometimes without even planning to. But the value of overnight success comes with new demands that a lot of brands aren’t prepared for.

The Logistics of Going Viral as a Growing CPG Brand

These days, all it can take is one video. An influencer is spotted drinking your protein shake. Your face mask becomes the newest secret for glowy skin. A fitness creator recommends your supplement, and your website is flooded. Overnight, your biggest challenge shifts from generating demand to fulfilling it, and supply chain operations become a make-or-break for your customer experience.

When your viral moment happens, here's what matters most in your supply chain:

• Inventory Visibility: Real-time inventory visibility and centralized inventory management ensure you aren't selling stock you don't have—and leaving customers waiting for weeks with no answers. When inventory counts live in a spreadsheet or have delayed updates, the risk of overselling increases—and so does the real cost of canceled orders and refunds. Every unit that ships needs to decrement from your storefront immediately, so what's available is always accurate.
• Scalable Labor: You may have all the product you need to meet demand sitting on the shelf, but without the people to pick, pack, and ship it, order fulfillment simply doesn’t happen. The ability to quickly scale labor is critical—and for well-designed 3PLs, this is built into the model through cross-training programs, on-call staffing pools, and the operational flexibility to redirect warehouse staff in real time.
• SKU Prioritization: Viral moments typically concentrate demand on one or two products. Your fulfillment provider needs to be able to quickly shift pick-and-pack workflows—reprioritizing high-velocity SKUs, reconfiguring station setups, and processing surge volume without letting accuracy suffer on everything else.
• TikTok SLA Requirements: If you're selling through TikTok Shop, TikTok requires dispatch within 2 business days and delivery within 6. Those windows don't flex because your volume spiked. A 3PL that doesn't understand TikTok's fulfillment requirements will get your shop penalized at the worst possible time.

If you want to lean into this moment with influencer marketing and content creator campaigns, your fulfillment partner needs to be ready for that too. Custom kitting—building branded, presentation-ready packages designed for unboxing content—requires space, workflow flexibility, and trained staff. A viral unboxing video is a powerful testimonial to potential customers. So is a viral video of a damaged, incorrectly packed, or generic-looking shipment.

Want to see what great custom kitting operations look like? Check out our work fulfilling custom gift boxes at scale for ReachDesk, the #1 B2B gifting and swag provider.

After Virality: Expanding CPG Brands into Retail and Wholesale

Virality is a fleeting moment, but if done right, it is a springboard for growth. Your brand has an opportunity to realize new revenue, win the hearts and wallets of new customers, and expand into wholesale channels.

D2C fulfillment is built around individual orders: low item counts, branded packaging, fast turnaround, and a premium on the customer experience at the doorstep. Retail fulfillment operates by an entirely different set of rules. Major retailers like Whole Foods, Target, and Walmart require EDI integration, routing guide compliance, case-pack configurations, specific pallet builds, and strict delivery window standards. Less unboxing, more that box better be here on time—every time.

The warehouse layout, labor model, and technology stack that serves D2C well often needs to be reconfigured entirely for wholesale—unless your 3PL was already built for both.

Why Choosing an Omnichannel 3PL Provider from the Start is Key

Because most new consumer brands don't start with an omnichannel distribution strategy, they often choose a provider that can meet their current needs for the lowest cost and promise to figure out the rest later. But the problem with modern CPG brand growth is that "later" is now arriving faster than expected. This is exceptionally true for brands that receive VC-backing, when investors want to push channel expansion as quickly as possible.

This is the central argument for choosing an omnichannel-capable 3PL from the start: when virality comes—and opportunity follows—you don’t want to be scrambling to find a second provider, migrate inventory, or re-onboard with an entirely new partner while you should be focusing on growth.

With an omnichannel 3PL, your fulfillment infrastructure is capable of serving whatever channels you need at launch, and ready to scale as soon as you need it. It also means your inventory lives in one place, under one roof, managed by one fulfillment partner with full visibility across every channel.

Integrated parcel capabilities matter here, too. For growing brands shipping smaller volumes, shipping costs are often the single largest expense line item. An omnichannel 3PL with access to both national and regional carriers—and the volume to negotiate competitive rates—can meaningfully improve unit economics and give you at-scale costs while you’re still scaling. Integrated parcel also reduces time in transit, and for health, wellness, and packaged food products, a shorter time between the shelf and the porch is key to product integrity.

Get Ready to Go Viral with an Omnichannel Logistics Strategy

If your brand is growing—or ready to grow—ITS Logistics's distribution & fulfillment services can be the omnichannel fulfillment backbone that makes it possible. Our network of nationwide locations offers two-day reach to 96% of the US, with integrated transportation solutions, temp-controlled facilities, and a team of experts who will work with you to design a network that prepares your brand for growth. Just like we worked with Caraway to scale order volume 280% during their hyper-growth stage, or Nature’s Bakery to activate their omnichannel distribution work.