I litteraly became my own agent (3PL)

Hi everyone,

Im a 24 years old running an online store selling electronics accessories.

For a long time, I had a decent number of daily sales but very low margins. My average order value is only $15–$20/order. Since I don’t run ads, my profit margin is around 30%, and shipping alone used to eat up about 30% of that profit. On top of that, my niche doesn’t really allow much bundling or playing with pricing, so it’s hard to increase AOV.

I live in China (I’m French, fluent in Chinese, and studied here), and last year, I signed a contract that allows my company to ship goods overseas directly. Basically, I became my own 3PL. I started by buying custom branded shipping bags (factories have high MOQs, so I ended up filling my room with 2,000 bags haha) and a small label printing machine.

I already knew that agent were taking decent margins but it's only after doing everything myself, I realized even more how overpriced many of the “common” shipping agents are. My shipping costs are now averaging around 15%, compared to about ~30% before.

So here’s my question:

Given that I speak English, French, and Chinese, live in China and near a shipping hub (potential 3-5 days shipping for most of Europe), already have all the shipping paperwork set up, and have shipped over 3,000 orders so far — plus I’m very transparent about costs and margins (which often isn’t the case with Chinese agents) — and I also think being foreign helps build trust and cultural understanding with Western sellers… do you think it could be worth focusing on the 3PL side and becoming a full-time agent for Western businesses?

Feel free to ask me anything if I missed important details,
And sorry in advance for any typos!