5 days, not 12 weeks.

the 12-week supplier model

Most pre-roll tube suppliers serving California are running one of two playbooks:

Playbook A — Direct from China factory: You place an order. The factory either runs your order to spec or pulls from their internal inventory. They book ocean freight (4-6 weeks LA), customs clearance (3-7 days), trucking from port to your warehouse (3-5 days). Total: 7-9 weeks if everything goes right, 10-14 weeks if anything slips. You pay deposit on order, balance on shipping.

Playbook B — Domestic broker: A US-based broker buys container-scale from a Chinese factory, holds inventory at their warehouse (usually Dallas, Atlanta, or a Tier-3 city — not LA), and ships you a pallet on your order. Total time: 1-3 weeks. Price: significantly higher per unit to cover their warehousing and per-pallet logistics.

the LA warehouse model

We're a third path. Same Chinese supplier as Playbook A, same container scale, but:

• We hold ~250,000 tubes in our LA Arts District warehouse at any time
• We reorder Container #2 when Container #1 hits ~30% remaining stock (covers 60-day production + 14-21 day sea transit cushion)
• When you order, your tubes ship within 24 hours from 915 Mateo St — not from Dallas, not from Shanghai
• 5 business days door-to-door anywhere in the continental US via USPS/UPS Ground
• Same-day pickup if you're in LA county

the math that makes this work

	Direct-China supplier	Domestic broker	The Pack Guys
Lead time	8-12 weeks	1-3 weeks	5 days
Per-unit cost (5K case)	$0.07	$0.10-0.14	$0.075
MOQ	10K - 25K	500 - 1K	1K
Customs risk on buyer	Yes	No	No
CR cert PDF on request	Sometimes	Usually	Always, within 24 hrs

We sit between the two existing models. Cheaper than a broker because we cut out the intermediary; faster than a direct-China order because we already did the 12-week boat ride; lower MOQ than a direct-China factory because we're already holding the inventory.

where the 5-day promise actually comes from

The 5-business-day commitment isn't marketing — it's a logistics SLA. Here's how it breaks down:

• Day 0 — Order placed before noon PT
• Day 1 — Pick and pack at 915 Mateo, hand off to USPS Priority or UPS Ground depending on weight
• Days 2-4 — Carrier transit (West Coast destinations: 2 days. East Coast: 4 days.)
• Day 5 — Delivered to your warehouse

If we miss the 24-hour ship window on an in-stock SKU, your next 1K case is free. Real penalty, no fine print.

the trade-offs we accept

The LA warehouse model has real costs we're absorbing:

• Inventory tied up — ~$52K in tubes sitting in LA at any time
• Container risk — we eat the shipping/customs fluctuations container-to-container
• Storage overhead — Arts District warehouse rent isn't free
• Slower expansion to new SKUs — every new color/size adds container slots and reorder complexity

Those are real numbers. They're priced into our $0.075-$0.085 per-unit wholesale, and they're worth it because the alternative is making dispensary buyers wait 12 weeks for product they should be able to order on a Tuesday and have on a Friday.

what this means for your buying strategy

If you're a dispensary or brand buying pre-roll tubes regularly:

• Hold less safety stock — when your supplier ships in 5 days instead of 8 weeks, you don't need to carry 60 days of inventory
• Order more often, in smaller quantities — 1K cases at $85 instead of 25K cases at $1,625 keeps cash free
• Test new SKUs faster — try a $14.99 100-unit sample case in a new color before committing

That's the playbook the LA warehouse model unlocks. Not a marketing pitch — a real working-capital improvement for any operation buying tubes regularly.