How CBD For Life Scaled Smoothly

CBD For Life is a Denver-based wellness brand offering a range of CBD and THC products including rubs, gummies, tinctures, sprays, and skincare. Every formula is developed in house, and every finished product is third-party tested by SC Labs for potency, pesticides, and heavy metals. Every product is third-party tested and clearly labeled, giving customers full transparency into what they are getting. With a 4.7-star average across more than 8,000 verified reviews, CBD For Life has built a reputation for products that deliver.

Challenge

Thomas Schnakenberg, CEO, purchased CBD For Life in 2022 after years of manufacturing its products. He saw an opportunity in a brand that had stalled during COVID and believed it had more runway. Getting back to growth was the goal. Keeping up with that growth turned out to be the problem.

CBD For Life handled everything in house in the early years after the acquisition. Thomas and a small team manufactured the products and shipped every order themselves. At 20 orders a day, that worked. At hundreds of orders a day, it did not. Black Friday pushed the limits hardest. Four people spent the holiday packaging product instead of with their families, working through more than 700,000 orders during the season.

After two years of brutal Q4 pushes, Thomas made the call to find a fulfillment partner. The business needed a 3PL that could meet several specific requirements:

• Absorb rapid order volume growth without disruption
• Sit close enough to CBD For Life’s Denver operation for same-day product drop-offs
• Provide hands-on, responsive account management
• Offer competitive carrier rates that could be optimized over time

Solution

Thomas evaluated several fulfillment centers before choosing Symbia. The deciding factor was not price. It was geography.

Inventory can run low without much warning. The ability to drive product directly to the warehouse the same day it was ready was something only a local partner could offer. Symbia’s Denver facility made that possible, and it became the primary reason CBD For Life signed on.

Onboarding took about two months with no major hiccups. Scott Guilmette was Thomas’s point of contact from the first conversation and remained the primary contact throughout. A few months into the partnership, Thomas raised a concern about shipping costs. Moving from in-house fulfillment to a 3PL had introduced new carrier expenses that had not existed before. He brought the issue to Scott directly.

Symbia moved quickly. They onboarded Uniuni and DHL alongside existing USPS volume, creating a system that selects the lowest-cost carrier for each shipment. The implementation took about two months and the savings were immediate.

“That first Q4 with Symbia was the least stressful holiday season we’d had in years. I just watched my phone and the orders go up. I didn’t have to worry about any of it.”

— Thomas Schnakenberg, CEO, CBD For Life

Outcomes

The partnership delivered results across operations, costs, and the long-term direction of the business:

• First Q4 with Symbia required zero in-house fulfillment, giving the entire team their holidays back
• Shipping costs dropped significantly following carrier diversification with Uniuni and DHL added alongside USPS
• Time freed from fulfillment reinvested into marketing and brand development
• Office closure and full remote transition underway, eliminating a $10,000 monthly rent obligation

“When Thomas raised the shipping cost issue, we treated it like our own problem to solve. We got the right carriers onboarded and the savings showed up right away. That kind of responsiveness is what this partnership is built on.”

— Scott Guilmette, Vice President of Business Development, Symbia

If your brand is growing faster than your current fulfillment setup can handle, Symbia works with DTC and CPG brands that need a partner who can grow with them. Reach out and let’s start the conversation.