A modern retail business faces an unprecedented range of challenges and opportunities. It might be able to ship specialised goods across world, and have access to a range of technological tools to facilitate the effort. This is what has made practices like next-day delivery so widespread. But at the same time, making the best use of the available resources, and thereby maximising efficiency and profits, might present a challenge in a complex environment like this.
Implementing a retail consolidation program is something that many modern retailers do, in order to simplify their operations. Let’s take a look at this, and how it works.
What is retail consolidation?
Retail consolidation provides the chance for retailers to combine shipments together. It’s seen as an antidote to ‘less than truckload’ shipments, which necessarily involve wasted space in the container, and therefore wasted journeys.
How does it work?
A retail consolidation program is tailored to the retailer implementing it. It sets rules that the shipping company must obey. These might concern the timeliness and quality of the delivery.
Suppliers delivering to the same retailer might divert their less-than-truckload shipments via a consolidator. This is a way of disparate suppliers pooling their transportation resources. Smaller shipments are sent to local consolidation centres, where they are optimised together prior to shipping to the final destination.
The main benefits
The most obvious benefit of consolidation is the waste it eliminates. Since shipment performance is improved, the retailer experiences fewer lost sales and other disruptions.
Consolidation can also help to speed up delivery, since it avoids many of the delays inherent in LTL shipments. Since the schedule is predefined, it’s possible to retailers to anticipate deliveries and organise their activities accordingly. In otherwise, you can play your working day around fewer, predictable deliveries, and avoid having to split your attention.
Consolidation also tends to produce a better, more connected and transparent supply chain. Vendors and suppliers are better able to co-operate with one another, which means a shipping and inventory system that works better for everyone.
Precursors for a successful program
Of course, not every business will be able to implement a program of this kind without first doing a little groundwork. This tends to mean researching your options and outsourcing your consolidation.
A good program will be one implemented with the help of an experienced and well-resourced consolidator. This is the company that actually does the work of bringing together all of those shipments. The largest consolidators are vast international operations. They’re able to not only fulfil your orders, but to provide you with ongoing advice and information concerning the state of your shipping and what might be done to improve it.
