Why is inbound difficult to manage for retailers?
1. Vendor compliance
- Problem – Issues with managing inbound freight for retailers are often due to vendor compliance, especially with larger vendors. Often times, the vendor will route the order late. This prevents transportation planners from consolidating the shipments. The late planning causes an increase in cost.
- Solution – Weekly reporting on consolidation and freight spend savings allows for vendor compliance issues to be addressed. In-transit reports are sent out to the buyers for updated real-time information on their orders. This also allows the vendor compliance associate at the retailer transparency to the flow of orders.
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2. Timely arrivals of Purchase Orders (POs) to the DC
- Problem – If the orders are routed late, then they also arrive at the DC after the cancel date. This causes the retailers to lose sales and increases freight spend. This is also a huge issue for launch orders such as Nike Air Jordans, which need to hit the stores on time!
- Solution – Request for early routing by vendors is essential, particularly for the launch orders. The TMS allows for priority references to be added to the POs. These are added to a report that is sent to the vendors on a daily basis until the POs are finalized.
3. Planning labor for receiving
- Problem – If the orders are arriving late, then there will be issues on the receiving end of the process. The DC will have to schedule more labor due to the increase of volume due to the necessary late acceptance of the need product.
- Solution – The managed TMS provides an extensive data log of past orders and shipments. This data can be converted into a forecast that will enable the DC to plan for labor.
What processes has managed TMS provided for managing retailers’ inbound?
A managed TMS provides visibility to the vendor, retailer, and the planners. The TMS “pings” the vendors with emails daily, starting when the buyer initially places an order. This allows the vendor to pull the available inventory for the orders. If they are short on orders, they are able to communicate the out of stock notification back to the buyer. The TMS also allows the planner to consolidate shipments based on their desired receiving date for maximum cost savings.
enVista provides the customer service and tools necessary to prevent possible issues. We provide daily support of the managed TMS operation. This provides the retailer and vendor with extensive visibility to their orders. Weekly reporting on consolidation and freight spend savings allows for vendor compliance issues to be addressed. In-transit reports are sent out to the retail buyers for updated real-time information on their orders. These services are essential for freight spend savings and process improvements.
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