Welcome to Parcelconsulting
Welcome to Parcelconsulting
As we venture into a new lifestyle together and business environment requiring new strategies, at least for a while, it certainly pays to take a deep breath and remember there are going to be many challenges and obstacles beyond our individual and collective control for the foreseeable future. We don’t have a clear idea how long things will be different, but it’s unmistakable our global way of life is going to be disrupted and significantly altered for a while.
One thing that seems evident as this pandemic unfolds is that shipping, logistics, and fulfillment will be an essential part of stabilizing the national and global economy and maintaining some semblance of our normal way of life.
While our business provides some unique consulting services for product-based businesses of all types on shipping and logistics, this article is simply intended to share some general insights into the current state of the shipping industry during this pandemic and provide any company delivering products to their customers a path forward. Here are some simple strategies to come out of this global pandemic better and help provide local, national and global stability in an uncertain time.
In the mid-2000s, I trained to become a USMC 5711 Marine Corps Defense Specialist (CBRN), before cross-training as MOS 6672 Aviation Supply Specialist. This gave me a foundational understanding of how the government and public might respond to a global pandemic, as well as the basics of working in a supply chain environment.
While I am no longer an expert in pandemic response strategy, I have spent nearly a decade in supply chain management. Over the course of my parcel-industry career, I have had the opportunity to work closely with many of the industry’s leading experts and gained key insights that have now helped thousands of companies in the United States with their shipping and fulfillment. My team at Parcel Consulting and I put together this guide to share our insights into the last decade in shipping and help your company find some light at the end of this tunnel.
The seriousness of the Coronavirus should be clear and it seems to have the entire world reacting with a collective speed and uniformity never seen in most of our lifetimes. Unfortunately, or fortunately (depending on your perspective), there’s only so much you can personally do to help yourself, your family and friends, and your business.
For starters, follow the CDC Coronavirus guidelines whenever possible and start planning for social and work life from a distance.
We’ve all seen enough random emails about this or that company’s Coronavirus plans over the past few weeks. It’s generally helped me figure out which companies require an unsubscribe. It has also reminded me of a few things that I definitely needed to order and I placed an immediate order for all of them.
It also made clear the need for simple, straightforward communication about the real challenges that all businesses will be facing in the near term. Take the time to let your loyal customers know about any challenges or delays expected in any aspect of your business and if you have some contingency plans in place.
Even if you don’t have an answer from your carriers, suppliers, or partners about their expected delays or specific issues, it will generally pay to craft an update to your active and prospective customers about the specific challenges your business will be facing from the Coronavirus. It’s certainly a good time to let them know about any changes to your current operations and the best ways for them to engage and support your business right now.
Remember, this can be an opportunity to simply inform them of expected delays, but it could also be a request for assistance with some particular issue. Your customers, partners, and network might surprise with the resources they can bring to bear.
The US supply chain was designed to meet the regular demand of US consumers, typically just in time. Although shelves may be empty at your local Kroger or Winn Dixie; this will be a short-term issue for most products.
The major supply chains and trucking routes are running as usual, with lighter traffic in most cases. Grocery stores, pharmacies and other essential goods providers have simply not experienced a run like this any time in recent history. There are certainly many products that will be limited in availability as people continue to stockpile them or some companies face delays from international suppliers; but most products you could get one month ago will be available again in the next week or so.
Stores look empty and household staples like dairy or meat may not look fully-stocked for some time. Warehouses are stocked with month’s worth of canned goods and nonperishable food products to keep grocery stores supplied. Fresh produce was planted months ago and crop plants will be harvested on Mother Nature’s schedule; produce isn’t vulnerable to financial markets.
For some products, like electronics, office supplies or even toilet paper, the supply is based on a regular demand. In these cases, we may see short-term supply issues as manufacturers race to keep up with unusual buying patterns.
My advice: Keep two weeks of food and water at home, but there is no need to buy a one-year supply of mac ‘n’ cheese or toilet paper. Jacob Margolis published a detailed article in LAist on the current supply chain situation and some of the specific issues for consumer goods and products around the country that was helpful for deciding which products might be worth stocking up on. (Have a look; it’s a great read!).
Generally, this is a good reminder that stocking up past a reasonable amount on most consumer products is not necessary and is placing unnecessary stress on the system and others with basic needs.
CNN posted an article on March 16th about the current operations and plans of UPS, USPS, FedEx and Amazon during the pandemic. Generally, they are all continuing scheduled deliveries as expected.
An important clarification for customers and employees alike at all those businesses that are shipping products and sending/receiving mail on a regular basis was also covered in the CNN article: “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also said there is very low risk of coronavirus spreading from products and packages, even if they were shipped from China, because of the “poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces.”
They were clear in the advice to wipe down and sanitize anything that you reasonably can, but this should make clear that commerce in general will involve many more delivered items than it did even months ago.
For those businesses utilizing (and possibly relying on) Amazon’s FBA warehouses and services, you will want to be aware of their recent announcements regarding the limitations they are placing on shipments to their facilities due to the Coronavirus outbreak.
Amazon said until April 5th they will, “prioritize shipment of “household staples, medical supplies and other high-demand products,” and, “will focus on prioritizing the reception, restocking and delivery of the essential products that are most in demand from this new uptick in activity from Amazon shoppers. For all other products, Amazon says it has disabled the creation of new inbound shipments for FBA members, as well as for retail vendors (their business-to-business selling platform).”
The writing should be on the wall for all other FBA members, you need to explore all the options available to grow your business and keep your shipments flowing without Amazon.
Full disclosure, I’m a happy and frequent customer of Amazon’s. They deliver to my house regularly and they are playing an essential role in the continuing function of the economy. That doesn’t mean you’ll be able to rely on Amazon for continued growth, or even basic functioning, of your business.
Just in time supply chains from overseas have obviously been disrupted and the reliability of that international system is clearly in jeopardy. According to the March 16 article, Covid-19: How to manage the supply chain risks, recent estimates from Forrester Research show that “94% of the Fortune 1,000 were experiencing coronavirus supply chain disruptions,” and Resilinc, a supply chain mapping and risk-monitoring company, compiled a recent report revealing more than 1000 of the world’s largest companies had some portion of their warehouses and operations in quarantined areas in China, Italy, and South Korea.
If nearly all of the largest companies in the world are experiencing supply chain disruptions, you should be able to recognize that your company and all of your competitors are going to be experiencing similar challenges, issues, and delays for an extended period of time. These disruptions can affect everything from consumer goods, all types of electronics, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, life sciences, industrials, heavy machinery, with many other industries experiencing various degrees of disruption or delay.
The good news for the world economy is many international supply chains, most importantly those from China, are back at a high percent of normal daily capacity for manufacturing and shipping, yet every company in your industry is likely facing the same challenges. Many raw materials come from China and some delays were seen in late 2019-early 2020. Recent reports show a drastic slow in the outbreak within and things are beginning to return to normal in most parts of China.
There is an obvious need for US-based businesses to start contacting US-based suppliers and manufacturers if your business is reliant on any foreign suppliers, whether China returns to full capacity in all sectors anytime soon or not. If that option is not readily available or even possible, it is worth exploring backup suppliers and manufacturers, wherever they are available, to reduce your company’s reliance on one particular supplier or one particular shipping lane or country.
Even if these suppliers are more expensive, you still should consider opening accounts and placing some initial orders to open the option for secondary or backup suppliers. You might find the improved quality or decreased transit time for new inventory and/or supplies are a better options for your business even in the short term.
There is also an obvious need to create accounts with multiple carriers right now as well. If your business has relied on just one carrier so far, that’s frankly amazing (although we see it all the time) and it’s well past time to expand your options. For no other reason than peace of mind and the ability to respond better during times of peak demand, you should want to understand all your available carrier and shipping rate options.
We can take that a step further and show you exactly how much the optimal multi-carrier and fulfillment strategy will save your company and you expand your peak season and emergency capacity as a beautiful by-product of the process. We take it even further still and show you all the software systems you can run your optimal multi-carrier and sales channel strategy through. Choice and competition are incredible things when they work together to meet your exact needs.
Shipping software has come a long way over the past 15 years. We have some idea what we’re talking about at Parcel Consulting, as founders of one of the original multi-carrier shipping software systems.
My team and I have worked with and studied the entire ecosystem of software companies, carrier networks, various suppliers and technology that make up this interesting and extremely relevant aspect of nearly all product-based ecommerce businesses and modern retailers of all sizes. We’ve worked for and with all the major shipping carriers to deliver creative and tailored solutions for thousands of end shippers.
Most companies we have worked with over the past decade have the same shopping cart, shipping software, marketplaces, CRM, point of sale system, payment processor, accounting software and generally the same software systems they have had in place for years. We get it, it’s hard to change the software systems your company has relied upon successfully (for the most part) for years.
Shopping cart transitions take forever (and can drive you insane when migrating from older carts designed specifically to make it hard to ever leave them behind). It takes time to set up a new store with a new marketplace and even more to learn marketing and sales strategies for that new channel. And it takes even more time to manage inventory across these various channels without the right technology in place.
The current situation presents a perfect opportunity to explore all the ways you can improve your shipping and fulfillment and possibly any internal process with new technology and better software. It also presents the perfect opportunity to grow your partnerships and sales channels to reduce your dependence on any one sales channel or partner (or an 800+ lb Gorilla named after a rather famous rainforest).
Switching shipping software providers is typically a far easier process to change than many other systems. While it takes work, many of the established and new shipping software providers have interchangeable integrations for all the same key points of data flow or shipping label manifestation.
As with most popular software platforms, they’ve adopted similar functionality, UI design/flow and terminology to the process. It’s pretty much the same services and same core options available with plenty of subtle exceptions. They wouldn’t want you to know that and probably won’t willingly admit that, but they all know it and try to focus on the things they do well for their target market or niche in most cases.
The main question is: Which additional features, functions, and carrier options are best suited to your business and which provider presents the best pricing and usage plans for scaling up or scaling down your current shipping and fulfillment operations?
Your company can now integrate all sales channels into a single software system that will automatically assign the best shipping carrier by delivery time or delivery cost or product type or just about any other business rule imaginable. Most of these systems offer an assortment of plug-and-play options for the most popular sales channels, like Shopify, Woocommerce, Amazon, eBay, Rakuten, and more.
They also let you plug in existing accounts or create new accounts with all the major carriers and some creative new options you might not be familiar with. Many of these different software systems specialize in some particular niche industries, like pharmaceuticals or print shops or major fulfillment warehouses or SMBs or national retailers with legacy systems.
Leveraging the experience of a software company that has been helping your niche industry solve the most complicated fulfillment challenges and automate the common shipping processes will be more important than ever. While it could be the right time to reinvent the wheel, your classic car is likely to roll a lot faster with four, brand-new Goodyear Eagle F1 tires freshly rotated and balanced.
This certainly doesn’t mean outsource your whole fulfillment department and fire your employees. Quite the opposite. It means make all your employees and partners and customers lives easier and better during this difficult time. Make everyone’s time at the office more effective and efficient so that you can potentially rotate responsibilities throughout the day in shipping to limit the number of workers in the warehouse at once.
Imagine what freeing up hours per day and lowering your shipping costs by 10% or more can do for your current workforce. It can certainly mean the difference between keeping your current staff fully employed through the pandemic and being forced to lay people off or put them on part time hours.
If you can grow your ecommerce sales and effectively manage the increased demand for fast product delivery at lower costs, you can become a community, area, and national leader that gets to provide incredible customer service and new employment opportunities well-adjusted for a new way of life, however long the current state of affairs might last.
Sure, that sounds exhausting, but the time is now to explore every detail of your ecommerce business or your job. The good news is there are many companies and independent contractors that can help you with that process. We happen to specialize in the shipping and logistics field.
There are interesting software solutions and experienced independent contractors on sites like Fiverr and Upwork that can help streamline things like book-keeping, data entry, graphic design, web design, content creation, marketing and sales automation, consulting and so much more. These are also great sites to make additional money if you are looking for something remote.
If you’ve never contracted someone on Fiverr, you really are in for a world of fun and the potential is there for exponential duplication of your efforts on many different fronts by simply creating a system (or even just a basic task list) for some outsourcing where it might help. In the current state of the global economy, you will certainly see a lot more of these contractors from right here in the US.
If you’ve been hesitant to utilize foreign contractors or have even just wondered what you would have a virtual assistant do for your company, try sitting down and putting together a list of things you’ve been meaning to do that you could simply hire a contractor and get done today. You’ll probably pleasantly surprise yourself with how long the list gets. Pick a few priorities and hire someone to do them today on your behalf.
Randy Wiskerchin, Regional Business Development Partner at Corporate Management Group, offered some insight into how they are assisting clients right now:
“During these unexpected and unprecedented times, many companies find themselves scrambling to make necessary adjustments to their freight management process in order to meet customer demands. Don’t run the risk of making knee-jerk decisions that may negatively impact your company. CMG operates as engaged partner of your management team providing the assistance you need using our proprietary tools, technology, strong industry relationships and expertise without the cost to navigate this uncharted territory with confidence and peace of mind.”
Your shipping data leaves plenty of breadcrumbs for experienced shipping and logistics providers, especially those with the flexibility to recommend the best solutions for your company. It’s a perfect time to leverage your historical shipping data to get insight into the potential savings from a better multi-carrier strategy.
The simple addition of a carrier/partner like FirstMile, perhaps the most innovative shipping carrier in the US, can realize nearly immediate savings and improve the performance of your current carriers by providing your company with access to their advanced shipping carrier performance data that can be broken down zip code to zip code around the country, and country to country around the world. They help your business make better decisions in your shipping and logistics and reduce your shipping costs with their unique approach.
Most people think about fulfillment houses and 3PLs (third-party logistics) as an all-or-nothing proposition (either outsource your entire fulfillment department or none of it). While most fulfillment houses would be ecstatic to have you outsource all your shipping, many of them have more creative current service offerings that allow you to seamlessly add them into your fulfillment strategy where it makes sense from a financial and customer service standpoint.
With the help of software and established warehouse networks like Rakuten Super Logistics and FirstMile, your company can craft a tailored bi-coastal or regional warehouse fulfillment strategy to bring all of your shipments closer to your customers (and make them quicker and cheaper to deliver by the way).
You don’t need inventory in 32 warehouses unless you’re one of the larger companies in the country, but expanding to a second or third location could reduce transit time and costs. There are many 3PL network options that can help you place inventory in the right locations, while also minimizing costs. We’ve helped many companies implement effective fulfillment strategies into their existing operations in a matter of weeks.
Leverage local delivery options to service territories where you have inventory available. The expansion of fulfillment/shipping locations brings reliable same-day, next-day options into play for additional areas around those new warehouses. We work with many different technology providers and local, regional, and national carrier networks to enable some innovative solutions for this common demand from businesses and consumers alike.
If you currently fulfill from only one location or warehouse, there are many 3PL networks that can store inventory and expand your reach with local delivery options. Our team can leverage historical buying patterns and current demand to help ensure inventory is placed where it makes sense and help you enable cost-effective options for same-day, next-day local delivery.
Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and many other gig-economy delivery services have seen a significant uptick in shipping activity of all types during the Coronavirus outbreak. We work with software partners that help tap into these existing networks to provide local delivery services throughout the country.
These services make it easy for any business in nearly any area already serviced by Uber or Lyft to add local delivery from their available retail and fulfillment locations. This strategy, coupled with an effective 3PL/fulfillment warehouse partner strategy, can enable local delivery options within weeks to a month in the most popular areas for your business and products. This same strategy ties into the bi-coastal approach to fulfillment with the potential to drive down the cost of all your shipments, as well as enable the local delivery options in such high demand.
Parcel Consulting was started with a simple mission in mind: Connect end shippers with the best carrier and rate strategy for their needs and the best software options to streamline, automate and improve the accuracy and efficiency of the daily pick, pack, and label-printing process for their business.
We work with many different carriers and software partners, so that we can recommend the best solution based on more than a decade of actual experience with all of these providers. Most people, even those experienced in shipping and logistics, are surprised to find out how many new and innovative carriers and software options exist now.
We have been tracking, comparing and evaluating them objectively for more than 10 years and we freely share our personal review of your shipping needs by simply scheduling a phone call or video conference with one of our experienced shipping consultants. We’ve been preparing for this for more than a decade and we’re here to help.
Let’s get to work on the next generation of commerce!
Chris Cashin
CEO 833-727-2351
Parcel Consulting
info@parcelconsulting.com
