News and Insights for Logistics and Supply Chain Professionals
Most logistics and transportation salesmen are hunters. By hunters, I mean they go hunting for customers every day. They are just like any other hunter, sometimes they make a kill and other days they go home empty handed. The hunter’s main weapon of choice is the cold call. The skilled hunter gets a phone number [...]
I've Found a Better Way to Sell 3PL Services When I first began selling 3PL services, I was surprised at how difficult it was to make a sale. My sales process was ridiculously inefficient and ineffective. I was successful, but it was still a real struggle closing business with the right kind of customers. I [...]
How to Select a 3rd Party Logistics Provider (3PL)
"My logisticians are a humorless lot ... they know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay." - Alexander the Great I have always loved this quote because it captures the do or die nature of logistics with a funny, but morbid twist. While managers are no longer killing logistics guys, [...]
Recently, a shipping manager asked me what selection criteria he should use when selecting a 3PL. As a sales guy for a 3PL I am always anxious to impress shipping managers, so I created the following 9 things to consider when selecting a 3PL. 1. Understand the 3PL Business Models – Asset based, Non-asset based, Asset light [...]
Free Shipping For Customers: When “Crazy” Makes Sense Major Australian fashion retailer The Iconic has broken their previous holiday season’s sales record, and is estimated to almost triple their previous profits by the end of the year. Remarkably, the reason for this success is not a revolutionary new business model, or a price-slashing sale. It’s because [...]
Retail and Sales: Understanding Order Fulfillment From home-based entrepreneurs to CEOs in big companies one rule is commonly kept close to heart: Keep your customers happy. To do this, one must either master the complicated process of order fulfillment (which could take up 90% of your time) or simply choose a fulfillment partner who can [...]
Best Pick and Pack Shipping Systems for 2014 Order fulfillment has seen a rise in technology in 2014 and there is now a large offering of advanced products to help make your warehouse function more efficient. With software plugged into your warehouse management system, picking and shipping orders has become a lot more accurate. The [...]
Could you “Bump” Yourself to Some Savings? Dimensional weight is not applicable in LTL…or is it? While, in the truest form, dimensional weight is typically only applicable when dealing with parcel carriers and freight forwarders. However, just as parcel carriers want to invoice for the capacity that the carton occupies and perhaps not the weight, [...]
Differentiating through Resilience Supply chain risk is one of the top 5 concerns in many boardrooms. We live in a world where control and measurement are increasingly dominant and in which many executives believe that everything is within their control. “What cannot be measured, cannot be managed” is the perceived wisdom, so they set out [...]
Logistics Negotiations How did you prepare for your last logistics negotiation? Did you practice your eagle eye glares so you could intimidate your carrier rep? Perhaps you thought positive thoughts and visualized great rates. There seems to be lots of opinions about logistics negotiation, but not very much research. Wouldn't it be nice to enter [...]
Prepare your ERP for 3PL Adopting a 3PL (third party logistics) provider model is common practice as businesses seek to exploit value throughout the supply chain. During adoption, supply chain directors tend to focus on commercial contracts, logistics between the production site and the warehouse, warehouse staffing and training, picking returns procedures and so on. [...]
