Companies can master peak season with ease by leveraging the power of cross-docking in the final mile.
Peak season is right around the corner. It’s time to start planning your last-mile logistics and shipping strategies for the period that starts in August and extends through December — and sometimes later. Known for being the prime retail season, this time of year also finds back-to-school consumer demand driving up demand for merchandise in the months leading up to the busy holiday season.
With e-commerce sales on track to surpass $6.3 billion this year and over 20% of retail purchases happening online, getting orders from the warehouse to the customer’s doorstep quickly, affordably and efficiently has become a key focus for many sellers.
The final mile can be challenging for retailers that ship large, bulky items. Whether it’s a sofa, a treadmill, a gas grill or something else, all these products take up extra space in already-cramped warehouses. They also require special handling and, in some cases, larger delivery vehicles.
These nuances compound upon themselves during peak season, when most shippers are receiving, stocking and managing a higher volume of goods. One solution is cross-docking, a distribution strategy that reduces warehousing and fulfillment costs, speeds up delivery times and maximizes final-mile logistics efficiencies. And when you add new-school crowdsourcing to old-school cross-docking, you get an innovative approach to streamlining peak season inventory management.
What is cross-docking?
Cross-docking isn’t a new concept in shipping, but it is one that hasn’t been used much in final-mile logistics because it requires much coordination, collaboration and communication between the various supply chain players. Establishing a cross-docking strategy can also be resource-intensive.
Some of these challenges ease when crowdsourced cross-docking is deployed. Cross-docking not only minimizes storage needs, but it also speeds deliveries and reduces the number of times that orders have to be “touched” during the final mile of the supply chain. Here’s how cross-docking works:
- The inbound goods arrive at the warehouse via truck.
- Those items are quickly sorted and staged according to the corresponding outgoing orders.
- Instead of storing the received items in the warehouse, the goods are transferred immediately to outgoing delivery trucks.
- Then, the orders are loaded and shipped to the customer’s doorstep.
As a leading logistics management platform, Roadie provides crowdsourced cross-dock options through its new RoadieXD™ offering. This solution combines cross-dock capabilities with crowdsourced delivery by the Roadie nationwide network of drivers and seamlessly joining digital and physical offerings for final-mile deliveries of bulky items such as grills and furniture.
RoadieXD™ significantly eliminates the need for storage space, reduces delivery times and lessens the amount of human labor required to manage big and bulky items. Companies can also use cross-docking to consolidate smaller shipments into larger last-mile shipments, effectively streamlining the flow of orders from the receiving point straight through to their final destinations.
Five reasons to use last mile cross-docking this peak season
The perils of peak season include more inventory to manage, labor shortages, delayed shipments, higher shipping rates and general unpredictability. Winter weather can impact delivery schedules, for example, and stock-outs can impact customer service levels. These and other issues can take a bite out of peak season profitability.
Crowdsourced cross-docking helps companies maintain better control over their final-mile logistics, lower their storage costs and meet their customers’ delivery expectations. Here are five more reasons to consider Roadie as your crowdsourced cross-docking partner this peak season:
- Reduce labor costs. By moving merchandise from one truck to the next without ever storing those goods, you can minimize the amount of hands-on work from team members to get orders picked, packed and shipped.
- Lower storage expenses. By its very nature, the cross-docking process reduces overhead costs and keeps product out on the dock or in a staging area (versus having to store it on warehouse shelves or the floor).
- Less warehouse overhead. Warehouse space is expensive. There’s a monthly rent bill to pay, utilities to cover, maintenance issues to address and equipment like shelving and racking that has to be installed and maintained. These expenses can add up quickly, but not if you use cross-docking in your last mile. If the inventory is going out as quickly as it’s arriving, the need for storage space dwindles.
- Improved inventory management. Inventory is expensive and its volume tends to climb during peak season. When you move goods from the truck to the dock and then back to the truck for delivery, you can reduce the amount of time that you hold those items. You also get paid faster, which, in turn, boosts your company’s bottom line.
- Happier customers. In a world where quick shipping is table stakes, companies that use RoadieXD™ for cross-docking the final mile can fulfill orders more efficiently and quickly. Products spend less time in storage and get shipped out faster. This delights customers and keeps them coming back to place more orders.
Peak season doesn’t have to be a logistical nightmare
With proper planning, there’s no need to store massive amounts of inventory in preparation for peak season. Instead, you can take a proactive approach now and start deploying final-mile cross-docking in your operations. So when the time comes to manage higher inventory levels and fulfill more customer orders, you’ll be able to guarantee a reliable journey from “Add to Cart” to your customer’s doorstep — and all stages in between.
