A Guide To A Healthy Retail Supply Chain
In an effort to outline what a healthy retail supply chain might look like, I have decided to start writing about a specific retail supply chain in a specific industry. The hope is that it helps you understand how to potentially improve your business. This is going to be an organic process so I will ask forgiveness now if some of this information comes in spurts and somewhat disorganized. I find that I go off on tangents about a specific area which may lead us down a path that is not necessarily in the order we all may prefer. If I don’t have a link to the document or the article mentioned, then I haven’t written it yet. The goal will be to flesh out each of those segments as we go along. So with that caveat in place, let’s begin.
The Set Up
We are going to create a fictitious store called Cool Snowboards. Cool Snowboards is a snowboard manufacturer located in New Hampshire. They have a line of 10 different snowboards and a line of winter clothing (hats, gloves, face masks, under garment thermals, snowboard pants, snowboard jackets) which they sell nationally. They have direct relationships with about 60 different retailers. Most of these retailers are small, independent retail shops, but 4 of them are medium to large shops. The medium shops (3 of the 4) have 3-10 retailers in one state. The large retailer has 60 stores serving the Midwest. The sales relationship with the large retailer is serviced through a distribution company called Snowboard Distribution Company.
The Company
Cool Snowboards has 25 manufacturer reps that are not exclusive to their product line. They are located across 18 different states and generally work out of their home. They sell Cool Snowboard products via a catalog that is online (sometimes) or is printed. The printed catalog are shared with the retail shops and/or buyers. As part of the catalog there are several order forms that can be copied or torn out of the back of the catalog. Retail partners are generally encouraged to order product using the order forms or in communication with the rep, which is then typically transferred to the order form. Once this order has been placed, retailers will receive their product after the order has been processed by Cool Snowboards, packaged and shipped out via UPS ground.
Looking at Cool Snowboards
For those manufacturers and retailers in the outdoor industry or those retail chains that still possess these types of symptoms, this process may sound about right. Though more suppliers (like Cool Snowboards) are going online, it is not in the most typical or accessible sense. In most cases companies such as Cool Snowboards will have a website highlighting the products via a cool, flashy web site. Customers interested in the product will have to look for retailers in their local area to buy their products. So the customer is forced to either be lucky to be close enough to a local retail location or find someone selling Cool Snowboard products online.
Things To Analyze:
• The manufacturing process
• The sales process of the manufacturer rep
• The ordering process
• The distribution process
• The retail process
• The reconciliation periods
• Historical data analysis
Then we will take a global/summary look at:
• Lean Supply Chain Opportunities
• Supply Chain Technology and Logistics Software
• Supply Chain Risk Management
• Warehousing Management
• Supply Chain Distribution
As mentioned in the beginning, this is meant to be an analysis in the retail supply chain. Our hopes is that we can expose some chinks in the armor or reveal some ideas that may help you in your journey of understanding the resources available, tactics you can use, or general improvements to your operation.
If you have questions or areas that you would like us to discuss in this journey, please post them here. It will be far more useful if this was more of an organic process with you than not.