17 Aug Freight Audit & Inventory Management: Save Money As You Rebalance Inventory Levels
Freight audit solutions from SSI provide crucial savings to savvy business leaders who, swamped with excess inventories and short on warehouse space, are navigating multiple inventory-management crises. Our best-in-class freight audits allow shippers to recover carrier refunds as goods get shipped across global supply chains and onward to warehouses and customers.
Also, there is a growing opportunity for shippers to gain more freight and parcel savings from reverse-logistics. Customer returns are a costly headache for businesses – especially those with e-commerce operations. As reported recently by The New York Times, consumers today are actually purchasing fewer discretionary goods, yet they are returning more than ever before. “In 2021, shoppers returned an average of 16.6 percent of their purchases, up from 10.6 percent in 2020 and more than double the rate in 2019.” 1
Contact SSI to learn how our global freight audit solutions can help you gain substantial savings amid all of today’s inventory-management headaches.
CONVERGING FORCES ARE CREATING INVENTORY CHALLENGES
Many factors are contributing to the rising costs associated with inventory management. A wide range of companies are dealing with an unexpected glut of products. Why? Primarily because consumers pivoted away from spending on goods as Covid restrictions lifted and inflation rose. As CNN Business succinctly puts it, “This has left retailers with too much of the wrong stuff.” 2
Further, a profusion of supply chain challenges in recent years have resulted in businesses stretching out their buying cycles. This means supply chain managers have been bringing goods in earlier to ensure shelves are stocked when the goods are needed.
In addition, many companies bulked up on orders as “just-in-case” inventory management adjoined or even superseded standard just-in-time processes. Adding to the crisis, fresh shipments ordered months ago are now sitting offshore or stacking up at terminals, exacerbating port congestion. 3
Regarding terminal storage, some key ports are threatening to fight back. Recently, the East Coast’s busiest container port, the Port of New York and New Jersey, joined its West Coast counterparts in Los Angeles and Long Beach in threatening ocean carriers with penalties for using its terminals for storage. 4
Taken together, these factors have created an increasingly painful warehouse-capacity crunch. Storage space is hard to find. Which means the warehouse space that is available is getting much more expensive. Inventory balancing has become top-of-mind for business leaders who are exploring a range of options to manage inventory carrying costs.
As reported in a recent DC VELOCITY article, companies “can ease the pressure by turning to liquidation websites, Amazon partnerships, shared warehouse space, and hybrid retail/DC facilities.” 5 Of note, each of these solutions requires even more shipments of goods and that’s why you need a top freight audit company like SSI.
FREIGHT AUDIT PROVIDES SAVINGS AS INVENTORY MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS MOUNT
In the midst of the current inventory-management crises, SSI freight audits provide your business with a constant flow of carrier refunds. So, as you move inventory from point A to B to C, you can be sure you are never paying more than you owe every step of the way.
The savings add up fast as we perform a comprehensive service audit of invoices from global, regional and local carriers. In fact, one thing that sets SSI apart from other freight audit companies is we ensure you recover all the refunds due to you on every freight invoice you receive worldwide.
ABOUT SSI
SSI is consistently recognized as a best-in-class, multimodal freight audit services company. Freight audits have been a core competency of SSI for more than 30 years. Our experience is virtually incomparable, as we have audited hundreds of millions of freight and parcel invoices since our inception.
- Customizable solution scales with your growing and dynamic business needs
- Automated freight audit drives savings to the bottom line
- Cutting-edge data visualization facilitates analysis
- Actionable business intelligence supports supply chain optimization and operational efficiencies
Contact SSI to learn how your business may save tens-of-thousands of dollars a month with global freight audits.
Footnotes:
1. Michael Corkery, “Retail’s ‘Dark Side’: As Inventory Piles Up, Liquidation Warehouses Are Busy”, July 30, 2022, as published by The New York Times.
2. Nathaniel Meyersohn, “Here come the discounts at Walmart, Best Buy and Gap”, August 1, 2022, as published by CNN Business.
3. Liz Young, “Surging Retail Inventories Are Swamping U.S. Warehouses”, August 2, 2022, as published by The Wall Street Journal.
4. Colin Campbell, “Port Authority of New York, New Jersey plans dwell fee to cull empties”, August 3, 2022, as published by Supply Chain Dive.
5. Ben Ames, “No vacancy at the warehouse”, July 27, 2022, as published by DC VELOCITY.
Do you have operations in Canada? SSI is affiliated with DTA, Canada’s most trusted name in freight bill audit, cost allocation and analytics. Contact Robin Stuart in Toronto at 647.981.4544 if you would like to learn more about DTA.
Post title: Freight audit & inventory management: save money as you re-balance inventory levels.