The Concept of Retail Logistics

Retail logistics is the process of managing the flow of merchandise between the manufacturer and consumer and is a vital aspect of the supply chain that companies use to maintain healthy relationships with their customer base.

Stages of Retail Logistics:

Warehouse Receiving

the process of delivering, unloading, and storing ecommerce inventory in a warehouse. A well-established warehouse receiving process can help make inventory management and fulfillment easier, cost-effective, and more efficient.

Inventory Management

Knowing what's available and what is not, will help you evaluate which products are popular with your customers and whether your stock is running low. Stock management will also help you to calculate your profits at the end of the fiscal year, which is very important for tax evaluation and payment.

Order Fulfillment

the method by which a company processes a sales order to the customer's specifications, which understates its importance. Having a cost-effective and efficient order fulfillment strategy in place is crucial.

Order Fulfillment Process:

• Receiving Inventory

This where the incoming Items must be counted, inspected, and inventoried to ensure the proper amount was received and the quality is acceptable. SKUs or bar codes on the arriving products are used in the receiving and storage processes, and to retrieve goods from internal storage later.

• Inventory Storage

Items are ideally stored just long enough to help organize the orderly distribution of goods for existing sales, rather than to hold product for future sales.

• Order Processing

An order processing management system dictates the product picking and packing activities per each newly received customer order.

• Picking

A picking team select items from the warehouse according to a packing slip's instructions. The packing slip contains specific information, such as a list of item SKUs, product colours, sizes, number of units and location in the distribution centre’s warehouse.

• Packing

Packing materials are selected by a packing team to achieve the lowest practical dimensional weight, which is calculated by multiplying package length times width times height.

• Shipping

The order is sent to a carrier to be shipped to the customer.

• Delivery

Order is picked up at the fulfillment centre that will later be delivered to the customer's home.

• Returns Processing

When a customer returns a product for exchange or a refund, the process must be executed carefully to ensure it's appropriate to restock it. Obviously if the product malfunctions, it can't be restocked. Nor can a soiled item also be restocked.

Overall, successful retail logistics solutions ensure the smooth flow of goods to consumers via efficient and effective supply chain management. Storage, transportation, inventory, and administration are all made possible. All of these components require to be working in harmony with one another to ensure successful retail logistics. If you'd like to know how Image International Freight can assist your business with its retail logistics please call +61 2 9773 1378 or email us today sales@imageinternationalfreight.com.au