Using Logistics to Win in a Multichannel Retail World: Transportation and Logistics Solutions

| MCM staff

Determining how a company is going to transport product through the supply chain from the source to the customer is a complex challenge. It is more crucial than in the past, due to global sourcing and the multichannel nature of business. A multichannel merchant not only has to track inbound goods from offshore and domestic vendor, but it also has to handle outbound small-package delivery, often using zone skipping and vendor drop-shipping; replenish stores; cross-dock store receipts and in the warehouse to fill catalog and Web backorders; transport, consolidate, and process returns regardless of the channel where the customer purchased the product; and provide warehouse-to-warehouse transfers, inter-store transfers, and retail sends directly to the customer and receipt of goods at the warehouse closest to the vendor.

Purchasing Pallet Rack as a Commodity—Part 1

| Brent Tymensky

In the 1980s and 1990s, many of the pallet rack manufacturers had large engineering departments to provide application engineering and project engineering for large systems they sold. The application engineers worked with the end users to determine which products best suited their needs and provided the pricing for large systems. Project engineers created the manufacturing bills of materials and the drawings needed for construction permits and installation of the equipment.

Four Key Logistics Goals

| MCM staff

For the supply chain to be effective in a multichannel operation, it is necessary for management to meet four goals:

New Ballgame for Sportsman’s Guide

| Jim Tierney

The Sportsman’s Guide expanded beyond hunting and other outdoor gear with its June 2004 purchase of The Golf Warehouse. Now it’s expanding again, beyond the links to the baseball field.

Show Me The Money!

| MCM staff

One very fortunate director of operations out there is earning a quarter of a million dollars annually, but according to Crandall Associates, he or she is an anomaly.

Buyer Remails Are the Juice

| Jim Coogan

Top management always wants to grow sales without hurting profitability. The most reliable circulation tactic to grow sales and profitability at the same time is to increase the frequency of remailing the best segments of your buyer file. Here

Assurance policy

| MCM staff

Daniel Knight is the director for fulfillment quality assurance (QA) for Home Shopping Network’s Roanoke, VA, distribution center. HSN is part of New