the art of importing...

... well i hope that you all find my blog interesting b/c i like to mix things up with MR and also talking about my family. today it is all about business and i want people to understand what extreme amounts of coordination it takes to get stuff here to the US.

deb works on all the fine details of scheduling containers to arrive here - and we are moving on up as some of our containers are now 40 ' LONG (rather than 20 ' LONG). that is a lot of stuff. and here is the trick about containers, if you book a whole one, it doesn't matter if you have 1 roll of ribbon in it or 10,000 rolls of ribbon in it - so it is in our best interest (and our customers) to try to coordinate getting our container filled to the limit ( and there is a US weight limit so that is another story). and the reason we do this is so that we can keep our prices fair and low. it doesn't make sense for us to ship 4 containers only 25% full of stuff each time when we can get it all in one bang shot.

but then along with this comes the coordination of getting all of our factories to deliver all the products at the same time to the container loading date. if one misses, then you have to reschedule the container or that stuff gets left off.

and now that it is on the boat, the sailing time is about 3 weeks but if there is bad weather or traffic, that can take even MORE time.

so now the MR container is at port. cross your fingers that it doesn't get held up at customs. also these are huge container ships. if we were the first containers loaded, it could mean we are the last unloaded - luck of the draw again. also all of the paper work has to be right or the container won't be released and then we end up paying for storage the port.

after the MR container is released, then it is railed over to the hub and then it is trucked to the warehouse. and the warehouse is spending the day inventorying and sorting everything before it is ready to go.

so we are looking at from the time it is made, packed, put into a container, shipped, arrived, inventoried and shipped a period of anywhere from 6-12 weeks.

so when customers and retailers ask me things like "why can't you tell me when your container will get here?" or " if you can't give me a more reliable supply, we will go elsewhere", i just want them to understand the logistics behind it all. although MR is small, we are not the only company that has to tackle this issue. i know other companies (big and small) have to tackle the same issue. that is also why we try our darnest to adhere to the first come first serve order policy. it is only fair. but when you arrive late, i am truly sorry that something is out of stock. we are working on improving what we can...

... and deb and i were talking about how complicated the scheduling is b/c she does most of it now, and she asked me "didn't you do all of this before in your old life as a supply chain planner" - yeah i did - but i had an "easy button" -like staples - and i just planned and directed and people got it done for me (LOL)!

have a great THURSDAY!

oh yeah, check back tomorrow as i will be giving away a RAK of stuff (including that cute MR book Ali Edwards used in the Sept CK article!)