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www.dcvelocity.com DECEMBER 2018 DC VELOCITY 45
of fulfillment. UPS is the publisher’s main
parcel carrier.
As the holiday season approaches, PRH implements its “2-Day Rapid
Replenishment” program for independent
bookstores. Beginning Oct. 1, bookstores
that place their orders by 3
p.m. will receive them within
two business days. The two-day transit program, now in
its eighth year, is standard
throughout the season. “We
recognize the importance of
bookstores’ receiving product to support their holi-day-season sales, so we’re
willing to increase our transportation cost to make sure
they get their orders in two
days,” Danek-Akey says. That short-term
increase produces long-term benefits for
PRH: The program has been instrumental
in generating “great sales” from independent bookstores, she notes.
Filling a truckload and dropping those
packages into national and/or regional parcel carriers’ networks across the country
can help to lighten the load on local infrastructure, Wilkinson says. Good communication helps to speed the parcels to their
destination. Penguin Random House, for
example, uploads package-level detail to
UPS as it finishes loading a trailer. This
expedites processing at the sortation center
because the parcel carrier can decide how
to handle the packages before the truck
arrives.
Another way to reduce the burden on
carriers’ networks is to deliver some consumer orders via LTL service to stores and
then use ship-from-store and pick-up-in-store strategies. This adds to a seasonal
increase in store labor costs, but it also
reduces miles, “touches,” per-piece transportation costs, and in some cases, days
in transit. Positioning inventory closer to
customers—for example, in regional distribution centers—provides more flexibility
while reducing transit times.
Diversify your carriers. Spreading parcel
volume across multiple carriers can help
to assure capacity at busy times. Green
that by shifting to regional carriers, which
have a smaller geographic footprint
but usually offer faster transit times
and experience fewer bottlenecks,
Parker says.
Wilkinson agrees that diversifying carriers can be a smart way to
increase flexibility
but cautions against
approaching regional carriers only
when the going gets
tough. Capacity is
very tight for them,
too, during the peak
season, and they will
have to give priority to their existing
customers. Having
a year-round business relationship allows for advance
planning and makes it more likely
that your holiday shipments can be
accommodated.
Communicate early and often. If
there’s anything e-commerce has
proven, it’s that consumer pref-
erences and demand can change
quickly. That’s why regular pro-
active communication throughout
peak season is important. Pitney
Bowes, which helps many mer-
chants with labeling and tracking
of parcels, routinely sees consumers
tracking their packages nine or 10
times during a delivery period. This
shows “how hungry they are for
more information than they typically get,” Snyder says.
When it comes to working with
carriers, Danek-Akey says, “It
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