Tr
a
ns
p
ort
at
i
o
n
INNOVATION • DURABILITY • FLEXIBILITY
Spider Shelving System
Want more than shelving? Get the System.
info@rousseaumetal.com • rousseau-automotive.com
1.866.463.4270 Quality Storage Solution
Other Rousseau products lines
justify the ongoing cost. “It’s a for-
tune,” he said.
Using the Averitt service lets
Fishers Finery avoid that expense.
Barnell estimates that warehousing
Fishers’ inventory with Averitt costs
about one-sixth what it would with
Amazon.
FULL-SERVICE PROVIDER
To understand Averitt’s role in
Fishers’ supply chain, it helps to
know something about the retail-
er’s distribution operation, which
supports about 2,000 stock-keep-
ing units (SKUs). About 80 per-
cent of Fishers’ U.S. imports enter
in less-than-containerload (LCL) ser-
vice through the Port of Long Beach.
The remaining 20 percent is flown to
DHL Express’s U.S. air hub outside of
Cincinnati. Averitt is Fishers’ exclusive
freight forwarder and customs broker for
all shipments, managing the process from
the purchase order to delivery to the car-
rier’s warehouses.
Once the goods enter the U.S., they are
either drayed by a third-party trucker to
an Averitt terminal in Hawthorne, Calif.,
about 15 miles south of Los Angeles, or
move via intermodal service to Averitt’s
main customs clearance facility in
Memphis, Tenn., where, once processed,
they are trucked by Averitt to its terminal
in Erlanger, Ky., just outside Cincinnati.
At the Hawthorne and Erlanger facilities, both of which are located near
Amazon fulfillment centers, Averitt holds
Fishers’ goods until a customer order is
received. Working with Amazon’s IT systems, Fishers chooses either an LTL carrier
or UPS Inc.’s ground-delivery service to
pick up at the Averitt warehouses and
deliver to the Amazon facility. Fishers has
access to ultra-low LTL rates negotiated
by Amazon through the e-tailer’s “Seller
Central” service. (Averitt, which is not a
preferred Amazon carrier, does not participate.) Averitt then handles the picking,
packaging, labeling, and reconciliation,
and prepares the shipment for carrier
pickup. Upon arriving at an Amazon facility, the goods are distributed through the
FBA service.
Fishers’ products reside in Amazon’s
centers only as long as it takes to move
them out the door, Barnell said. Averitt
has already done the heavy lifting to
ensure that the stays with Amazon are as
brief as possible, he added.
Averitt provides Fishers with one
through bill of lading, one consolidated
invoice, and one point of contact with a
dedicated account manager, according
to Barnell. What’s more, Fishers doesn’t
need to hire an in-house logistics practitioner to manage the process, he said.
Barnell had his pick of hundreds of
freight forwarders and customs brokers,
as well as an abundance of customer
fulfillment centers that perform pick
and pack services. However, none of the
