Interstate retail logistics – “Last mile with a smile”
key retail logistics metrics
Delivery times reduced from 2-3 weeks to 7 days
Delivered 2021 pallets
97% on-time delivery
100% of pickups completed on the day of booking
100% POD compliance
Our Client
Our client is a Melbourne based lighting and homeware retailer. Their retail outlets provide a wide array of products and brands – from ceiling fans to desk lamps and outdoor lights. Since beginning in Melbourne in the 1970s, the brand has expanded to over 100 stores around Australia. Their stores can be found in shopping centres, standalone outlets, or as big box retailers.
The Challenge
The retailer needed to move significant amounts of stock to Perth from Melbourne as the Perth market was becoming their biggest paying point. They approached Elite Logistics Australia to take control of retail logistics for this critical and growing market (from the warehouse to stores, shopping centres etc.) in the Perth region. Their current provider gave them very little visibility over stock and slow delivery timeframes, leading to complaints and poor communication from their Perth stores.
Retail Logistics Solutions
Elite Logistics Australia organised a retail logistics solution involving the transport of freight from Melbourne to Perth with a linehaul partner. Elite Logistics’ retail transport team then provided the last mile delivery from the Perth linehaul transport depot to retailers across the city and regional WA.
This required overcoming some challenges, the primary one regarded integration between two carriers. Usually, this involves creating 2 consignment labels, one for linehaul and 1 for the last mile delivery. However, 2 consignment notes on the same pallet often lead to misdirected freight, wrong deliveries, and extra work for the customer. The more manual steps that you put into a process the greater chance for error. Given the stakes of a mistake caused by mislabelling pallets of expensive lighting, multiple consignments were not an option that Elite Logistics wanted to entertain. To combat this, we used our Transport Management System of TransVirtual in a unique way and could despatch the same consignment to both the linehaul provider and Elite WA at the same time. From a retail store’s perspective, they only needed one consignment before the freight would travel seamlessly through the network to the stores with tracking events and PODs available in real-time.
Elite Logistics Australia has a primary commitment to always making the process easier for customers. Elite Logistics had to figure out how to integrate the retailer’s warehouse management system into the ELA platform. Unfortunately, they were running a slow, archaic system that had low visibility, meaning they couldn’t produce an output file to integrate and consign with the ELA’s platform. To solve this issue, ELA organised a simple upload template CSV file with data on all the Perth stores. This included the number of pallets, height, weight etc. that the retailer could upload and email into the ELA transport management system. This solution gave the ELA team and the customer visibility and control of the delivery. ELA contacts the receiving store ahead of the freight arriving in Perth to arrange the delivery schedule, allowing the store to roster staff appropriately for unloading. The communication helps manage the inbound volumes, especially during peak times when the number of pallets can exceed what the store can accept on a given day. Elite provides a personal and customised delivery service of “last mile with a smile”.
The Results speak for themselves
Our retail logistics solutions provide the customer with full visibility and transparent reporting of their stock and orders. The new system allows us to transition between carriers on one consignment note to greatly streamlines the process. Our Perth team fully coordinates with the rail carrier for pickups from the transport depot and ensures all orders are accounted for.
Having a dedicated delivery team creates a more seamless and personalised service for client stores. The Perth retail outlets receive familiar delivery teams and staff, live technology updates, and more streamlined delivery operations. The drivers know where the freight is going, and who it will be delivered to, and can organise flexible service if a pallet needs delivering early or late within an improved timeframe.
“Elite has made our lives much easier. Allowing us to have access to Transvirtual and providing complete tracking events on every jobs allows our Logistics Team to answer 95% of the internal questions without having to ask anyone. When we do have a question the Elite Customer Service team and the WA State Manager respond straight away. We love the Elite Online System and visibility”