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Consumer Goods / Retail / Fashion #2

Synopsis

SBA manages white glove, time-specific deliveries for a high-fashion national retailer in the women’s apparel industry.

Project Requirements / Specifications

• High-value Equipment with High Damage Risk
• Expedited Vendor to Store Distributions/Store Routing
• Door-to-Door; Inside Deliveries
• Scheduled Pickups
• Scheduled Appointment Deliveries, usually after store hours
• Centralized (one-source) Customer Service Center
• Warehousing / Consolidations
• Lift Gate Delivery; 24’ Trade Trucks with Apparel Racks
• Same, authorized driver to handle all deliveries at a select high-security store located near prominent government offices
• Coordination of New Store Openings

Background

For over 50 years, our client has been providing women with high-fashion apparel and accessories to coincide with a woman’s dynamic and demanding lifestyle. Today, they operate as a $2 billion annual company with over 800 retail and factory stores nationwide. Most of our client’s merchandise is imported from Asia and brought into a 500,000 sq ft Worldwide Distribution Center. From there, the merchandise is shipped daily to various locations throughout the U.S. by LTL, truckload and expedited services. In September 2007, SBA joined forces with this high-fashion apparel leader in order to address serious service issues with their previous carrier, including:

• High Theft Rate
• Lost Shipments
• Lack of service
• Failure to meet time-specific delivery windows

Although our client gave their past carrier the opportunity to rectify these service issues, change became necessary and the company began looking for a dependable white glove carrier. They came to SBA because we went beyond the services of other carriers.

SBA’s Solution

SBA works with this high-fashion industry leader to effectively manage their white glove, time-specific and high-security sensitive location deliveries. SBA acts an extension of this client’s business in the following ways:

• SBA provides efficient specialized white glove services that other large carriers cannot guarantee. We pickup everyday from their Worldwide Distribution Center and bring it back to our warehouse to hold for 1-2 days. By providing this warehousing/consolidation service, we are able to keep costs low while making sure shipments are delivered in a single consolidated shipment.
• SBA understands this client’s business and realizes that they must replenish their stores on a 2-3 day cycle, so that they’re not overwhelmed with too much inventory but have enough stock for customers. In support of this, we deliver twice a week to select U.S. store locations and exclusively deliver all freight to Hawaii and Puerto Rico. During these scheduled appointment deliveries (which usually occur before the store opens or after it is closed), the client’s staff waits for SBA to stock up their shelves and racks. SBA understands that it is extremely important to arrive on-time to maximize employee productivity. For this reason, we are also handling the majority of their new store openings that require a time-specific delivery.
• In order to protect goods in an industry with a high theft rate, SBA black shrink-wraps all shipments going to their Hawaii and Puerto Rico store locations. If the black shrink-wrap and/or SBA security tape has been tampered with, SBA is able to track the issues. Although our client does not require this value-added service, it is our way of protecting our customer against theft, keeping claims low and maintaining high customer satisfaction.
• SBA has procedures in place that govern our drivers and equipment to maximize security and eliminate theft. To this end, we are able to dedicate a specific security-screened driver to make all deliveries to our client’s select high-security store location.

The Results

• SBA has drastically reduced this client’s past claims rate ratio. Through more than 1,600 shipments in the first nine months, we only processed 1 claim for $50 (which is extremely low in the apparel industry).
• Since beginning work with this client, we’ve been able to provide better service and communication than their previous carrier. This improvement has created additional opportunities to work with them on new product line roll-outs (e.g. a new perfume line to be delivered to all stores).
• This client has referred us to another large apparel company to assist in opening their first stores in Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
• SBA is now in the process of bidding on special lanes for additional international business.

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