Saturday, July 5, 2008
at
6:22 PM
|
Another problem facing comic retailers almost every week these days
is the issue of damaged shipments. Back when Diamond ran delivery
trucks to accounts, this situation was not the large dilemma that it is
today. The boxes were loaded onto their vehicles (in our case, from
the Baltimore warehouse), and that’s where they stayed until off-loaded
at a central “drop-off” store location. Now, however, the boxes are
handled at least three times by the United Parcel Service workers as the
freight goes from the Diamond warehouse in Memphis, TN to the UPS
service center in Richmond. The standard “double wide” shipping boxes
used by Diamond were sturdy enough when they were handled by
people who were aware of what they contained…..but now they are being
moved by workers who are not necessarily aware of their contents. With
the boxes being as heavy as they are, a box can be dropped from a foot or
two and suffer enormous damage to the contents.
We pay an average of $10 per “heavy” shipping container each week,
and our freight charges usually run anywhere from $80 to $120 depending
on the size of the shipment. I think, instead of playing the Blame Game
every week (“It was Diamond employees”……”It was a dropped box”…..)
we should call for one of two things……..
1- Reduce the “weight size” of the boxes to about (40) pounds……true,
someone would have to pack more boxes each week, but it seems
reasonable to assume that there would be less damage to a lighter
box….
2- Come up with a sturdier box…..and with cardboard as expensive as
it is these days, this is the more undesirable of the two solutions…
Either way, if Diamond has fewer “damage replacements” to worry
about each week, that could free some employees to do a better job
of packing our shipments, and save quite a bit of money on Next Day
and Second Day Air shipments sending out replacement inventory….
…..just a thought….anybody else in the business have anything to
offer on this topic?
is the issue of damaged shipments. Back when Diamond ran delivery
trucks to accounts, this situation was not the large dilemma that it is
today. The boxes were loaded onto their vehicles (in our case, from
the Baltimore warehouse), and that’s where they stayed until off-loaded
at a central “drop-off” store location. Now, however, the boxes are
handled at least three times by the United Parcel Service workers as the
freight goes from the Diamond warehouse in Memphis, TN to the UPS
service center in Richmond. The standard “double wide” shipping boxes
used by Diamond were sturdy enough when they were handled by
people who were aware of what they contained…..but now they are being
moved by workers who are not necessarily aware of their contents. With
the boxes being as heavy as they are, a box can be dropped from a foot or
two and suffer enormous damage to the contents.
We pay an average of $10 per “heavy” shipping container each week,
and our freight charges usually run anywhere from $80 to $120 depending
on the size of the shipment. I think, instead of playing the Blame Game
every week (“It was Diamond employees”……”It was a dropped box”…..)
we should call for one of two things……..
1- Reduce the “weight size” of the boxes to about (40) pounds……true,
someone would have to pack more boxes each week, but it seems
reasonable to assume that there would be less damage to a lighter
box….
2- Come up with a sturdier box…..and with cardboard as expensive as
it is these days, this is the more undesirable of the two solutions…
Either way, if Diamond has fewer “damage replacements” to worry
about each week, that could free some employees to do a better job
of packing our shipments, and save quite a bit of money on Next Day
and Second Day Air shipments sending out replacement inventory….
…..just a thought….anybody else in the business have anything to
offer on this topic?
Posted by
The Goods Group
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