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Access a portfolio of information specifically about the Promotional Products Distributors industry including brochures, research, articles and a video. Use this content to aid in maximizing the efficiency in the sourcing, order fulfillment and distribution aspects of your supply chain.Video
Industry Research & Articles Brochures
Wholesale Distribution — DCs with Branches Distribution Network (PDF)
Your distribution needs call for industrial-strength solutions. The distribution business is no place for the fainthearted. You've got to think fast, act fast and make the right decisions about everything from purchasing, warehousing and ordering to picking, packing and shipping. That's why you need a shipping ally who can meet your every challenge.
Wholesale Distribution — DCs Distribution Network (PDF)
Operational excellence is what distribution is all about. From purchasing, warehousing and ordering to picking, packing and shipping, distributing industrial products can get complicated, and it's a business that relies on the dependability of your operations. You need a shipping ally who can help you find every kind of solution, every step of the way.
Wholesale Distribution — Full-Service Industrial Distributor (PDF)
Delivering consultation, installation and parts, without falling apart. When you're the full-service distributor, you're also the custom-solutions provider, the technical adviser, the procurement supplier and the product deliverer. You're also the one with the ability to keep your customers' facilities up and running. So you'd better make sure that you can deliver on time and on budget.
Wholesale Distribution — Industrial Direct Marketer (PDF)
It's all about managing thousands of parts, while staying in one piece. As a direct marketer of industrial products, your business is all about juggling thousands upon thousands of products and delivering the right products at the right time to the right place for the right price.
Wholesale Distribution — Local Industrial Distributor (PDF)
Fitting the right customer with the right product at the right time. As the local industrial distributor, your business depends on balancing inventory levels with customer service. You're at your best when you're perfectly balanced between understock and overstock. Where you have everything on the shelves that your customers need — and not much more. Customers are happy, and costs are lower.
Video
Wholesale Distribution Industry Video
Watch a short video on how you can make your domestic shipping more efficient and exceed customer expectations.
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Industry Research & Articles
Use Transportation to Improve Supply Chain Ratios (PDF)
A review of your supply chain metrics can help identify opportunities to improve your supply chain costs and efficiencies. Read this article to gain ideas on how you can evaluate inventory turns, inventory carrying costs and more supply chain ratios as you look for ways to improve your supply chain operations.
Where Are You on the Transportation Best-Practice Continuum? (PDF)
The supply chain has become a place of new and creative ideas and the focus for business differentiation and efficiency. This article provides a framework to help you review your transportation practices and assess where you may want to change your processes.
Transportation Management (PDF)
Well managed shipping can contribute to the bottom line and top line too. While there should be a strategic approach to shipping, too often decisions are based on the misguided view that shipping is strictly an expense. This paper outlines a framework distributors should go through to align their shipping strategy to their business strategy and lower their costs. A tool at the end of this paper will help you diagnose your company's strengths and weaknesses as it relates to shipping management strategy.
Network Optimization (PDF)
Every distributor faces a similar business challenge shipping goods, utilizing their distribution network to deliver products fast and cost effectively to ever more demanding customers while at the same time reducing inventory investment and lowering costs. The cost of managing a network averages about eight percent of sales. But cost is only one factor. There are also strategic implications as the network dictates how well distributors can provide service and quality and meet business objectives. There are some common areas that many distributors can look to to improve their networks, for example semi-fixed facility costs. More importantly, the benefits that a well-designed distribution network can generate in revenue growth, customer service and profitability needs to be carefully reviewed.
Transportation Practices Study for Distributors (PDF)
Sponsored by FedEx and the Industrial Supply Association and performed by Texas A&M University, this study highlights key findings of a benchmarking survey on companies that move product through the industrial supply chain. The study focused on costs, haul characteristics, and modes and issues facing shipping personnel in industrial distribution.