Retail industry: How retail shippers can overcome key logistics challenges

These challenges are particularly magnified during peak shopping seasons, where any inefficiencies can significantly impact customer satisfaction and ultimately, profitability.

In this context, digital solutions like those offered by CargoON, tailored specifically for the retail sector, provide a powerful opportunity to optimize logistics and turn operational challenges into drivers of growth. Let’s take a closer look at some of the most pressing logistical issues faced by retail shippers and explore how CargoON’s innovative tools can help address them.

1. Managing omnichannel distribution

Retailers today operate in an omnichannel environment, catering to customers who purchase goods from a variety of sources – brick-and-mortar stores, e-commerce websites, mobile apps, and even third-party marketplaces. Managing this diverse range of channels presents unique logistical challenges. Products need to be delivered across multiple platforms, each with different requirements for delivery timelines, transportation methods, and inventory management. For example, e-commerce customers often expect fast, same-day, or next-day delivery, whereas physical stores might require scheduled bulk deliveries to maintain stock levels. Handling such diverse and complex logistics manually is inefficient and prone to errors, particularly during peak periods when the volume of orders surges.

Solution: CargoON’s Freights solution helps retailers navigate the complexities of omnichannel distribution by centralizing logistics operations. With CargoON, retailers can synchronize transportation across multiple sales channels, ensuring that orders are tracked in real-time and deliveries are optimized to meet customer expectations. This unified system simplifies logistics coordination, reduces operational bottlenecks, and enhances the overall customer experience, whether a product is purchased online or in-store.

2. Dealing with seasonality and fluctuating demand

Retailers must adapt to demand surges during seasonal peaks such as Christmas, Black Friday, or back-to-school shopping periods. These times often place immense pressure on retailers’ logistics networks, making it difficult to forecast and meet transportation needs. Overcommitting resources during off-peak times, on the other hand, can lead to underutilized assets, driving up operational costs unnecessarily.

Solution: CargoON’s transport management solutions offer the flexibility needed to navigate these fluctuating demands. During peak seasons, retailers can tap into CargoON’s extensive network of carriers to meet demand spikes, ensuring timely deliveries. During quieter periods, logistics plans can be adjusted to avoid overcommitting resources, leading to more efficient fleet utilization. This balance between demand and capacity ensures cost-effective operations year-round, preventing stockouts in high-demand times while avoiding resource wastage during slower periods.

3. Solving underutilized backhauls and empty kilometers

A major inefficiency in retail logistics is underutilized trucks – especially empty return trips after making deliveries to stores or distribution centers. These “empty kilometers” lead to wasted fuel, increased transportation costs, and higher emissions. For large retail chains, these inefficiencies can result in significant financial losses and missed opportunities for optimization.

Solution: CargoON’s Trade & Retail solution is specifically designed to address this challenge by transforming retail clients into logistics carriers for their suppliers. By leveraging the return journeys of trucks that would otherwise travel empty, retailers can coordinate with suppliers to pick up goods on these return legs, effectively reducing empty kilometers. This solution maximizes fleet utilization, lowers fuel costs, and decreases the environmental impact by cutting emissions. CargoON’s real-time visibility into fleet movements further enhances this process, ensuring that every kilometer is optimized.

4. Managing last-mile delivery challenges

Last-mile delivery—the final stage of getting a product to the customer’s door—is one of the most challenging aspects of retail logistics. As consumer demand for online shopping grows, the pressure on retailers to offer same-day or next-day delivery intensifies. At the same time, the cost of last-mile delivery can be high.

Solution: CargoON’s Visibility Monitoring solution enables retailers to manage last-mile deliveries more efficiently by providing real-time visibility into fleet movements. This feature allows for precise ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) calculations, helping retailers optimize delivery routes and reduce fuel consumption, even in challenging urban or rural environments. Additionally, Visibility Monitoring helps retailers adjust their delivery schedules in real-time, allowing them to quickly react to unexpected disruptions such as traffic delays or weather issues, ensuring timely deliveries and minimizing operational costs.

5. Reducing long waiting times at docks

One of the most significant bottlenecks in retail logistics occurs at loading and unloading points, especially during peak seasons when trucks can be delayed for hours waiting to load or unload. These delays increase transportation costs and reduce the efficiency of the entire supply chain. Prolonged waiting times can lead to stockouts in stores and missed sales opportunities.

Solution: CargoON’s Dock Scheduler solution offers a practical remedy to this problem by improving the coordination and timing of truck arrivals. By scheduling precise time slots for trucks to arrive, load, and depart, the Dock Scheduler minimizes waiting times, enabling faster turnover at docks. This increased efficiency ensures that trucks spend less time idling and more time delivering goods, reducing costs and maintaining higher levels of on-shelf availability (OSA). The system also improves coordination between retailers and suppliers, aligning delivery schedules to meet the demands of stores more efficiently.

6. Improving supplier-retailer collaboration

Effective communication between retailers and their suppliers is crucial for ensuring smooth operations. However, many retailers struggle with a lack of transparency and real-time information sharing, leading to misaligned schedules, delayed shipments, and inefficient use of resources. The inability to coordinate effectively with suppliers can create bottlenecks in the supply chain, resulting in missed delivery slots and stock shortages.

Solution: CargoON enhances collaboration between retailers and suppliers through tools like Visibility Monitoring and CargoON Freights. These solutions provide real-time data sharing and streamlined logistics coordination. With CargoON Freights, retailers and suppliers can manage transportation orders more efficiently, ensuring alignment on delivery schedules and logistics requirements. The enhanced visibility and communication these tools provide prevent misunderstandings, improve planning, and help ensure that deliveries are made on time, keeping the supply chain running smoothly.

Final thoughts 

Retail logistics are becoming increasingly complex, with omnichannel distribution, seasonal demand fluctuations, and last-mile delivery pressures all presenting significant challenges. However, by leveraging the power of digital tools like CargoON’s Trade & Retail solution, retailers can streamline their supply chains, reduce inefficiencies, and meet the growing expectations of today’s consumers. 

Whether it’s optimizing backhauls, improving communication with suppliers, or managing dock schedules, CargoON offers practical solutions that enable retailers to stay competitive in a fast-changing market.