One Can Only Imagine How Much Chaos Is Happening In This Building Right Now
Crazy season has started in preparation for the festive season and as usual every year the situation seems to be getting worse. The retail stores delivering via their distribution centers (DC) are not fun places this time of year as Walmart has been known to take over a day to process a delivery. That is an extreme scenario with an average wait time being around 6 hours as being expected. There is no need for this chaos if you have hands on management making sure things flow as they should.
Today we had 3 deliveries on one truck in another province that had 3 DC's to book in. The time slots we are given and have no control over these and we have to plan accordingly. The times were 11am (Takealot), 2pm (Takealot) and 5pm (Amazon) with the first two being the same company, but at different sites.
Our service provider doing the deliveries was in the queue at 9 am for 11 am and panicked at 2pm when they still had not reached he front of the queue. The truck then left to try and get into delivery 2 thinking they could return for delivery 1 and were later rejected for missing the slot. What they are telling every supplier is you need 3 different trucks for 3 deliveries which is not cost effective and definitely does not help their carbon footprint. The staff are obviously out of their depth and are definitely not prepared for this.
So they managed to get 2 deliveries out of 3 with the last one being Amazon, but missed the first one which is Amazon's competitor Takealot. Their policy is if you miss a delivery slot then your account is suspended. This is a crazy policy as they are at fault and are sifting the blame onto their suppliers.
This delivery was happening in Cape Town and it is not as though I can hop in the car and go and fix things. We know they are so under prepared for the season as their main DC in Johannesburg that handles big items has been closed for orders for the last 6 weeks due to being full.
The good news is we will fight the account suspension proving we were in the queue with a print out of the trucks tracking. The bad news if they don't admit this was their fault then we will be blocked from selling over the black Friday weekend. Customers shopping online will not be able to view our products which is a kick in the pants wen this is out of your control.
I think what makes this even more frustrating is why have multiple sites and not one very big site so trucks are not spending hours on end at each site and only at one. The DC could be split into different sections making it more practical and cost effective at the same time. When selecting a site choose a footprint of land that offers future expansion requirements.
The relationship we have with Amazon seems far better than Takealot as Amazon listen and understand. I am hoping by next year the tables have turned and Amazon is the biggest online player in South Africa. They have an open budget this season aimed at gaining market share and have an aggressive marketing campaign including free deliveries.
Walmart online collects directly from our warehouse which makes things simple this year. There are a few other retailers who have penalties in place for missed slots that includes up to a 10% fine for the entire value of the order. Tis starts out at a lower percentage and rises with small increments every 30 minutes. My mind tells me if I am in the queue and you receive me after the booking time then the penalties should be going both ways. Favoring one side is not right and this new policy has all come from the US.
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