Welcome to The Haunted [ware]House 👻

Hey there fellow Vendorvillains 🦹‍♂️,

Beware, for within the walls of this newsletter lurk the spine-chilling secrets of inventory gone awry, stockouts that strike without warning, and the ghostly echoes of warehouse mistakes long past.

Halloween may bring tricks and treats, but for suppliers, it's no time for frightful tricks that haunt your supply chain. So grab your flashlight, steel your nerves, and join us as we journey through the haunted corridors of your warehouse. 🔦

Warehouse Horrors 🕸️

Phantom Inventory

Phantom inventory can haunt your warehouses—stock that exists in your system but has vanished from your shelves. This error creeps in when discrepancies between your physical stock and inventory records go unnoticed, often due to replenishment errors, improper handling of merchandise, or data entry errors.

Tips to Banish Phantom Inventory:

Audit your inventory: Conduct frequent cycle counts and physical audits to ensure your digital records align with what's on the shelf.
Utilize technology: Implement technologies like RFID tags or and real-time inventory systems to track stock movement.
Train your team: Ensure warehouse staff are well-trained in proper stock management procedures, from receiving goods to recording movements accurately.

🕸️ From the archives: Don't Get Spooked by Phantom Inventory

The Curse of Stockouts

Nothing's scarier than a stockout—especially when your customers are standing in the aisle, ready to buy, but your products are nowhere to be found. Stockouts are a curse on both sales and customer satisfaction.

Tips to Break the Curse:

Demand forecasting: Leverage historical sales data and predictive analytics to forecast demand accurately, especially during peak seasons.
Collaborate with your retailers: Build strong, transparent relationships with your retail partners. Being in sync allows you to adjust lead times and ensure timely deliveries, preventing stockouts from disrupting your sales and hurting your reputation.

🕸️ From the archives: What is Demand Planning?

The Ghosts of Picking and Packing Errors Past

Past mistakes, such as misplaced products, incorrect orders, and inefficient packing processes haunt warehouse teams. These errors lead to unhappy customers and potential deductions/fines.

Tips to Lay These Ghosts to Rest:

Optimize your warehouse layout: Create a warehouse layout that minimizes travel time and maximizes picking efficiency, ensuring popular items are easy to access during high-demand periods.
Know your retailer's expectations: Different retailers have varying order fulfillment requirements, from packing specifications to delivery windows. Stay informed about your retail partners' expectations and ensure your warehouse processes align with their standards.
Review and improve: Conduct post-mortems on your fulfillment operations after every peak season. Identify recurring mistakes and adjust processes accordingly to ensure they don’t rise from the dead next year.

🕸️ From the archives: Walmart Secondary Packaging Guide: Supply Chain Standards

In Other [worldly] Retailer News 👻

Retail Dive
Target cuts prices on 2K items for the holiday season

SupplierWiki

What is a SCAC Code, and How is it Used?

Retail Dive
Bed Bath & Beyond stores to return with Kirkland’s partnership

Frankenrick's Tips💡

"Target customers got a returns jumpscare when Target tightened their return policy—now, even if shoppers have a valid receipt, they could still face a refusal if the store suspects fraud. This policy change is part of the retailer's push to crack down on the growing threat of return abuse, which costs U.S. retailers billions each year. 😱

The less scary news is that it’s not all doom and gloom for you. In fact, this new policy might mean fewer return deductions haunting your bottom line.

Read Target’s full return policy here."

Let's Circle Back 🐈‍⬛

Well, that was fun. Thanks for taking the journey through the haunts of warehouse issues. Need something a little more lighthearted? Redactle is a favorite game of the SupplierWiki team. It’s a word puzzle where you try to guess a hidden Wikipedia article, one word at a time, by uncovering blacked-out (redacted) words. The more you reveal, the clearer the context becomes, but it takes a sharp eye and a little deductive reasoning to crack the code.

In the spirit of Halloween, we created a special Redactle just for you.

Hint: We know suppliers will find the answer particularly frightening 🎃

Sincerely,

Your Friends in Vendorville ❤️