Direct delivery: goods delivered directly to the customer
Warehousing is associated with high costs and a corresponding organizational effort. In the food retail sector in particular, the decentralized nature of sales outlets has led to efforts to switch from regional central warehouses to direct deliveries.
The principle: the goods are delivered directly from the supplier's production facility or warehouse to the customer or their point of sale (POS). In logistics, this is also referred to as a one-warehouse strategy, as the customer dispenses with intermediate goods handling and therefore no external warehouse is involved in the process. The advantages of direct delivery are particularly evident when goods with a high throughput and relatively constant consumption are processed in this way.
Prerequisites for direct delivery: absolute trust of business partners
For a strategy such as direct delivery to work, specific agreements between the retailer and supplier are required - as well as absolute trust that everything will be provided as agreed. Due to the elimination of further handling steps and the associated logistics costs, direct delivery is one of the most cost-effective forms of delivery.
Key aspects in relation to direct delivery are:
- Synchronization of inventories and harmonization of delivery and sales quantities
- Saving on storage (especially interim storage) requires a transparent, number-driven calculation
- Individual goods and entire product groups can be traded
