01/26/2024

Delight Big-Box Retailers to Increase Brand Loyalty & Revenue

Large retailers have strict guidelines on how they want to receive products from your brand. Meeting these requirements can increase your brand's retail shelf space, improve visibility, and boost consumer revenue.

Your brand's relationship with big retailers has a huge impact on your consumer revenue and profit margins. Retailers are the gatekeepers to how much shelf space they allocate to your products. One way to increase shelf space and brand visibility is through consistently meeting a retailer's shipment and delivery guidelines.

We'll show you how.

Key takeaways

Big-box retailers have strict demands on receiving shipments and products from brands
Consistently meeting these requirements strengthens your brand's relationship with retailers
Strong retail relationships can lead to more shelf space and increased product visibility
More visible products enhance consumer brand recognition, trust, and spending
A logistics provider can use their network, expertise, and consolidation services to impress retailers

Why retail visibility strengthens consumer brand loyalty

Building trust with your brand's consumers is always important—but it's especially crucial when shoppers are facing high inflation or difficult financial circumstances. When consumers are feeling uncertain about the economy, they're more likely to shop with brands that they know.

Increasing product visibility with retailers relies on two main areas:

Expanding your brand and product shelf space with retailers
Ensuring that your products are in stock with retailers at all times

If consumers don't see your product on the shelf, they're more likely to try a competitor brand. Timely deliveries and retail shelf space makes it easier for them to find what they're looking for. This increases brand loyalty, retention, and sales.

Big-box retailers have very strict requirements for accepting and stocking products. If you want to maximize shelf space and visibility, you'll need to meet these challenges.

Understand big-box retailer requirements

The big U.S. retailers like Walmart, Amazon, Kroger, CVS, or Target require brands to meet their guidelines. These requirements include:

Filing detailed, accurate, and timely paperwork in the correct way
Interacting with supply chain technology and systems
Packaging products according to retailer needs
Meeting delivery schedules and appointments
Delivering all products on-time and in-full (OTIF)

You can meet these requirements through the right combination of experience, best practices, tools, and logistics partners. When you consistently meet a retailer's needs, you'll improve your brand's reputation, making it easier to get new products into stores and increase shelf space.

Here's how to ensure compliance and consistency.

File the right retail paperwork at the right time

Retailers require Advanced Shipping Notifications and other paperwork made out to precise specifications. You can directly integrate your own systems with a retailer or work with a third-party logistics (3PL) provider that can manage this paperwork on your behalf. Accurate paperwork allows you to track where products and shipments are in the supply chain, so you can make changes when needed.

You can file shipping paperwork in multiple ways including web portals, Electronic Data Interchange, or other methods. A 3PL provider will have experience working with big-box retailers and can collect information, complete paperwork, and correctly file it on time. You can also integrate paperwork with retail consolidation services (RCS) to save time and money when getting products to stores.

Audit shipments and products against retailer needs

Noncompliance with guidelines can lead to fines and delays from big-box retailers. To ensure you're meeting their standards, it's important to audit every shipment against their requirements. These audits will check several areas including paperwork, quality, packaging, SKUs, and product quantities. You can be confident that the right products are getting to the right retailers on the right trucks.

If you find an issue, you can use the audit trail to investigate the root cause and prevent it from happening again.

Optimize retail order fulfillment

A retailer will expect a fast turnaround between them requesting products and you delivering them. You'll want to minimize manufacturing and lead times, while ensuring your SKUs are strategically located for delivery across the U.S. A 3PL provider with a large national and regional network can minimize your fulfillment and delivery times.

Pack products to meet retail shipping needs

Several retailers have exacting product specifications, even down to the packaging. This can include shelf display boxes, labeling, pallet sizes, handling requirements, and several other factors. You can source packaging requirements from your retailers and ensure your products are packaged in the correct way. A 3PL business can ensure compliance with retail packaging needs.

Woman with clipboard looking at and auditing products

Establish a robust delivery schedule with retailers

Big-box retailers have busy loading docks and insist on a strict schedule for deliveries. Larger 3PL companies have strong relationships with retailers, allowing them to negotiate delivery slots on your behalf. Consolidating shipments into full truckloads helps with scheduling, as retailers only need to deal with one truck at a time, rather than multiple less-than-truckload shipments.

Deliver retail products on-time and in-full

OTIF is a metric used by retailers to check you're delivering what you say you will at the proper time. Breaching OTIF service levels can result in fines from the retailer and delay your products being displayed on store shelves. Retail consolidation improves OTIF rates because a consolidator will group multiple shipments together into a full truckload and make sure that the truck delivers as scheduled.

Connect with retail supply chain technology and systems

Strong retail order fulfillment relies on tracking products throughout the supply chain. That way, you can check manufacturing and lead times on orders, and ensure that products are available for retail shipping.

Ideally, you'll want to integrate your systems with the warehouse management system (WMS) and transportation management system (TMS) of various retailers. Alternatively, you can work with a 3PL that already has WMS and TMS retail integrations in place. You can see where your products and shipments are at all times and keep the retailer informed.

Increase your brand reputation through consistency

Consistency is a major driving factor for growth with big-box retailers. With so many brands competing for limited shelf space, consistently meeting a retailer's guidelines will build trust and enhance product visibility. An expert 3PL will help by using their expertise, networks, and retail relationships to get you ahead of the queue.

Frequently asked questions about deliveries to retailers

Many of the large, big-box retailers in America have guidelines on how they want to receive products. These retailers are household names in the U.S. including: Walmart, CVS, Amazon, Walgreens, Kroger, Cardinal Health, Target, and others.

Many factors go into a retailer allocating shelf space. This includes price, profit margins, competitors, exclusivity deals, and several other factors. One area that's often overlooked is how brands deliver products to retailers. Reducing the hassle of shipments and delivering on-time, in-full all helps to build a brand's reputation and helps to increase that precious shelf space.

A 3PL speeds up deliveries to retailers in several ways:

Using retail consolidation services to reduce the number of truckloads going to retailers
Understanding retail guidelines to ensure that deliveries meet those needs
Taking advantage of existing networks, routes, and carrier relationships to provide trucking capacity
Building strong relationships with retailers to establish delivery slots and scheduling
Tracking deliveries to ensure they arrive on-time and in-full

A 3PL enhances retail delivery quality through:

Collating, creating, and filing delivery paperwork in a timely manner
Understanding the details of retailer requirements and delivering processes to meet those needs
Packaging goods and consolidating shipments to meet retail requirements
Integrating with a brand's and a retailer's WMS and TMS software
Auditing products and shipments to ensure they meet retail guidelines

How GEODIS can help

GEODIS is one of the biggest logistics providers in the U.S. and around the world. Here's what you can expect when you work with us:

A leading on-time, in-full rate of 98%
Strategically located warehouses and distribution centers throughout the U.S.
Reach 99.5% of the continental U.S. in two days or fewer
Strong relationships with major big-box retailers
A wide and deep national, regional, and local carrier network
Best-in-class retail consolidation services
Standard operating procedures to meet retailer guidelines
Complete quality control and auditing of all retail shipments and products
Integration with the full range of transportation, warehousing, and freight forwarding GEODIS services
Real-time visibility throughout the supply chain

Delight retailers by choosing GEODIS as your 3PL partner. Get in touch with us to discover how we can optimize your retail operations to boost visibility, trust, and profits.

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