Your Furniture is in the Mail

October 31, 2008  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in on November 2008 It’s pretty hard to get away with doing anything wrong these days. Technology, it seems, has taken away the sport in doing the things we shouldn’t.

Back in the day, if you didn’t have a report completed, it was easy enough to say, “it’s in the mail”. That was always good for buying a day or two. Then came the fax machine—quickly followed by PDAs and cell phones on everyone’s hip. It totally killed the good, old-fashioned fun of acting like you have yet to receive someone’s message.

Now, Katie bar the door, we have Webcams, and GPS systems, and those horrible people that want you to send them a message back saying you got their message. (I truly wonder about those people.) Do they not already have enough e-mail in their box? They really want one that says their message has been displayed on my computer? And does that work when someone reads a message on a BlackBerry? No one really knows. AND—if you’re really diabolical, you let the sender know you read their message—and then still don’t answer.

In today’s world, you had better be doing what you are supposed to be doing—or someone, somewhere will catch you. There’s nowhere left to hide. Unless, of course, you’re importing furniture. In the world of importing furniture, a vendor can actually take your money and play a game of hide and seek with you not seen since the mid ‘80s—pre-fax machine, you know.

A dark hole often exists between issuing a purchase order and receiving goods at your dock. Do your sources allow you to see what they are up to during that time? Do you really know when the goods leave the factory? Are your containers going to be delivered by Thanksgiving weekend? Should you really tee up that ad for your new dining room suite? Did your containers show up too early and you have nowhere to unload them? Are they tied up in customs or did they get re-routed to replenish another retailer? You know the retailer, it’s the same bunch that carries a bigger checkbook and knocks you out of your spot at every turn.

Oh, and by the way, the longer your supply chain, the more credit it sucks out of your system. Everyone has credit to spare these days, huh?

The right product, delivered intact, in a reliable fashion, is your lifeblood as a retailer. You wouldn’t even consider shipping a UPS package across town without a tracking number. It’s amazing how the same mentality doesn’t transfer over to a very expensive container of furniture. Look for transparency with your vendors. Your friend, the one you trust, might be getting lied to as well.

Tighten things up a bit. Some of you reading this really do need to order containers. Others should take advantage of the infrastructure of local distribution centers that sprang up all across the country, while everyone else was getting enamored with containers. Maybe the words “U.S. warehouse” do make a difference. Are you really saving a lot of money ordering containers or just eating it up with expenses on a different line on your P and L sheet? Oh, and by the way, what was the smart decision

six months ago may no longer still be the best plan. There’s a tremendous amount of moving and shaking going on in the transportation industry. It may be time to lift your head up and look around.

These days, you can track your kids via a GPS placed in their shoes, you can use a teddy bear Webcam to catch your wife getting too friendly with the mailman, and you can post embarrassing videos of your drunken boss at a dance club on YouTube straight from your cell phone. That’s a nice wide range of tracking abilities. It seems

like you should be able to track your money (aka furniture). If it’s really sitting

in the middle of the ocean, you should at least get to know what island is passing by.

Just a thought.