the packaging question that gets asked weekly, answered properly
Something I keep coming back to: the packaging question that gets asked weekly, answered properly.
Posted my first lane report here without the month and got asked for it. Fair, and the table is better for the fussiness.
The regional stock question, and why it is the first thing I ask now.
If a supplier holds the line you want in a warehouse in your own region, your order is a domestic shipment. No international leg, no clearance, a shorter cold exposure and a lead time in days rather than weeks. If they do not, it is an international shipment however it is described at checkout.
So the question is not "how fast do you ship" but "which lines do you hold in regional stock, and is the one I want among them". It is one email, the answer is usually a list, and it changes what to order and when — especially in summer.
Where the time actually goes, which I got wrong for two years.
Total transit is first mile, international leg, customs clearance and last mile. I had been attributing everything to the international leg because that is the part with the exotic-sounding name.
When I finally logged the stages separately, the international leg was the most consistent part of the whole journey. The variance was in clearance and in the domestic delivery at my end — neither of which the supplier controls. That reframed how I read every lane report on this board, and it is why the table separates the stages.
Corrections welcome, especially the pedantic ones. Pedantry is how this board earns its reputation.
best — the order this archive was captured in
Asked for the month rather than removing. Without it the report cannot be compared to anything.
A lane is an origin, a destination, a carrier and a season. Change any one and the distribution changes, which is why supplier-level shipping averages are close to meaningless.
Origin, destination, carrier and month?
How many shipments does your figure cover?
the lane is the unit of analysis, not the supplier
A lane is an origin, a destination, a carrier and a season.
Agreed — and the decomposition matters. Most people are blaming the international leg for a last-mile problem.
Push back: comparing a July transit with a February one on the same lane is not a comparison.
I would not read a single slow shipment as a lane change. Post it and let the median move if it is real.
Total transit decomposes into first mile, international leg, clearance and last mile. Only the first two are meaningfully under the shipper’s control and most reported variance sits in the last two.
Yes — regional stock is the single biggest variable and it barely gets mentioned outside this board.
A quoted lead time is a commitment you can evaluate. Measuring quoted against actual across several orders tells you more about an operation than the raw speed does.
declared value and description are the shipper’s decision, ask what they use
a quoted lead time you can hold them to is worth more than a fast one you cannot
regional stock changes everything about transit
Regional stock replaces an international lane with a domestic one. That is a structural change to the distribution, not a marginal improvement, and it is why the warehouse question matters more than the carrier question.