The One With the Logistics Wake-Up Call (Part 1)

Foreign. Moves the podcast built for DTC founders who want smoother supply chains, lower cost, and faster launches. I'm Lara and I'm here to share the lessons I've learned building and fixing supply chains for a brand like yours. Today, we're going to talk about logistics. This may sound boring, but until your container is stuck at the port and you're breathing thousands in fees, logistics is not just shipping. It's the bloodstream of your brand. And if you ignore it, you're going to feel the pain in your cash flow, your customer reviews, and your growth. So in part one of this podcast, I'll walk you through what logistics really is, the common mistakes I see founders make, the hidden cost nobody talks about, and how the world of logistics has changed in just the past few years. I'll be answering 10 questions for this podcast episode. Question number one is what is logistics in DTC? Logistics is simply how your product moves from your supplier, across borders, into your warehouse and finally to your customer's doorstep. Let's say you run an apparel brand sourcing from China. Goods leave the factory in Guangzhou, load onto a vessel to Los Angeles, clear customs, get trucked to A3PL in Nevada, and from there UPS delivers them to a customer in Chicago. That entire journey, that's what you call logistics. Question number two what do founders misunderstand about logistics? Most founders think once they hire a freight forwarder or three pl, they can stop worrying. But logistics isn't plug and play. A pet accessorist, for example, I worked with. Assumed transit time from China to LA was 30 days. In reality set to 5 days because of port congestions. And they miss Black Friday completely. The lesson here is to build buffers. Always assume delays. Your logistics needs a Plan B. Question number three what are the hidden costs? Demurrage and detention fees are killers. That's what happens when your cargo sits too long at port or containers are not returned on time. One furniture brand I saw paid 18k in demurrage fees just because paperwork wasn't ready. That's 18k is gone. Not the inventory, not ads, not growth. Just lost to delays. Question number four how do you decide between ARC and express? Think of this as speed versus cost slider. Air freight fast but 45 times more expensive. Great for urgent restocks or high margin small items. Sea freight FCL or full container is the cheapest per unit if you can fill it, while sea freight LCL or less than container is flexible for small brands but often slower. Express couriers like DHL, UPS, FedEx for samples or urgent small shipments. A jewelry brand I know used to ship everything via DHL at 7 per kilo. When they switched to LCLC freight, their landed cost dropped 35%. Question number five what's changed in logistics recently? Before COVID everyone ran just in time or jit, keeping inventory lean, reordering only when needed. Now the game is just in case. A home goods brand I worked with went from holding 30 days of inventory to 90 days. Yes, more cash tied up, but they avoided stackouts, protected revenue, and their customers never saw empty shelves again. Thank you for hanging out with me on supply chain moves. If this episode made your supply chain a little less painful, share it with another founder, because nobody deserves to learn the lessons the hard way. I'll see you in the next one.