THE WAY OF THE FUTURE:
GARDEWINE DISCUSSES DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER SHIPPING AND BEING A ONE-STOP SHOP
Gardewine is proving it is and has been ahead of the game with its Ambient and Small Package division.
According to Taylor Reilly, Director, Ambient & Small Package, Ambient consists of high-touch freight, which is both temperature- and time-sensitive with extreme high value. It requires keen awareness and attention to detail throughout the operation to ensure product integrity is maintained, keeping in mind that the pharmaceutical product we move is being consumed/used by individuals and the communities we serve.
Due to the nature of the freight, a box is no longer simply a box; it needs to be treated as possible cancer medication or any assortment of life-saving product for a family member. On the other side, Parcel/Courier/Small Package refers to direct-to-consumer small package freight, which has required Gardewine to come up with new and innovative ways to deliver freight from an operational and technological perspective, such as piece-level scanning and route optimization.
The need for the customer to be able to track their packages in real time is becoming more and more demanding at a large scale.
In 2017, Gardewine began working closely with two primary customers to develop – from scratch – an ambient network for both existing business, as well as growing the business by utilizing and leveraging existing capacity and network operations to provide a solution/service to the customer, which could not be matched by anyone else in the market.
Gardewine – being a one-stop shop, providing full solutions to their customers – prides itself on being a part of this movement from scratch, as they identified the opportunity, understood the customer requirements, and created a solution with their internal teams and external business partners. Their Ambient network drove them into having smaller delivery equipment in terminal locations and running into hundreds of communities on a daily basis. As a result, it provided the opportunity to add parcel freight to the vans.
Gardewine anticipates the organization will continue to see an increase in demand for direct-to-consumer shipping, especially into rural areas, allowing Gardewine to increase their volume and density in the communities they know best.
Gardewine saw the potential, similar to the Ambient Network growth, in utilizing an existing network of nightly linehauls into the 30-plus terminal locations, employing local individuals. This allows Gardewine to focus its time delivering packages into these communities instead of spending time driving to the locations from centralized hubs.
McIvor anticipates the organization will continue to see an increase in demand for direct-to-consumer shipping, especially into rural areas, allowing Gardewine to increase their volume and density in the communities they know best.
Direct-to-consumer shipping (D2C) is the way of the future. The freight transportation industry is seeing smaller and smaller shipment sizes. While the initial surge of parcel volume due to an e-commerce boom and COVID-19’s impact on consumer behavior has levelled, Gardewine anticipates the organization will continue to see an increase in demand for direct-to-consumer shipping, especially into rural areas, allowing Gardewine to increase their volume and density in the communities they know best.
Similar to what was seen throughout COVID-19, with the drastic increase in small package volume, it is expected national carriers will have to rely on regional carriers like Gardewine to own their backyards in order to keep up with service requirements that the consumer demands. The ever-increasing labour and equipment shortages will also drive this need with the anticipation carriers will be forced to utilize their equipment and labour in the heavy populated urban centres to keep up with volume. There has been a spike in shippers diversifying their carrier base across the country to allow for increased capacity and lessened constraints. This means shippers are moving their freight direct with numerous regional carriers across the country instead of one national carrier. At the end of the day, if Gardewine is picking up freight from one of our shippers, we want to have the ability to provide a delivery service for everything from a small envelope/package to a skid of freight, all the way up to a full truckload – a one-stop shop.
In locations where density and freight mix don’t justify a smaller piece of equipment, Gardewine continues to have tractors/ trailers delivering small packages.
