To compete and even survive in this challenging environment, retail logistics executives are discovering that they can achieve economies of scale and overcome supply chain issues by sharing their logistics and supply chain management operations. The new model of “co-opetition” helps smaller retailers and brands compete on an uneven playing field with the “Big 3” retail giants, who have been pocketing an ever-greater share of consumer dollars by leveraging their scale and scope to take over the free shipping, fast delivery game.
Small and mid-size retailers are discovering that they thrive when they focus their mindshare and finite resources directly on customer-facing priorities through better product design, merchandising, store operations, and marketing. In the past, their fragmented “go it alone” approach to back-end systems such as logistics and supply chain management, especially amidst eCommerce challenges, siphoned off large chunks of precious capital and margin. No more.
AirTerra, a logistics company, is driving co-opetition by creating market-based access to shippers and carriers, enabling new and innovative service retail logistics delivery models, and opening latent capacity to support supply chain planning and capacity planning. By aggregating parcel volume from multiple shippers within a few metropolitan areas, AirTerra is able to lower shipping costs while getting your product moving down the road to your customer. The result: diversification simplified.
As the world starts to see a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, the retail world is looking to the future with a new way of thinking about supply chain management …and a new way of business. Teaming up on the back-end while competing (and succeeding) on the front-end is co-opetition. And it’s working.
