Retailer: Consider transload in new inland era
Shippers should look increasingly at transload opportunities as the inland landscape changes in North America, according to a logistics executive with a U.S. retailer.
Scott Larson, vice president of international logistics and custom compliance for Midwest-based retailer The Bon-Ton Stores, said shippers will have to make decisions about inland movements in North America based on two key developments: carriers getting out of the chassis ownership business there, and carriers restricting inland container moves.
'Executives will have to decide between IPI (inland-point-intermodal) or transloading,' Larson said last week in Shenzhen at the TPM Asia conference, held by the Journal of Commerce. 'Fewer containers moving inland will restrict the supply of containers available to inland shippers. As far as chassis, it may affect container pickups and it will force these decisions onto shippers.
'Does it make sense to buy product on an IPI basis or should you look at doing port-to-port?' he continued. 'You can transload to a 53-foot container and handle the inland leg yourself. You have to look at your whole picture and analyze what you aren't doing.'
Transloading, Larson said, gives import shippers an ability to choose the destination of their goods (i.e. a distribution center versus moving it direct to a store) at a later date than shipping IPI.
'You can pull that trigger much later in the pipeline,' he said. 'It will be interesting to see how intermodal providers respond if transload really gears up.'
On the origin side, Larson said there are other places to tighten supply chains.
'You have to look all opportunities all the way back to the factory,' Larson said. 'That might mean that I'll handle trucking from the factory to the port or (container freight station).'
Handling the first leg component could conceivably reduce trucking costs and duty payments, he added. ' Eric Johnson
