In a competitive business environment, continuous improvement is key to your success. Partnering with a 3PL like NRI helps your business scale by using our experience and expertise to efficiently, accurately, and cost-effectively manage your inventory and fulfill your orders. By leveraging a 3PL’s expertise in building operational strategies, you can not only better focus on building your brand, but also achieve operational excellence you may not have been able to on your own. You can dedicate more of your time to your core competencies rather than on learning an entirely different business of logistics.

Saving time starts with inbound logistics – when your product gets to your 3PL. At NRI, when our clients’ products are received, we verify the accuracy of received cartons against packing slips. This can be done on your own, however, when there is an error, there can be a significant amount of time investment that needs to be made in order to find and rectify the error. This is where working with a 3PL comes in handy. When an error is found in our clients’ cartons, NRI has tiered escalation types to identify the error and the quantities missing. These challenges can be a major time (cost) investment for an individual brand, but for a 3PL, it is just another day at work. We have the manpower and experience to identify any errors accurately and quickly.

Outbound logistics – when your product ships to your customers – is a significant area of opportunity when leveraging a 3PL. When you are working with a 3PL, you get an army of team members who know how to efficiently pick, pack, and ship orders – after all, it is what we do day in and day out! We have invested countless hours and dollars towards building systems, infrastructure, and processes that ensure timely, accurate, and yet flexible order fulfillment. At NRI, we offer valued-added services (VAS) that customize your order requests, but do not take away from the efficiency of picking, packing, and shipping orders. All these tasks take time. If managing your own fulfillment, this is time that could be better directed to building your brand – directing human resources to design, marketing, and sales.

Partnering with a 3PL can additionally save you time negotiating freight rates. Recently, we mentioned that 82 percent of consumers prefer free shipping over a fast-shipping option with a fee, and how partnering with a 3PL can help reduce your freight costs. NRI has a freight team that acts as a liaison between carriers and our clients to ensure our clients receive the best freight value-offering, often better than most individual brands. Our large volumes also allow us to support multiple carriers and we negotiate with many national and regional carriers in the US and Canada, bringing significant freight savings to our clients.

Savings from freight charges also allows you to service your customers anywhere. 3PLs often have fulfillment centers in various geographic locations. At NRI, we are multi-country; with fulfillment centers in western and eastern Canada and the U.S. Due to our geographic locations, we have the ability to store your products on either coast of Canada and the U.S., making shipping costs and times lower. Partnering with a 3PL eliminates the need to find ways to best serve your customers anywhere in the world.

As your business scales, your operational strategy needs to scale. Partnering with a 3PL allows you to scale with ease. We have the tools, technology, and people to help you at every step of the way. We also have the space for you as you grow. At NRI, we have 14 facilities totaling over 1MM sq/ft of warehouse space and growing. We have the labor and technology capabilities across Canada and the U.S. to help your business scale and embrace your future.

Focusing on your core competencies and leveraging the strength of other experts will allow you to scale, improve productivity, and save time, money, and space. Partnering with a 3PL is one of the most significant things you can do to immediately improve the operations of your business and allow your teams to focus on building your brand.

To learn more, contact us.

3PL and your success. It takes a team.

You’ve trusted your 3PL with sending out orders in a timely manner so that your customers are happy and keep ordering from you. But issues sometimes arise. And when they do, you must be able to trust your 3PL with handling it quickly and effectively. At NRI, we partner with our clients to give them a full-scope solution for achieving their business goals. Each of our clients are partnered with dedicated order fulfillment teams, client service coordinators, and account managers – among others.

Order Fulfillment Teams

Our Order Fulfillment Teams are on the front lines – leading the charge on fulfilling orders. We operate a variety of shifts across all facilities to ensure total coverage for our clients’ business profiles, while also ensuring flexibility for our team members so that their health and welfare needs are met. NRI does not rely on temporary labor but rather operates with +95% full-time company employees across all facilities. These team members are extremely familiar with our clients’ product and businesses characteristics. Our proprietary WMS, Aspire, ensures the utmost in technology for our teams to ensure the most efficient and accurate processing of our clients’ orders.

Client Services Teams

NRI provides each client with an on-site, dedicated Client Services Coordinator (CSC). The CSCs are the frontline contacts for our clients, and liaison to our Operations Team. The CSCs manage our clients’ day-to-day requirements, as well as priority escalations. They work directly in-facility and are experts in helping our clients manage their needs, and their customers’ needs. Our CS teams have decades of combined experience in ecommerce and wholesale channels – coordinating internal resources to deliver excellence across them.

Operations and Accounts Teams

The Client Services Team is supported by our Operations and Accounts teams. These teams work in conjunction with our clients on forecast plans to ensure operational success at a high level. Our Accounts team supports our clients with strategic analyses, new service designs, and continued investment in developing our partner relationships.

We believe in partnership. Our goal is to be a key element in our clients’ success.

“Our success is directly connected to the positive, hard-working, and reliable team members at NRI” – Julia Fenwick, United by Blue

We want to work WITH you. We’d love to chat.

Are you a brand thinking about your logistics options? Is it a little too overwhelming weighing all your options and service needs? We’re here to help.

First, let’s start with what logistics companies do. The official definition of logistics is “the process of planning, implementing and controlling procedures for the efficient and effective transportation and storage of goods including services and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption for the purpose of conforming to customer requirements …” That’s just a wordy way of saying that logistics companies specialize in helping you move product to your customers. Companies such as NRI work with their clients to build a strategy which will allow brands to focus on their core competencies such as product design, marketing, and sales – rather than on logistics.

When do you need a logistics company? Here are a few reasons you may consider when thinking about leveraging a 3PL:

1. Your team is overwhelmed

3PLs intimately know warehousing, shipping, and labor. They know how to leverage the finer points of these most effectively to receiving and house product, prepare shipments, and provide value-added services. We do this day in and day out. We have the labor capacity to put special touches on your orders on top of accurate pick, packing, and shipping that your employees may not have the time to do. We have a wide talent pool of employees and specialized departments who are able to provide total focus on your logistics and fulfillment needs. Partnering with a logistics company, such as NRI, will allow your employees to focus on other aspects of your business.

2. Your costs are increasing

If your costs are increasing, that may mean that your company is growing and growing fast – that’s amazing! But now, you have an increased over volume and increased costs in labor, materials, and other unexpected costs. You need to be able to focus on continuing to grow your brand, so partnering with a 3PL can decrease your costs and off-load the stress of shipping products.

3. Your inventory isn’t accurate

Does your company utilize an Inventory Management System (IMS)? Are you able to accurately keep up with your inventory? Logistics companies have IMSs that are vast and keep up with your ever-changing inventory. NRI, for example, has a proprietary software suite called Aspire that can manage not only your inventory, but forecasting and planning, labor, receipt, orders and returns, storage, invoices, freight services, and performance metrics. You’ll work with a team of NRI employees that can help with most anything you need assistance with.

4. You need a better solution

At the end of the day, in-house warehousing may not be the perfect solution for you. A 3PL will allow you to off-load your inventory management and order processing and focus on your customers. If your current solution isn’t working, here are a few considerations when choosing the right 3PL for you:

• Does your prospective 3PL have a proven track record of success?
• Who are their current and past clients?
• Do they specialize in the fulfillment of your product categories? Markets?
• Do they have the capacity to scale?
• What does their technology look like and can they integrate with your current technology?

Whatever the reason is that you’re considering a logistics partner, it’s not as complicated nor scary as you may think. We’re experts in storing, picking, packing, and shipping products, as well as adding special touches to ensure that your brand promise and “feel” is not lost when you outsource fulfillment. We work with you on building the right solution for you and your brand.

NRI is a leader in fulfillment of apparel, footwear, accessories, and other select goods throughout North America. We tailor our solutions to your needs and provide a vast range of services. Contact us to learn more.

Vivobarefoot

The Calgary, AB based Canadian distributor for Vivobarefoot have recently signed on with NRI Canada.  Vivobarefoot is an innovative footwear company who offer a creative array of outdoor, active, and everyday footwear for men, women, and children.  Vivobarefoot footwear are uniquely designed in fit to be as close to barefoot as possible – bringing the wearer closer to nature.  B Corp certified, these guys hold their social and environmental values to the highest levels.

This new partnership with NRI will help in Vivobarefoot’s continued growth, with a focus on customer experience.  By placing inventory in Canada within NRI’s network, Vivobarefoot will ensure they reach their Canadian customers in the quickest and most cost-effective manner.

 

Palm Golf Co.

Palm Golf began a few years ago by a small group of friends having their weekly tee time at a local Orange County, CA course. With an eye for fun and fashion, they decided that they could improve golf’s style with a focus on the oft-overlooked glove.  With the goal of creating a high quality, comfortable, and fashionable glove, Palm Golf was created. However you dress up, they know they can cover your hand in style.

After three years of managing all aspects of the business themselves, the guys at Palm Golf Co. have decided to HAND the logistics over to NRI USA so they can focus on building their brand and continuing to increase their already incredible growth.

Whether you birdie or double bogey, always #swingandsmile