CASE 05
·
Ocean
·
Retail & E-commerce
Nine suppliers, one weekly container: retail consolidation from Singapore
A retailer buying from nine South-East Asian suppliers moved from separate LCL shipments to a weekly buyer consolidation through Singapore.
SHIPMENT MANIFEST
Client
GCC home-goods retailer
Cargo
Homeware, textiles and small appliances
Mode
Ocean
Industry
Retail & E-commerce
Handled by
Singapore
Completed
Oct 2, 2025
OUTCOME
Suppliers per container
9 → 1
Average container fill
62% → 88%
Sailing
Weekly
01
The challenge
The retailer’s buying team placed orders with nine suppliers in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam. Each supplier shipped its own LCL cargo, so goods for the same store range arrived on different vessels, with separate paperwork and handling charges at Jebel Ali.
02
Constraints
Suppliers with different cargo-ready dates
Mixed cartons and pallet sizes
Store deliveries planned by product range, not by supplier
Import documents needed per supplier invoice
03
Operational plan
Suppliers delivered to a partner CFS in Singapore by a weekly cut-off, where cargo was checked, labelled and loaded into a 40′ high cube in the order the Dubai warehouse wanted to unload it.
Our Singapore team chased cargo readiness at purchase-order level, and a combined document set was sent to Dubai before the vessel arrived.
04
Key decisions
A fixed weekly CFS cut-off shared with all suppliers
Load plan based on the destination unloading order
PO-level readiness tracking to catch late suppliers early
One container per week instead of nine LCL shipments
05
Outcome
Average container fill rose from 62% to 88% over the first quarter, measured on cubic utilisation. The Dubai warehouse received one container a week instead of several separate LCL releases.
SERVICES USED
How we moved it
CONTEXT
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