The retail market is a constantly changing environment. Forecasting demand and securing ocean freight capacity, responding to changes in consumer demand, and dealing with disruptions is complex. Without the right tools, it can inadvertently result in unnecessary financial losses, delayed shipments, and inefficiencies.

Carrier Allocation is a collaborative online platform that connects shippers and carriers. It provides upstream visibility to retailers that enables them to optimize their ocean supply chains and respond to shifting market conditions with agility, ensuring their goods arrive where they need to be, when they need to be there.

Navigating treacherous waters

Disruptions can and do occur in the world of ocean shipping. Major shipping waterways can become blocked, as the Suez Canal was in 2021. Ocean carrier capacity constraints, due to events such as the pandemic or port strikes, can make even getting freight onto a ship a challenge, especially at the precise time to ensure freight gets to where it needs to be, when it needs to get there. And congestion at ports, like those seen during the first years of the Covid-19 pandemic when there were up to 150 ships waiting at North American ports alone, can lead to severe delays. Even relatively common events, like severe weather, can interfere with sailing schedules.

When situations such as these arise, how can retailers make certain that they can respond quickly and effectively?

Problem-solving for the world’s largest retailer

Carrier Allocation was created to address the gaps and misalignments in the ocean market for retail shippers. The world’s largest retailer, Walmart, wanted to find a better way to manage their contracts and work more efficiently with their direct ocean carriers. Carrier Allocation was designed to be a platform that allows shippers and carriers to collaboratively plan for the capacity of their goods weeks in advance of sailings, avoiding miscommunications, delays, and other disruptions. 

Since then, Carrier Allocation has evolved to help shippers of all sizes and across industries manage their Minimum Quantity Commitments week over week:

• Meet their annual contract agreements with their carriers
• Secure commitments from their carriers for forecasted capacity
• Manage freight spend
• Plan the optimal sailing to ensure their products arrive on their scheduled delivery dates.

A platform for all parties

As a collaborative online platform, Carrier Allocation provides transparency among all parties. At the same time, it offers vastly increased efficiency. Communication between carriers and shippers happens within the platform, eliminating the need to send emails back and forth, saving time for all involved. The planning process also moves onto the platform, making it unnecessary to build and maintain spreadsheets. Everyone has access to all the data in one place.

The visibility afforded by the platform allows any problems with forecasted allocations for capacity to be identified quickly. Once a problem is identified, the ease of communication the platform provides ensures that it can be resolved quickly.

Agility and flexibility

Carrier Allocation enables retailers to quickly respond to the rapidly shifting environments of both consumer demand and ocean shipping. Dynamic operating rules allow shippers to predetermine responses to common disruptions, such as port congestion, severe weather, or other unexpected events. If sales demand increases, these dynamic operating rules also allow shippers to secure additional capacity as needed.

Knowledge is power

It’s essential for shippers to meet the annual commitments they make in direct ocean contracts. Whether due to slowing demand for their products or even if the carrier didn’t have available capacity when it was needed, failing to meet these commitments can result in penalties.

Carrier Allocation enables shippers to leverage their shipping and carrier performance data to both forecast more accurately and choose the right carriers based on their past performance data to optimize their supply chain so they don’t pay for shipments they never made.