Alright, for starters, The Supply Chain consists of many processes from start to finish. The apple you ate, the pens you use, the remote control banged on 5 minutes ago, clothes you're wearing, etc etc, didn't just magically appear at the super market or retail store. Sometimes we forget the efforts made to function properly with the luxuries and necessities of our everyday use. All things considered, there is a lot of labor involved and we should appreciate those who make it happen. Anyways, I'll give you a quick summery of how it works.
The Supply Chain transportation processes begins at a factory, lets say, in China. I love cotton t-shirts. So, a shipper (who is usually the manufacturer or another fancy term Consignor) has everything done at his factory, fulfilling the demands of the buyer (Consignee) XYZ in New York. It is ideal to fill a 40ft Container when it comes to Garment commodities. I won't get into numbers but this can ultimately amount to a minimum of 30,000 USD in merchandise for re-sell value. Then it goes as follows for All Water: Factory > Warehouse > Delivery to Port via Truck > Port of Load [Export] > Vessel Departure > Port of Arrival [Import] > Truck Delivery to buyers warehouse. And that is, in-short, how products arrive to our good Country. How it gets to your local retailer is a whole other story to tell. Simple right?
Wrong.
A lot is involved in this process such as origin State & country laws, compliance, spacing, availability and phew, I can go on all day specially about our best-friend U.S Customs. I know how much everyone looks forward to hearing from them. But as you can see it is not a job you can do on your own and that is why we have 3PL, NVOCC's, Custom House brokers,"Brokers" who claim to be CHB's, to walk any company ,big and small, step-by-step all the way through. I hope this gives us all little more insight of The Supply Chain.
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