The location of a tracked shopping cart in a metal scrapyard. We partnered with one of our...
Every retailer is scrambling to develop mitigation strategies for the latest round of tariffs between the US and China. Alongside this, many businesses are looking to develop strategies to continue managing the unpredictability of supply chain costs and lead times well into the future.
One effective mitigation strategy for the looming supply chain shortages and price increases on business critical equipment is to need less of it. Many assets like shopping carts, pallet jacks, bakery racks, U-boats and other backroom equipment are purchased because they are stolen or misplaced. While you'll never be able to eliminate the need to continually buy this equipment, you can reduce how urgently you need it and reduce your exposure to heightened costs and long delays.
By tracking your existing assets, you increase the likelihood that you will retain those assets. If you have a store that notoriously loses an entire fleet of shopping carts every year, there is a good chance that your next replacement order will be 2x the cost and on a longer lead time. With tracking technology like QuickTrack and iWheel, retailers have been able to reduce their loss rates for commonly stolen equipment like shopping carts from 100% or more, to less than 20% at high risk stores.
Even if the current tariff situation in place between the US and China is resolved, the supply chain impacts already caused by their implementation will linger for months. The amount of blank sailings between China and the US was at its highest level since May of 2020 - the height of the Covid pandemic and its resulting supply chain crisis.
By implementing a tracking program for your highest risk assets and stores you can offset many of these asset purchases and eliminate some of the risk associated with increased costs and lead times. Our tracking hardware at Store Technology Group is warehoused in the USA and is produced and manufactured in countries that were not heavily impacted by the current tariff regime.
