Identifying £488k of Annual Transport Savings Across an International Fulfilment Network
Client
Premium Beauty and Wellness D2C Brand · UK / European / US Fulfilment
The Situation
The business had no consolidated visibility across carriage spend. Inbound, outbound and returns costs were fragmented across multiple providers, reactive air freight usage had become common, and supplier-managed freight was being re-invoiced at inflated rates.
Leadership lacked a reliable understanding of true transport costs and operational inefficiencies.
What We Did
Analysed twelve months of transport spend across inbound, outbound, transfers and returns
Benchmarked rates against market pricing across key international routes
Built a prioritised opportunity register ranked by implementation complexity and financial impact
Quantified savings opportunities across every major freight category
Results
The diagnostic identified approximately £488k of annual savings opportunities, including:
£179k through multi-SKU parcel consolidation
£126k through carrier and service-level changes
£80k net savings through major reductions in reactive air freight usage
£62k by removing inefficient UK-routed stock transfers
£17k through inbound freight retendering activity
The work also identified:
Freight rates running 15–20% above market in several categories
Loss rates low enough to remove parcel insurance on selected flows
Beyond the Numbers
The project created a single commercial and operational decision framework for both the COO and CFO.
Rather than operating through fragmented logistics conversations, leadership gained a prioritised and quantified roadmap that became the foundation for subsequent operational transformation work.
