Gateway Optimum Transportation

This blog has to start the same way most communication starts today with...A Covid-19 Statement: The writer of this blog encourages all readers to have washed hands, and that you have recently sanitized your screen and the keyboard/mouse you are using. It is also best if you are reading this from home since most of America is under "Stay at Home" orders. If you are reading this from work, please go back to doing the 'essential' things you need to do and come back and read this later! If you are sick; I wish you a speedy recovery and hope that you are following the recommendations of your health care professionals. With that out of the way, I would like to talk about Covid-19. As a small business owner of a Transportation-Logistics company, my knowledge of the actual Virus is nothing... ( I should have become a doctor! Sorry mom) so this blog will focus on the impact it has had on small businesses like mine. The U.S Government has recognized the importance of Sma...

One Day Shipping, the new promise from Amazon, has filled the news headlines lately with consumers welcoming even faster delivery services of their online orders. The online Behemoth has cracked the code on how logistically this will all get done. Consumers have bought into the notion that One Day shipping is what’s best for them, and Amazon has done just as well selling the notion that this can all get done simply because they have the scale, the logistics assets and distribution model in place to successfully deliver to you in One Day. What isn’t in any of this press or talked about on TV is the extra costs of this model. Yes, this all costs more.  The biggest piece missing in all this is a simple business finance line called Inventory Carrying Cost. For decades supply chains have worked on Just in Time distribution models to help mitigate or sometimes eliminate Inventory Carrying Costs for a company.  Inventory carrying cost is the sum of the...

The Gateway OT Logistics Group experienced Optimum Growth in 2018 in all facets of the business including Gateway Crate and Freight (Custom Crating and Packing), Gateway Intermodal (Rail), Gateway Optimum Transportation (Truckload and LTL Freight) as well as our new DeliveXy service (Last Mile, Inside Delivery Services)  2018 saw Gateway expand into Larger offices and cross dock warehousing space in Chandler Arizona. Gateway also opened a new warehouse and office in Tukwila, Washington as well as adding service staff in San Bernadino, California and Henderson, Nevada. A number of our clients were responsible for the exponential growth we had in these areas.  One client relied on Gateway O.T to Distribute, Cross Dock and Inside Deliver and Assemble with Debris Removal over 10,000 large furniture units in 2018, which we installed in multiple locations in ALL 50 states. Gateway is now going into our third year of supplying nationwide coverage for this client includin...

The On Demand Economy is starting to bring about big changes in the logistics landscape. The "Uberization of Freight" and the rush to digitizing and automating all facets of the distribution process has seen a multitude of new companies enter our field. A large amount of investment capital has been put into even the smallest of technology companies, with no logistics experience, in hopes of creating the next big application for Logistics managers to use. We can credit Amazon for this. All eyes are on Amazon as they have transitioned from an online bookseller, to an online marketplace of everything, to a global logistics company. "The Amazon Affect" has changed the perception of the distribution and logistics world. In my 30 years in logistics, no matter the organization, warehousing and transportation has always been a back end function. These services have always been regarded as "support" services for sales. Amazon came along and moved logis...

If you are a small to medium sized business that sells or distributes products, you have most likely heard of Unishippers and Worldwide Express, the 3PL parcel and freight rate re sellers. They both offer discounted shipping rates through their online shipping systems (TMS) and both offer multiple shipping service coverage ranging from parcel all the way up to truckload. For the years I spent managing distribution and supply chains I probably had the privilege of meeting dozens of representatives from both of these companies. Each one offering me better rates or better services than the other. At times, I utilized their shipping systems to my companies advantage.  When I learned that Worldwide Express and UniShippers were merging I couldn't help but recall the countless times the reps would question the others system, process or service offering. Most of this was to try to gain my shipping volume, I understand that, but sometimes it even turned personal, one agent despi...

Gateway Crate and Freight gets a lot of work from people who win online auctions from out of town. Most of these people are out of state and some are even in other countries. We have picked up auction items such as antiques, restaurant equipment, computers, water meter readers, and even a walk through metal detector. Many of our clients do their due diligence BEFORE bidding or purchasing items they may win. Contacting us for a quote on picking up, packing, palletizing, crating and shipping these items gives the prospective buyer a good idea about how much of a "deal" they are actually getting after factoring in packing and transportation. Those that buy first and figure out logistics later find out that the road to great deals online starts with understanding the costs of the entire project, not just the purchase price of the item. Lets look at a recent Gateway Crate and Freight auction purchase project. A Security company in Baltimore, Maryland won an online auc...