0%
of the international supply chain is disconnected
The impact? Disconnection from suppliers; no oversight of environmental or social governance; zero resiliency built into the value chain; and a lack of visibility of your products as they move from source to store.
Explore more
Introducing
The "critical" mile
When an importer orders products from a supplier overseas, they are virtually always custom manufactured. It is a highly complex procurement process involving trillions of dollars' worth of products — the same trillions of dollars worth of products that we buy every day.
In fact, US companies purchase $2.4 trillion dollars worth of products every year from overseas. That’s roughly $5 trillion dollars worth of products that we buy from retailers, wholesalers, and distributors on or offline.
Despite the complexity and size of the market, the process – known as the "first mile" – is almost entirely offline and typically managed by email and spreadsheets.
Importers are running offline supply chains, yet operate in an online world
It's easy enough to say you need a digital supply chain to address the myriad of critical issues facing the world of international importing, yet the latest industry reports show that most businesses today continue to rely on outdated tools and systems to manage the sourcing, production, and delivery of their products.
And if that wasn't enough, additional factors continue to put strain on existing resources looking to build resilience into the network, reduce costs, and create Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) measures to meet ever-demanding customer and regulatory requirements.
Improve the way you buy and ship products by building meaningful relationships with your suppliers
For the past decade, importers have focused on making incremental the final mile – the last stage of the supply chain – to deliver products to their customers at ever-increasing rates. Where it once took weeks to fulfil an order, retailers are now delivering in a matter of days, if not hours.
Yet those same products being sold take months to plan, buy, and ship from origin to destination. Brands who want to build true resiliency and visibility into their supply chain must therefore focus on the first mile if they truly want to have any real effect on the outcome of their orders – once goods are loaded onto a ship or booked onto a plane, the outcome cannot be changed.
And it all starts with how they engage with their suppliers.
The Solution
Refocussing on connection
Whilst the existing platforms in the market built years ago were simply unable to make connections across the supply network of the supply chain, things have changed – and significantly.
Mercado offers a suite of applications that enable international importers to maximize their strategic value and build greater resiliency and redundancy into their networks. Purposefully built to harness the power of automation throughout the planning, buying, and moving phases, the Mercado platform is the perfect partner for every business involved in international importing.
Now more than ever, it's critical that companies start to reconnect the 80% of the supply chain that remains untouched. Building back the connection, visibility, and automation that will enable them to remain resilient not just to weather the storms of today, but for years to come.
Explore the platform
Watch a demo
Create a digital first mile for your business
To learn more about how you can create a connected and automated global supply chain, talk to an expert at Mercado. Book a demo or reach out to one of our team with questions.
Talk to the team
