A Shopify Plus publication

The Global
Supply Chain
Playbook
Strategies To Minimize Disruption

Last modified
03/2022
The Global Supply Chain Playbook

Contents
Executive summary 3

Connect with your manufacturers and suppliers 4

Monitor inventory arrival 5

Diversify your carrier options 6

Offer convenient delivery and pickup options 8

Create a seamless shopping experience for customers 10

Prepare your inventory and order management processes 11

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The Global Supply Chain Playbook

Executive summary
Supply chains across the globe are
still facing tension. From automotive
to home goods, nearly every industry
is feeling the pressure. Skyrocketing
demand, inflation, and chaos at factories,
ports, and shipping yards aren’t expected
to go away any time soon.

Executive summary
On top of this, there’s a global shortage of semiconductors, an essential component
of electronic devices featured in household appliances, computers, smart devices,
transportation, vehicles, and more.

As you prepare for peak selling, your inventory, capital, and resources might run thin
due to industry delays and surcharges. And the inventory you’re actually able to secure
might come at a higher price.

To build a more resilient supply chain, businesses are preparing their shipping
strategies now to set themselves up for ongoing sales. This requires thinking through
evolving industry challenges, diversifying your fulfillment operations, and planning
ahead so you can get products to customers quickly and affordably.

This playbook breaks down key ways enterprise businesses can mitigate supply chain
disruptions, while ensuring a seamless customer experience. It also includes some
handy checklists, so you can work with your shipping partners and staff to assess your
business, adjust where needed, and ultimately keep sales rolling.

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The Global Supply Chain Playbook

Connect with your

manufacturers
and suppliers
Keep in close contact with your manufacturers and suppliers so you know the status of
your product creation and transportation timing. By triple-checking a few key transportation
steps, you’ll save time and money on unexpected tasks like adding bubble wrap at packout,
which distract from getting orders to customers in a fast and affordable manner.

If your manufacturers or suppliers are experiencing delays that prevent you from getting
inventory in time, start contingency planning and sourcing alternative products where

Connect with your manufacturers and suppliers

possible. For products that are ready to ship, consider the following:

† Inventory readiness: Reach out to your suppliers to determine

inventory readiness by variant, and get estimates for shipping
your product as soon as possible

† Package quality: Check package integrity and quality at the

manufacturing and supplier level to limit damage on arrival

† Fragile items: Use protective packaging for fragile items

to prevent damage en route

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The Global Supply Chain Playbook

Monitor
inventory arrival
With international and domestic ports backed up, reports of week-long delays of products
arriving from ocean freight into ports are becoming more common. When your product
leaves your manufacturer, there are a few ways to monitor the transport and estimated
delivery time.

† Status check: Regularly check the status of your shipments and

share tracking with your team, whether internal staff or your
fulfillment partners, so they’re ready to receive the products.

† Coding: If your products are arriving from overseas, make sure

Harmonized System (HS) codes are up to date to avoid potential
customs delays.

Monitor inventory arrival

† Timing: Account for time to receive inbound goods from your
supplier. If you’re using a third-party logistics (3PL) provider, talk
to your partner about the timelines they need to prepare your
inventory for shipping.

† Due dates: Aim to have products arrive with enough time so

inventory is accounted for and ready to be picked, packed,
and shipped before shipping cut-off dates.

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The Global Supply Chain Playbook

Diversify your
carrier options
Reduce shipping delay risks by working with multiple carriers. If you ship your own orders,
work with more than one domestic and international carrier so you have a variety of shipping
speeds and services for customers to choose from. If you outsource your shipping, your
fulfillment partner should already have you covered with multiple carrier options.

Beyond shipping speeds, there are a few other considerations as you manage your
shipping partners:

† Status updates: Keep an eye on carrier status pages about

restricted or delayed areas, like USPS Service Disruption reports.

† Shipping claim process by carriers: Not all carriers and shipping

methods offer inherent insurance. Knowing what’s covered by each

Diversify your carrier options

carrier can save you incremental costs and customer relationships.
Shopify Plus offers discount Shipsurance during label purchase.

† Shipping speeds: Think through your shipping speeds and how your
insurance could be impacted. Across domestic and international
carriers, Economy services are most likely to be uninsured. But
by setting your shipping rates to Standard and Express, you can
increase insurance probability.

† Third-party apps: For even higher insurance probability, explore

using third-party apps such as Cabrella to insure your packages.

† Fulfillment partners: Ask your fulfillment partners how they can

support you in managing carrier claims, and provide more immediate
solutions to help you retain your customer relationships.

It’s important, especially around the holidays, to cater to the needs of both
cost-sensitive and time-sensitive buyers. Providing two shipping options,
one fast and one free, can help drive conversion, depending on buyer needs.

Saujanya Shrivastava
Director of Products, Shipping and Delivery, Shopify

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The Global Supply Chain Playbook

In anticipation of carrier capacities being

tested, de-risk your click-to-delivery buyer
experience by leveraging multiple carriers
this season. By using an outsourced logistics
provider like Shopify Fulfillment Network,
you’ll get access to a variety of domestic and

Diversify your carrier options

international carrier services that will help
you offer fast and affordable shipping—so
you can focus on scaling your business.

Grace Kim
Shopify Fulfillment Network

Depending on your weekly order volume or countries you ship to, you may consider
hiring a 3PL. Find the right partner to deliver your brand with the 3PL checklist.

Get your 3PL checklist

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The Global Supply Chain Playbook

Offer convenient
delivery and
pickup options

Offer convenient delivery and pickup options

Both local delivery and “buy online, pick up in store" (BOPIS) are effective ways to get
products in the hands of local customers. For brick-and-mortar businesses, convenient
fulfillment options have become a default method to maximize sales, with online
shoppers spending 23% more and having a 25% higher cart size when local pickup
and delivery are offered.

Engage more local customers by using your store or warehouse as a pickup location, or
offer local delivery by staff. This removes some dependence on your shipping carrier and
can help you avoid potential shipping delays.

In addition, these often prove to be the most cost-effective delivery methods for buyers.

Define local delivery zones and multiple pricing conditions for each zone, manage and
prepare orders for delivery, and create optimized delivery routes for drivers.

Working out your local pickup and delivery fulfillment flow is a good way to
get ahead of increased demand for expedited ordering around the holidays.
Consider assigning staff or hiring seasonal workers to pick, pack, wrap, and
deliver these orders. Not only will it eliminate a backlog, but it will help keep
your local shoppers satisfied—and coming back.

Kevin MacGillivray
Product Marketing Lead, Shopify Retail

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The Global Supply Chain Playbook

Of course, you shouldn’t limit yourself to local customers. When you can make
delivery fast, affordable, and convenient for customers across the country or even
the entire world, your potential market (and profits) grow exponentially. 61% of global
consumers said that the option to ship their products on the same day or next day had
a significant/very significant influence on their decision to order a product online.

Make no mistake—expectations around delivery are high no matter how far you are from
your buyers. Sixty-seven percent of US consumers expect to have items purchased online
delivered in two days or less. And they want the ability to choose their preferred delivery
option at the time of purchase. To meet those needs and compete with big box retailers
you’ll likely either need dedicated fulfillment staff or the support of a third-party logistics
company to fulfill orders for you.

Beyond delivery options, these customers want to follow their orders and know of any
hiccups along the way. On top of helping to drive sales, offering clear timelines and then
communicating with customers post-purchase has been shown to increase retention.
That’s why we made transparency around delivery times one of the top three shipping
and logistics trends in Shopify’s 2022 Future of Commerce report.

Offer convenient delivery and pickup options

67%
of US consumers expect
to have items purchased
online delivered in two
days or less.

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The Global Supply Chain Playbook

Create a seamless
shopping experience
for customers
As much as supply chain tension is top of mind for you, it might not be for your
customers. Being transparent with inventory levels can help manage customer
expectations early in their shopping journey. Shopify Flow, available for Shopify Plus and
Shopify Advanced customers, enables you to create automated workflows by setting up
a series of triggers, conditions, and actions. For example, you can automatically display
low inventory levels or back-in-stock estimates on your product pages, so customers

Create a seamless shopping experience for customers

know to buy quickly, or simply when to expect products back in stock.

Here are some other workflows you can automate with Shopify Flow:

• Receive notifications when product inventory is low

• Merchandise low-stock products and hide when out of stock
• Receive a notification when demand increases for out-of-stock products
• Set up “notify me when back in stock” email collections for product pages
through Klaviyo
• Send emails for other recommended products when someone is waiting on
a shipping delay or backordered item
• Create shipping scripts with Shopify Scripts and the Script Editor app,
exclusive to Shopify Plus. Shipping scripts interact with shipping rates and
can change a rate's title, visibility, display order, and price. These scripts run
each time your customer accesses the shipping options page at checkout.

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The Global Supply Chain Playbook

Prepare your inventory

and order management
processes
To keep orders coming and going efficiently, it’s important to work out your order
management workflows early. These best practices help you scale and ship out as many
orders as possible when time is of the essence, and avoid bottlenecks, whether you use
a 3PL or not.

Prepare your inventory and order management processes

• Optimal packaging: Identify the most effective way to ship each SKU and keep
costs low, without compromising the customer experience. For example, a branded
polymailer might be cheaper than a box. Order extra packing materials ahead of time
as order volume increases.
• Inventory: Keep stock in multiple locations to reduce cost and customer service risk,
especially as regional capacities and weather events can affect shipping zones in the
winter months.
• Inventory spread: Evaluate and consider hosting inventory close to your customers.
You want to avoid having to transfer inventory during peak season.
• Order forecasting: Understand when to expand hiring, prioritize your orders (“first
come, first served,” customer priority, delivery method, order value), and organize
the warehouse.
• Ship-ready: To minimize additional touch points at packout, make sure your products
are as ship-ready as possible.
• Hiring: Based on your business performance last holiday season, consider hiring
additional seasonal staff. You can hire to support fulfillment areas like shipping, picking,
transfers between stores, receiving, customer service, and online merchandising.
• Low stock: Use Shopify Flow to show a ”low stock” flag on a product for online
shoppers. You can also use Flow to remove it altogether once stock runs out.

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The Global Supply Chain Playbook

Fulfillment is one of the primary challenges

any ecommerce entrepreneur faces. People
expect fast, free shipping and SFN has
helped us deliver on that expectation by
allowing us to store our inventory close to
our customers, reducing travel time and
shipping costs.

Grace Kim
Shopify Fulfillment Network

You’ve got this. We’ve got you.

You’re focused on growing your business. And having a disrupted supply chain
is the last thing you need.

Shopify Fulfillment Network and our vetted network of 3PL partners can help
you fulfill orders quickly and affordably, all integrated within your ecommerce
backend. Plus, your brand stays front and center.

We’re here to help you now and for the future.

Talk to one of our global shipping experts today.

Let's talk

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