The customer
A national consumer products manufacturer whose lawn and garden brands are sold through some of the country's largest home-improvement and mass-market retailers. Its seasonal retail programs mean large volumes of product and displays have to be assembled, prepared and shipped on tight schedules.
Services: Retail Display Builds · Warehousing · Distribution · Retailer Compliance
The situation
Spring lawn and garden season leaves no slack in the logistics calendar. Each retailer sets specific dates for seasonal merchandise, and hundreds of displays have to arrive store-ready and built to that retailer's exact specifications.
A late shipment costs more than a missed delivery. It can mean lost selling days in one of the most important stretches of the year, retailer chargebacks, and problems at the store level.
The manufacturer needed a logistics partner that could run the whole program reliably, from receiving bulk product and display components through assembly, staging and final distribution.
What was at risk
Every retailer had its own requirements for display configuration, product placement, labeling, packaging and shipping. Meanwhile thousands of individual components had to move through the operation without hurting accuracy or the delivery schedule.
When a retailer gives you a set date, you treat it as the deadline, not a target.
What Clark did
Clark received the customer's bulk inventory and display components at its St. Louis facility and managed the program through final shipment.
Over the spring program, Clark:
Built more than 12,000 retail-ready displays
Ran separate display configurations for each of the three retailers
Handled each retailer's product placement, labeling and packaging requirements
Coordinated inventory and components across several programs running at once
Staged finished displays by retailer and destination
Shipped to more than 800 retail locations and distribution points nationwide
Managed retailer compliance documentation throughout
Clark put experienced assembly teams on the program and built production schedules backward from each retailer's set date. Daily production tracking showed where things stood and let the team shift people as volumes changed.
The result
100% of required retail set dates met
Clark built and shipped more than 12,000 displays for three major national retailers without missing a single set date.
12,000+ Retail-ready displays built
800+ Retail destinations served
3 Major national retail programs
0 Missed set dates
The program finished with no retailer compliance rejections and no costly last-minute recovery shipments.
In the customer's words
"Clark understands that getting the display built is only half the job. It has to be built correctly, shipped correctly, and in the store when the retailer expects it. They've consistently delivered for us."
Director of Supply Chain, national consumer products manufacturer
The takeaway
A national retail display program doesn't need the biggest 3PL. It needs experienced people, disciplined processes, and a partner who knows what's riding on a retailer's deadline.
For this customer, Clark turned thousands of products and components into store-ready displays and got them where they needed to be, on time.
That's the kind of hands-on work Clark is built for.
Talk to Clark About Your Logistics Needs →