Hi everyone,

I’m a local graphic and brand designer living in Guangzhou, China. Recently I found myself out of work and sitting at home, trying to figure out my next move.

To be 100% upfront about my weaknesses:

- **My spoken English is terrible.** Phone calls are really tough for me. Thankfully, with translation tools, I can read and write pretty well, so text, email, and async video updates work great.

- **I have zero traditional factory/engineering experience.** I don't know heavy industrial machinery or complex technical QC.

Here is what I CAN do, and the idea I’m testing out:

Living right here in the manufacturing hub (Guangzhou, and right next to Foshan/Dongguan/Shenzhen), I can easily hop on a train or taxi to visit locations. Since I have a trained designer's eye and know how to handle a camera, I'm thinking of helping overseas small business owners with lightweight, visual tasks:

1. **Supplier Reality Check:** Going to the exact address on your invoice to shoot raw, unedited walk-through videos—proving they are a real factory or legit warehouse rather than a bedroom scammer.

2. **Sample Photos & Videos (Save your shipping fees):** Having suppliers mail your samples to my place in Guangzhou (domestic shipping here costs less than $2 and takes 1-2 days). I can unbox them, shoot clean photos or short B-roll videos, and show you the real quality before you pay $50-$100+ to ship bad samples overseas.

3. **Packaging & Print Check:** Using my design background to check if the factory printed your logos, colors, and boxes accurately before they ship the bulk order out.

My honest questions for you guys:

- Would you actually use someone like me for these basic tasks, or is the lack of spoken English and factory background a total dealbreaker?

- What other headaches do you face with Chinese suppliers that a local guy with a good eye for visuals could help solve?

Any brutal honesty, advice, or new ideas would mean the world to me right now. Thanks for reading!

Globally, about 13% of food is lost after harvest, before it even reaches a shop. Another 19% gets wasted at retail and consumer level.

While all of that is happening, around 645 million people faced hunger in 2025. Those two numbers don’t sit well together.

That’s what World Food Day is for. It’s held every year on October 16, the anniversary of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It’s so big that it’s actually observed in around 150 countries to push action on food security and food systems.

The 2026 theme for World Food Day is “Innovate today. Nourish tomorrow.” This means acting now on new ideas across the whole food chain.

• Growing: Better seeds, smarter use of water and soil, and digital advice that helps farmers make better decisions.
• Storing: Keeping food fresh and safe after harvest so less of it spoils before it’s sold.
• Moving: Getting food from farms to shops without delays or temperature slips along the way.
• Selling: New ways to reach markets, fund producers, and distribute food so more people can afford it.

In the best case, if these are met, that’s enough safe, affordable, nutritious food for the future. 

Not all of that food loss happens on farms, though. A walk-in fridge running at the wrong temperature or food that’s been sitting out too long can send a whole batch to the bin, or worse, to a customer. Globally, contaminated food causes around 420,000 deaths a year and makes about 600 million people sick.

This is where a tool like Mitti (by SafetyCulture) helps. Food safety sensors track fridge and freezer temperatures in real time and alert the right person when something changes, so stock can be moved before it’s lost. Anything that fails becomes an action with an assigned owner and a due date, so nothing is missed.

So innovate today and be sure to check up on the parts of your food supply chain you control this World Food Day.

we sent carbon data requests to about 150 suppliers three months ago and we got meaningful responses from maybe 30, the rest ignored it sent back something unusable or replied asking what we meant by scope 1 and 2 emissions
supplier engagement on carbon feels impossible when most of your supply base doesn't have a sustainability person, has anyone found approaches that improved response rates? ways to reduce friction?

We've seen the industry change significantly over the years and technology is one of the major players in that change, think digital freight platforms, tracking tools, ELDs, load board apps and on-truck equipment.

What do you think are some of the more impactful technology innovations for the logistics industry from either a driver or shipper perspective?

Hey everyone, please bear with me as this is my first time voicing these concerns and asking opinions.

Long story short, I am a “warehouse coordinator” for a home services company. However, the functions of the job are heavily rooted into procurement/purchasing and inventory control.

I make 50k in Tampa, FL and when I brought my concerns to my employer they just changed my title from warehouse receiver to warehouse coordinator.

I started my degree in supply chain & operations management at WGU and am on track to finish in one term (March 2027) Currently I’m 58% done.

I’m unsure of what to do at this point because I’m feeling imposter syndrome due to my employer downplaying my contributions. Ive had accomplishments that directly impact the bottom line such as identifying vendor overcharges, unauthorized purchasing etc. On the inventory side I’m essentially managing fleet cycle counts for 35+ vehicles including scheduling them. I have no help in this it’s solely me performing these as well as processing all of our invoices (almost 100 per day)

I’ve implemented processes as well as improved existing ones. Unfortunately, i do not have a lot of technical ability in excel or power BI although I want to learn.

I need some advice as to what I should do as far as looking for jobs?

I work on the software side of ocean freight, moving a few thousand containers a year (so asking out of curiosity, not from the ops trenches).

At that volume, the pattern I keep hearing is that free time is easy to read and hard to track. Every carrier starts the clock differently (discharge, availability, combined days or not), and a rolled vessel or a customs hold can blow through it quietly. Multiply that by hundreds of boxes a month and nobody can eyeball it anymore. The invoice shows up weeks later and no one remembers why the box sat for 9 days.

So where does this really get tracked for you: the TMS, a spreadsheet, or nowhere (and you just dispute after)? And for US imports, have the 2024 FMC billing rules made those disputes any easier?

My company is building a smart load board that is designed to cut out freight brokers entirely and connect shippers and carriers directly. Waitlist is at https://www.nomorefreightbrokers.com

It is going to be free to carriers, shippers are going to be charged an annual fee negotiated per shipper and a flat rate based on the size of the load, and the flat rate taken as a percentage is going to be 2-5%. More money in both of your pockets. Let's band together and do this!

Most supply chain teams obsess over freight rates and FOB pricing, but let containers sit racking up port demurrage during the handoff from sea to land.

The silent profit killer isn't bad weather at sea—it's the manual delay in securing the Shipping Line Delivery Order (D/O). Between waiting on original bill of lading (OBL) releases, slow local agency escrow payments, and unverified CR/manifest name mismatches against customs portals, holding fees stack up fast.

For those managing industrial imports into major regional ports: How is your team handling pre-clearance validation and carrier releases? Are you still relying on manual agency tracking, or have you built automated validation layers before the container hits the dock?

Would love to hear how others are solving this quayside-to-gate gap.

Most sourcing teams don’t have a supplier-search problem.

They have a work-after-the-search problem.

A supplier name is only the start. The slow work is:

• turning a brief into an RFQ
• drafting and organizing buyer-approved follow-ups
• comparing quotes side by side
• modelling landed-cost scenarios
• keeping documents and decisions in one place

That is the work an AI employee should take off the buyer’s desk.

SourcingGPT is built to do more than produce a long list. It helps buyers narrow candidates against the requirements that matter, then organizes the workflow from discovery through purchase order, while the buyer remains in control of outreach and the final decision.

Our company-reported internal benchmark is 250–300 person-hours of sourcing work per SKU from discovery to purchase order. Results differ by product, process and information quality.

The real value is not more suppliers.
It is fewer dead ends, faster decisions and more time for the work only a buyer can do.

Learn more: https://sourcinggpt.ai/

Where does your sourcing process lose the most time: supplier discovery, chasing replies, comparing quotes, or paperwork?

hashtag#SourcingAI hashtag#ProcurementTechnology hashtag#GlobalSourcing

Hi everyone!!!

I’m looking for some honest advice about whether going back to university would actually help my career prospects in the UK.
A bit of background: I’m Brazilian and have a Bachelor’s degree in Production Engineering (Industrial Engineering). I worked for Nestlé in Brazil for 5 years before moving to the UK around 4 years ago.
Since moving here, I’ve ended up working in hospitality and have progressed into a management position. Whilst I’ve gained valuable experience, it’s not really the career path I originally wanted, and I’ve been struggling to transition back into my field.
I’ve been applying for jobs in supply chain, logistics, operations and related areas, but haven’t had much luck, despite having both a degree and previous experience working for a multinational company.
I’m now considering doing an MSc in Supply Chain and Logistics Management at Kingston University, hoping it might help me get my foot in the door and make the career switch.
However, I’m a bit worried about investing so much time and money into a Master’s only to end up in exactly the same position.
So I’d really appreciate some advice:
Would a UK Master’s actually make me more employable, considering I already have a relevant Bachelor’s degree and previous industry experience?
Is Kingston University well regarded by employers in the supply chain/logistics sector?
Would I be better off investing in professional qualifications, such as CIPS or CILT, instead?
Has anyone successfully transitioned from hospitality management into supply chain, logistics or operations?
I’m not expecting a Master’s to magically land me a job, but I want to make sure I’m making a sensible investment in my future.
Any advice or personal experiences would be massively appreciated. Thanks!

Does Material Planning directly impact logistics costs?

Some might say it does not.

In this short reel from the podcast I did with Serge Bajenov, named OnTime with Dr. & Serge, I have explained the logic of why it has 😁

In short, if you plan your replenishment better at the Distribution Center, you will reduce logistics costs!

Now the question is: will logistics folks give credit to planning guys for cost reduction?

Tomorrow, I will be giving a keynote on "Supply Chain Skills in the Age of AI" at an event in Guadalajara, Mexico.

I want to create a slide that conveys the message that we, as supply chain professionals, have always adapted and changed over time. Maybe not with the same acceleration as Digital Marketing or FinTech, but we are not very far behind,

So far, we are in the 8th phase according to my research:

1) The Transportation Era (1950s)

2) The Physical Distribution (1960s)

3) The Physical Supply, Deregulation and Logistics (1970s)

4) Transportation, Deregulation, Physical Distribution and Business Logistics (1980s)

5) Business Logistics (1990s),

6) Logistics and Supply Chain Management (2000s)

7) Supply Chain Digitalization (2010s)

8) Now: Rise of Agentic AI in SCM (2024 onwards)

What would be the 9th Phase and when?

A full blog on the evolution of Supply Chain Management and Logistics is available here

Hey everyone,

If it's your first time reading one of my posts, my name is Menachem, and I have a weekly newsletter called Logistic Pulse that breaks down the top logistics news from the past week. We have over 17,000 subscribers, and I share it on Reddit to spread the knowledge. We're currently on week 67! I hope you enjoy it, and I'm always open to feedback.

Last week, Reddit automatically took down my posts, so if you like my newsletter every week, I'd suggest subscribing directly instead of relying on my Reddit posts.

Let's jump into it,

The 3PL that keeps buying 3PLs just raised $400 million

Stord went to the banks for a credit line and walked out with nearly double what it asked for. The Atlanta fulfillment company announced on October 8 that Citi led the $400 million facility, joined by five other banks. Add the $250 million Series F from May at a $3 billion valuation, and Stord has lined up $650 million this year. The money will fund new fulfillment buildings and robotics and AI work at Stord Labs.

Stord runs nearly 100 fulfillment locations for more than 1,000 brands, moving more than $15 billion a year in merchandise, and says its packages reach one in four U.S. households. Its revenue run rate is approaching $1 billion after growing tenfold in four years. It's private, and FreightWaves notes it didn't disclose profit or the loan's pricing and maturity.

A good chunk of that network came from big companies selling their small-brand fulfillment arms to Stord: Pitney Bowes in 2024, UPS in 2025, and CEVA this January, with the last two adding 33 warehouses between them. CEVA is the same company that just took over FedEx Supply Chain in Edition 66. Stord also hired a new CFO, Bill Zerella, who has run finance at three public companies, Fitbit included, plus a chief revenue officer from Box, though it hasn't announced any IPO plans.

What this means for you: Stord pays interest on whatever it draws from that $400 million, and it plans to cover it with volume in its buildings, so expect sharp Stord quotes when your mid-size DTC clients come up for renewal this winter. Stord sells software and network together, from the delivery promise at checkout to returns, which is hard to beat on tech, so lead with what a 100-building network can't give a smaller brand: custom kitting and wholesale compliance work, plus a person who picks up when a client calls.

America used Prime Day to buy toilet paper

Amazon's October sale ran Tuesday and Wednesday, and Adobe counted $9.86 billion in U.S. online spending across all retailers over those two days, up 8.5% from last year. That's just under Adobe's $9.9 billion forecast, which we covered in Edition 65.

Numerator tracked more than 80,000 orders, and the top sellers were protein shakes, Lysol wipes, toilet paper, Dawn dish spray, and Dunkin' Refreshers. Two-thirds of what people bought cost under $20, and the average order came in under $49. More than half of households placed two or more separate orders, and nearly three in four shoppers told Numerator inflation was one reason they shopped the sale.

Adobe had household cleaning and paper products selling 55% above the September average, with hygiene and pet food close behind. Electronics jumped 85%, headphones and speakers 300%, and Halloween costumes 610%. In Edition 65, Adobe expected shoppers to use Cyber Week to stock up on basics, and many started in October. Numerator also found intent to shop Black Friday and Cyber Monday down 4 and 5 points from last year, and more than half of shoppers compared prices elsewhere first, mostly at Walmart and Target, both of which ran competing sales this week.

What this means for you: A pack of wipes costs you the same to pick, pack, and ship as a pair of headphones, so check what your consumables clients' average order value did this week and whether your per-order minimums still cover your cost at that ticket. Push those clients toward bundles and multi-packs before Cyber Week, since one order with three items is cheaper for both of you than three orders with one, and half of households split their buying across orders. Anything that sold through in two days needs replenishment booked now so it's back on the shelf before Thanksgiving, and with warehouse space as tight as it is right now, give the client a receiving appointment instead of letting them ship whenever. Numerator's Black Friday number only measures intent, so keep your seasonal headcount and schedule November in flexible blocks you can shift week to week.

Walmart wants to ship your clients’ Walmart orders itself

Walmart opened its fifth next-generation fulfillment center on October 8: a 900,000-square-foot building in Stockton, California. The other four are in Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Texas, so this is the first one out West. Besides Walmart's own online orders, it'll fulfill items for Marketplace sellers through Walmart Fulfillment Services, the program where Walmart stores and ships a seller's inventory. Sellers send in cases, robots bring totes of product to the pickers, and Walmart says packers can work four orders at once and get them out in under 30 minutes. FreightWaves notes e-commerce now accounts for 23% of Walmart's sales.

Two days earlier, ShipStation launched Ship with Walmart, which lets Marketplace sellers buy labels at Walmart's negotiated rates from the same dashboard as their Amazon, Shopify, and TikTok Shop orders, with up to $100 of protection on on-time shipped packages. ShipStation didn't name the carriers or the discount size.

A few weeks ago, Amazon offered to ship your clients' Walmart orders from their FBA inventory (Edition 65). Now Walmart has a West Coast building for those same sellers and its own rates inside software plenty of 3PLs already ship from.

What this means for you: Pull each client's Walmart orders a month and where those customers are. If a client's Walmart buyers are mostly in California while you ship from New Jersey, WFS will win, so have the conversation about splitting inventory or adding a western node before their Walmart rep does. If you run client Walmart orders through ShipStation, find out whether those labels can be bought on the client's account inside your instance, and compare them to your rate card before the client does. If a client asks why they shouldn't just let Walmart ship Walmart orders and Amazon ship Amazon orders, walk them through what splitting one inventory across three networks looks like right before Q4.

Quick hits

WAREHOUSING
September's drop in empty warehouse space was the steepest since March 2022. The Logistics Managers' Index space reading fell from 53.5 to 39.3, with smaller companies feeling it more than big ones. This year's holiday freight arrived late, and most of it is sitting with wholesalers and distributors, who usually start pushing it down to retailers around mid-October; NRF's Global Port Tracker shows imports dropping below last year in November. If a client wants to park overflow "just through the holidays," put January's storage rate in writing now, before those pallets turn into aged inventory.

REFUNDS
A trade court just gave importers who never filed for tariff refunds a way back in. On October 8, the Court of International Trade certified a class of every importer that paid IEEPA duties between February 1, 2025, and February 19, 2026 and hasn't sued on its own. The court said the importers who haven't used CBP's refund portal are mostly small, and that without the class, about $30 billion would stay with the government. Nothing pays out yet, since the parties meet October 13 and the Justice Department is still appealing the broader refund order. CBP started paying refunds on finally liquidated entries on October 6, but only to importers who sued and filed their importer-of-record number by July 30; Levi's booked about $80 million in refunds and is putting roughly $20 million of it into distribution and logistics. If you ship for small brands that imported during those months, ask whether they ever filed, and if they didn't, tell them about this.

LABOR
UPS is hiring 100,000 seasonal workers, and some get an offer in under seven minutes. The jobs run October through December and cover sorting and moving packages, driver helpers, and seasonal drivers using their own cars. UPS is also adding Protected Delivery, where the recipient has to give the driver a PIN before an eligible package changes hands, and expects to deliver more than 4 billion RFID-tagged packages by year-end. Warehouses shed jobs in September (Edition 66), but you're still recruiting from the same pool as a company that hires in seven minutes, so make seasonal offers the same day someone applies. If you ship high-value goods, ask your UPS rep whether Protected Delivery works on your account before your clients ask you.

WEATHER
Hurricane Isaias shut the Port of Mobile for a day. The first hurricane to reach the U.S. this year hit the Alabama and Florida Panhandle coast Friday evening as a Category 3 storm with winds near 120 mph, with 4 to 8 inches of rain forecast across southern Alabama, the Panhandle and southwest Georgia. Mobile closed to vessels and cargo handling Friday and returned to its regular schedule Saturday. If you have clients with containers routing through Mobile or freight moving across the Gulf Coast this week, plan for a few days of shuffled appointments.

REAL ESTATE
Amazon paid $195 million for a two-story Chicago warehouse that's sat empty since it was built. The West Town building, finished in 2024 with truck docks on both floors, becomes Amazon's second same-day site in the city, with fulfillment and delivery under one roof. Amazon told the Sun-Times it expects 200 jobs averaging about $24 an hour, with groceries and pharmacy driving demand, and an opening in late 2027 or early 2028. If you run a building in Chicago, that $24 is the number your applicants will quote back to you.

Job board

Title: Sr. Logistics Manager
Company: Kovalus Separation Solutions
Location: Wilmington, Massachusetts, US
Salary: $150,000 - $175,000
Apply Here

Title: Director of Supply Chain Planning & Logistics
Company: Asbury
Location: Asbury, New Jersey, US
Salary: $125,000 - $140,000
Apply Here

Title: Director of Warehouse Operations
Company: Ardmore Home Design
Location: Hacienda Heights, California, US
Salary: $120,000 - $140,000
Apply Here

Title: Supply Chain Director
Company: Jetta
Location: Edmond, Oklahoma, US
Salary: $110,000 - $130,000
Apply Here

Title: Manager, Export
Company: SpartanNash Associates
Location: Norfolk, Virginia, US
Salary: $90,000 - $120,000
Apply Here

Title: Laboratory Logistics Analyst
Company: DCS
Location: Ridgecrest, California, US
Salary: $70,310 - $75,100
Apply Here

Title: Quality & Compliance Specialist
Company: North American Freight Forwarding Inc.
Location: Barrie, North Dakota, US
Salary: $63,000 - $72,000
Apply Here

Check out 1,700+ jobs available →
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One thing I’ve noticed in supply chain operations is that the biggest issue is often not the original delay.

It is everything that happens after it.

A shipment gets delayed.

Then:

Someone has to update the customer.

Someone has to check the carrier.

Someone has to adjust the delivery schedule.

Someone may need to update the TMS, ERP, or WMS.

Another team is waiting for the new information.

And sometimes all of this is being coordinated through email, calls, spreadsheets, and messages.

The shipment delay may be one problem.

But the follow-up can create five more.

I’m curious how teams here handle this.

When an exception happens, do you have a defined workflow for who owns the next step?

Or does it mostly depend on people noticing the issue and chasing each other?

Would be interested to hear what actually works in real operations.

if anyone can help me out i am a Btech mechanical final year student planning for master of business analytics and AI strategy at RMIT and minor in supply chain that fits well in my domain a mechanical engineer and would like to work as a business or a supply chain analyst can anyone suggest me if this is a good pathway for PR or not. should i go for UWA as it has better ranking or shall i go for RMIT as it provides better course structure and can also someone suggest will perth be suitable for my masters and job or melbourn should be the place?

if anyone can help me out i am a Btech mechanical final year student planning for master of business analytics and AI strategy at RMIT and minor in supply chain that fits well in my domain a mechanical engineer and would like to work as a business or a supply chain analyst can anyone suggest me if this is a good pathway for PR or not. should i go for UWA as it has better ranking or shall i go for RMIT as it provides better course structure and can also someone suggest will perth be suitable for my masters and job or melbourn should be the place?