Shopify’s recently released Commerce Trends 2023 report is already proving to be a good resource for merchants navigating the ebbs and flows of commerce. But there’s one section in particular that’s caught the attention of us here at Anvyl as we too help our customers build a winning storefront. That is, of course, Shopify’s section on Supply Chain trends.

Retail as an industry has been one of the worst impacted by persistent supply chain disruptions of the past few years. In fact, our recently released Supply Chain Outlook 2023 – a survey of 400+ SMB owners and C-suite level executives across industries including retail – found that 60% report losing up to 15% or greater in revenue due to supply chain delays. As such repercussions continue to come to light, it’s important that we continue to call attention to the challenges these businesses face and shine a light on the ways they can overcome them. 

According to Shopify, one of these ways is to diversify product sources. In this blog, we’ll share our point of view on the best ways for Shopify brands to expand their product sourcing, and offer tips on how to boost supply chain resilience.

Managing New Supplier Complexities 

According to Shopify, low cost, high productivity, and dependable quality are no longer the most important ingredients of a winning supply chain. Rather, thousands of companies are now learning that supply chains are graded on resilience. 

One way businesses are building shock absorbers into their supply chains is by diversifying their product sourcing. In fact, 30% of Shopify merchants have found new suppliers and 29% now get their products from multiple suppliers or countries. 

But onboarding new suppliers, especially those across new geographical locations, adds considerable complexities for your supply chain team. Diversifying these assets means you need to know how to quickly and fairly assess which of your suppliers are performing and which aren’t. A task that requires much thought, quick thinking, and data-backed decision making. But when an organization is still stuck using email, spreadsheets, and other manual processes for tracking supplier engagement, responsiveness, and overall efficiency, it becomes incredibly time-consuming and exceptionally complex. 

Optimizing the First Mile of Supply Chain Management

It’s these costly complexities that inspired Anvyl’s foundation in the first place. There’s been so much focus on streamlining the last mile of logistics: the delivery of a product or service to its end user. But a successful – or a disruptive – supply chain is built in the first mile. 

This is why it’s crucial you take the necessary steps to strengthen your supplier relationships. In a recent blog where we discuss the importance of supplier audits and break down what to include in your supplier audit checklist, we dig into one method brands use. That is: a supplier scorecard that lets brands and suppliers see how well they’re performing and uncover potential areas for improvement. 

At Anvyl, we take the subjectivity of evaluating supplier performance out of the equation so brands can make more informed purchasing decisions based solely on the reliability of the suppliers. In other words, the better a supplier performs, the more confident you can be to rely on them for larger contracts as your business scales. Additionally, many of our customers use our supplier scorecard to conduct quarterly supplier reviews, which helps both parties understand how to work more effectively together. 

To learn more about how Anvyl eliminates these persistent supply chain complexities – and to hear how we’ve helped our customers improve on-time shipping by an average of 20% and decrease order lead times by 50% – contact our team!

Check back in soon as we break down another Shopify tip for future-proofing logistics networks: digitizing your supply chain.