Episode #64: The Last 100 Feet: Fulfillment Reliability and Omnichannel Logistics with River Plate’s Leo Rodriguez
In today's episode, Matt Horine speaks with Leo Rodriguez, VP of Los Angeles-based River Plate Inc., a family business founded in 1992 that evolved from freight coordination into an omni-channel 3PL providing warehousing, distribution, and fulfillment for DTC, Amazon, and wholesale retail. Rodriguez explains how e-commerce shifted operations from linear B2B shipping to multi-channel integration requiring WMS/OMS systems, business rules, and customer education. He defines “reliable” fulfillment through transparent KPIs, fast receiving (now 1–3 days for containers), ASNs, and brand-specific SOPs for QC, serialization, and lot/expiration tracking, plus proactive staging to clear backlogs. He outlines early warning signals for peak-season “fire drills,” emphasizing forecasting, labor planning, and system readiness, and describes strong 3PL relationships as an operating system with testing, portal visibility, and retail/EDI compliance. Rodriguez discusses client red flags, parcel optimization, Southern California port corridor improvements, AI-driven decision support and traceability, River Plate’s international expansion, and growing value-added kitting and bundling services.
Links
- River Plate Inc.
- River Plate Inc. on LinkedIn
- Leo Rodriguez on LinkedIn
- Veryable Is Revitalizing U.S. Manufacturing
- Sign Up on the Veryable Platform
Timestamps
- 00:00 Show Intro and Guest
- 01:47 River Plate Origin Story
- 04:02 Ecommerce Changed Logistics
- 06:00 What Reliable Means
- 09:24 Preventing Fulfillment Backlogs
- 11:32 3PL as Operating System
- 14:57 Client Red Flags
- 20:39 Scaling Omnichannel Fulfillment
- 23:23 SoCal Corridor Supply Chain
- 26:41 AI and Warehouse Tech
- 28:50 30 Day Fulfillment Fix
- 30:55 River Plate Next Steps
- 32:56 Closing and Subscribe
Episode Transcript
Matt Horine: [00:00:00] Welcome back to US Manufacturing Today, the podcast powered by Veryable, where we talk with the leaders, innovators, and change makers shaping the future of American industry, along with providing regular updates on the state of manufacturing, the changing policy landscape, and more.
On this show, we spend a lot of time talking about reindustrialization from the factory floor, production capacity, workforce, freight, energy policy, but today we're going somewhere we haven't gone deep in a long time, the last 100 feet of the American supply chain, the warehouse dock, the pick line, the pack station, the place where everything we talk about making in this country actually has to get into a box and into the customer's hands accurately on time every time.
Our guest today lives in that world. Leo Rodriguez is the vice president at River Plate Inc, a Los Angeles-based fulfillment and logistics company with more than 30 years in business. It started in 1992 as a family freight operation in Southern California and has grown into a true omni-channel 3PL.
Warehousing, distribution, freight coordination, and fulfillment for brands selling [00:01:00] across direct to consumer, Amazon, and wholesale retail. Leo has played a key role in expanding those capabilities, and he brings something we value highly on this show, a hands-on operator's perspective, not a consultant slide deck.
In this episode, we'll get into what reliable actually means inside the four walls of a fulfillment operation, how to prevent the fulfillment fire drill before customers ever feel it, and why the best 3PL relationships work like an operating system rather than a vendor contract. And that view from the Southern California logistics corridor tells us about the state of American supply chains.
So let's get into it. Leo, welcome to US Manufacturing today.
Leo Rodriguez: Hello. Thank you, Matt. Hello, audience.
Matt Horine: All right, we're excited to have you on because this is something we don't really get too much into. There's a lot of news and a lot of noise about freight and freight costs and supply versus demand driven market dynamics going on.
But I wanna start out with the journey first. You're VP of a company that started in 1992 as a family operation working out of a small office in Los Angeles, and walk us through your path and how River Plate [00:02:00] evolved from coordinating freight to running a full omni-channel fulfillment.
Leo Rodriguez: Yes, it's a wild one.
It's been a rollercoaster of a ride, but all-- but very rewarding. It's my mother, actually, she's the one that started the business, actually, freight logistics, going up LTLs, full truckload shipments, picking up LA County as well as San Diego, some into Ventura County. Did that first, I believe, like, seven, eight years, then started hearing some noise from the clients that they're needing warehousing, storage facilities, but then some value added services.
By value added services, specifically like kitting or some labeling. Enough ref-- enough noise came through where that was important to her to think of let's-- I don't have those capabilities right now, but You know what? Open up a warehouse, and I'll give this a shot. Now 30, what, 33, 34-plus years in business, that was gonna transition into fulfillment, e-commerce distribution, retail distribution, wholesale, obviously kitting, vast kitting programs throughout a [00:03:00] lot of different verticals.
I've been actually part of the business for 17 years. Started actually in the wa- yeah, so on the warehouse floor doing... I didn't just get handed a position, or a high-level position, right? I had to learn the nitty-gritty of understanding how to handle inventory, stocking, put-away, different dynamics on how the front end of the supply chain works, the back end of the supply chain works, and then figuring out how a lot, everything back then, a lot of it was we were doing a lot paper-based spreadsheets control through ordering and inventory, but making sure we were able to...
I was a big part of implementation of a lot of different technology and helping scale the business.
Matt Horine: For sure. No, that's, you bring up an interesting point and a shift in the business, and it's always interesting from a family business perspective, right? You hit on a couple things there where people, they build these things to last, and there's obviously been a significant change in the landscape since the '90s.
Like most great businesses, you're adapting to what your customers are telling you and what the customer wants, and that's [00:04:00] how you've probably achieved your growth, which you highlighted really well. The mid-'90s arrival of e-commerce changed everything for l- from logistics. From your seat, what was the single biggest operational shift, at least, I know you probably weren't in seat there yet, but you probably saw that play out over the back or the beginning of your career for sure.
Leo Rodriguez: Yeah. So let's... Thing that just sticks out is that initially brands maybe had, is at least what we were dealing with at that point was more B2B than direct to consumer. So it was pretty straightforward script of exactly what that wholesaler or retailer needing, or sorry, needed to execute the shipment, whether it's shipping parcel or shipping palletized shipment LTL for truckload, pretty linear.
And then as within the couple years I was in within the position or within the business, started seeing that, that rise in these virtual channels, marketplaces online, and how are you going to absorb those type of orders? By absorbing, it's like [00:05:00] how the communication in terms of what, what channels, what operating systems is the brand using, and how is that going to integrate into your systems?
It's using a warehouse management system. For 16 years we had an order management system before that, but now more of a diverse, more impactful operating system to be able to handle all those different channels, all the different marketplaces, be able to set up business rules within them, configurations and settings, and how it, it works with us parcel, how you're able to ship with expedite shipping and economy shipping.
So all that was a... There was a big learning curve. Also, a big part of it is educating the accounts all, 'cause they're just, it was a lot of it was very new to them, right? But now here we are pretty well automated.
Matt Horine: Yeah. It's a crazy shift, and the speed is something that really people don't take a step back and realize the speed at which things move these days, whether it's in the DTC space or, or whether it's just in regular industrial freight.
It's a pretty incredible [00:06:00] operation. I think you touched on something there that really we wanna dive into here, because every 3PL Website in America, every 3PL's pride point is fast and accurate, right? But you work on receiving distribution, freight coordination, you work on this every day. Operationally, at the dock door, on the shop floor, what does reliable actually mean, and what are the metrics and disciplines that separate a real operation from more of a marketing claim, which we've seen in the market these days?
Leo Rodriguez: Of course, yeah. Big part of it is transparency and being true to the KPIs, right? There is... There's expectations that should be established beforehand, and when you're engaging in onboarding an account that you, the speed of receiving an inbound should, should be within a couple days. Back at, 15 years ago, we would say, "We can get in an inbound, a full 40-foot container.
L- give us about five, seven days to, business days to take care of that." That's no longer in place. That's not gonna, that's not gonna work now. It's like you just said, speed is, it's the [00:07:00] Amazon effect on every level. It's just everyone's expecting it to move much quicker. These inbounds are coming in from LTL to full truckloads to these 40-foot containers.
Those are between one to three business days in terms of full verification, making sure that... And even beforehand, so I can back it up a little bit, right? It's the preparation and organization between the 3PL and the brand or the account to make sure that those receipts are virtually in their systems, essentially advance ship notices, right?
ASNs, so they're virtual packing lists, right? And then obviously SOPs that need to go hand in terms of what is required for that specific inventory or item profile to be checked in. You have... We deal with accounts that are in lifestyle brands, apparel, beauty. You have some that are in toys, electronics.
The, their maybe quality control or inspection steps are different from one brand to another, right? So different industries. Some will need you just to verify simple information. Some require serialization, expiration dates to be, to be scanned into their systems, a lot number, batch number. All those are [00:08:00] pretty much standard now across a lot of different SKU profiles.
But making sure that those SOPs are tethered to each individual brand on that receiving process so that it can speed it up on the dock floor, then inject that directly to the stock positions. But also to add a- additional layers, there's POs just constantly flowing in. There's backlogs, right? There's a lot of our clients can even get the inventory fast enough.
So there is out, over-allocated orders, essentially POs, or just e-commerce orders that are just sitting in a system that are waiting to be processed that don't have any, enough inventory, just simply enough, right? Now, how well can your 3PL actually be able to s- you know, sort and be able to stage that so that they can just immediately put that into a production process, or a pick and pack process, or put a distribution plan right out of the gate, out of offloading from the container.
So you have 30% going into stock, and then 70% that are [00:09:00] just going for five, six different channels, and where is that going within the facility so that it can be processed quicker? 'Cause every day is vital for that to go out, and time is of the essence.
Matt Horine: Absolutely. I consider that kind of a primer on operational SOPs in, in the logistics environment.
It's 100% true. It's how well do you know your customer, and how well are they aligned to your process so that they get what they expect on time and in full? You did hit on something there, and it sets up what I think might be the most relatable topic of this episode for anyone who's lived through a Q4, the fulfillment fire drill, which is something I think is squarely in your lane.
Let's talk about the fire drill. Every brand has lived it, orders back up, customer service tickets pile up. Everyone seems like they're scrambling. But from the operator's side, backlogs almost never come out of nowhere. What are the early warning signals you watch for, and how do you act on them before customers feel anything?
Leo Rodriguez: It, it's a great question because it's... We and probably many 3PLs now are, have data and then have predictable data as well, right? So [00:10:00] historical archived information, understanding different must arrive by dates from different retailers. Essentially, we need to better understand our customer's customer, right?
Under a-- That's, that starts way in advance, right? So it is, we do a lot of collaborating on forecast calls, understanding a big part of it is the managing labor, right? So expected labor that's gonna require what integra- if there's any integrations that need to happen beforehand that m- might not be fully in place, or it's maybe in place, but it's not ready for that type of volume.
So what additional configurations or, or add-ons that you can do well in advance before even fourth quarter hits. But it really c- to sum it all up, a big part of it is just engaging early on in the stages with your client under seeing what that inbound forecast looks like and being able to be honest and be like, "This is what's you're gonna be able to make.
This is what's gonna be tight." But a [00:11:00] 3PL should be able to be flexible, and if you're working two shifts, sometimes during fourth quarter, you're working overtime, weekends, it's what's... it's what's necessary to make it happen, get the stuff out the door for the client.
Matt Horine: Yeah, absolutely. You touched on a couple of really interesting points, especially for us at Veryable.
We talk about surge capacity and the ability to handle seasonal demand all the time here through labor management and figuring out how to build that flexibility within your operation. Usually a pretty critical constraint, but I won't take our airtime to talk about all that. But a s- a serious planning factor for sure.
Really insightful. It pivots us into the relationship side of this because you did touch on a couple of key things there. Everything you just described only works if the brand and the 3PL are actually operating as one system. And as a consumer, I've seen that when it's disjointed, right? You're getting a package from some unknown thir- 3PL, or you're getting a package from somebody else, and it, it, it twists and turns kind of your relationship with whatever brand you're buying or that you're expecting to show up on, on your front door.
But you've made the case that a fulfillment partner should act like [00:12:00] an operating system for the brand, not a vendor you hand the boxes to. What's the difference in practice, and what does a brand get from an operating system relationship r- that they'll never get from something that's transactional?
Leo Rodriguez: Yeah. There's so many different layers there, but one thing that just it's... Look, the saying goes here, like, i- i- internally within our four walls, it's in the, in the conversation with our accounts, it's like, "Look, we are... We understand we are your hands, eyes, and ears," right? We're the last ones to touch the product until it goes either to market or direct to the consumer.
But again, I'm gonna go back to even from simply just from the onboarding, because there's so much that can happen on the onboarding setups that, that could be missed. So there's still... There's, nowadays with all the tech and obviously AI available, there is notifications or predictable information that could be...
Or, or essentially data and reports that could be already sent to you well in advance to make better business decisions. But how are you gonna digest that? Are that... Is that also easily visible? Can you, at any time, at any, [00:13:00] at any minute of the day, go into a login or receive specific messages to inboxes, even texts, be able to jump into the portal and be able to just...
It's, it's... It shouldn't be a For not only our c- our customers' customers, for the brands, shouldn't be having to sit there and crunch information and try to decipher what you're doing. You, you essentially need to be running parallel, and that's what we're trying to do day to day is be able to, outside of just a simple making sure that tracking numbers are updated across all the systems, not just our WMS, but their ERPs, their OMSs, making sure that on the back end, that they actually have the correct c- the correct settings within their shopping carts to even deliver that.
See, that's another layer that we've just d- jumped into a lot more in the last three years is not just only relying on them to say, "Okay, yeah, we have... We did the configurations within our, with Shopify, or BigCommerce, or WooCom," or whatever it might be. It's let's actually set up a call and run through that, run through a bunch of test orders, a bunch of [00:14:00] scenarios.
'Cause once you go live, then it's just you're, you- The last thing you wanna do is backpedal, right? Big also, a big part of it there, I was piggyback is it's in, in B2B and retail. Retail is very, it's delicate, and also hard to break through the walls of trying to get forgiveness for chargebacks. You need to follow these compliance guidelines to the T.
Things need to be thoroughly tested before you're gonna go and bring on a Target or a Walmart world, 'cause the EDI world is there's things that changes that sometimes doesn't, it gets the brand's admin or specific team members there, doesn't flow to the 3PL, and then you find out about it four months later, but then you get an accumulation of these violations, and it could be detrimental to a brand.
Matt Horine: There's a lot for everyone in that answer because there are folks listening who are possibly looking for a 3PL partner. There are PLs that are probably listening for best practices from an org- organization like yours. And you mentioned something on the honesty front there about [00:15:00] forecasting.
Forecasting is always something that it's to averages, right? There's no crystal ball. There's good data, there's good intuition, but oftentimes there's a plus/minus factor in that, right? And just from your perspective as somebody who's lived this life, what are the red flags that a fulfillment partner looks for in a potential customer?
If you're sitting there evaluating bringing business on board, 'cause it's an expansion to, of y- of your operation, you're taking on capital requirements, you're taking on all kinds of additional responsibilities potentially, what are some of the red flags that you say, "This is the right kind of business to partner with us"?
Leo Rodriguez: It's so important because I think it's, it has to be complete honesty there. You have to be fully transparent. It's sometimes don't wanna hear it, the clients don't wanna hear it, you don't wanna hear it, but it has to be laid out on the table. So to expand on that from... And it's a conversation that we've had.
It's consistent, right? It's evaluating, like we could just throw around, "Okay, who's our ideal client profile? Let's go ahead and put them in a box." But- [00:16:00] Engaging on discovery calls, getting, having direct pointed questions, asking some uncomfortable questions, but some things to, now to really answer your question, red flags we've seen and we've, we've learned.
You like, you live and learn sometimes. You can only, you can do some referrals, you can do some background checks, you can s- you can look into the business and how, how long they've been in business and sometimes there's suppliers, vendors, sometimes we already know them. But couple, I'll stick, couple things that stick out there.
If they And I'm just gonna put it out there. If they're a lot of the badmouthing that, like their previous 3PL and they kind of just stick on that, you could pick up a lot from that, right? So it's, and it has it's always, "Oh, it's the 3PL's fault, it's the 3PL's fault." But then when you start asking them more insightful questions about their processes and their workflows and how they engage with that 3PL, it looks like that could be more of a shared responsibility and a shared failure points.
Or why does something bottleneck [00:17:00] where it was, but that... Was it also were you not, was that brand or bus- or you not providing the three, the 3PL with good information or just bad data or not being responsive, right? It's just that's their job. That's what we pay them for, right? You see them like, "Oh, they mismatched my inventory.
They did that." But then you realize, you ask them about how do you ID your inventory? Do you even have it bar-coded? Did you like they, they couldn't handle our expiration date. And then you realize w- was that something that you started from the, from the beginning? Was that a, was that within, was that in the item profile to start to then...
And then also mark on the inventory level, on the inventory itself physically, is that in a barcode format or are to be able RF scans? Certain things, there's still, it goes on and on, but you can see once they're, they'll go into a lot of this old 3PL, because that's where we get a lot of, we get a lot of inquiries that way.
It's a lot of it. So there's more than half of the inquiries that we received are from [00:18:00] brands and companies that are trying to transition into a new 3PL. A lot of it... And look, this is a portion of it. A lot of them, it's just the reality is they just, that 3PL, it's not, they don't have certain specialties or, sorry, are not able to scale within certain marketplaces or retail or just specialize or just maybe just are not the size that they need.
They've outgrown. Things happen, right? Or where they're located, right? Speed of service. There's a lot of things. But we do see as we go into more deeper questions, we're like, okay, the brand's also not as well organized and they can contribute to the problem instead of to the solutions. And another one sticks out there is pricing is not everything, right?
There, there's, there's 3PLs are there to help protect margins, right? There's a lot of things be- we could read between the lines to help that are not just the X's and O's of this is your order processing fee. This is your each pick. This is your case pick. This is how much we charge for stretch wrapping.
This... Those are easy, easily able to digest. You can put different [00:19:00] type of B2B or direct to consumer scenarios, and this is what you look at. But then what else between the lines can they, can the 3PL do to really save that money? Because it's not just the individual their pricing sheet. Are they... How much do they dive into your, the big one right now, into your parcel programs, right?
Are they able... Do they really go down nitty-gritty to see that they're giving you, you have four to five different options now, six different options of different carriers That could be rate shopped and these business rules that could, that, that just is not fixed for all your different accounts. It's really, it's shipment, net weight, dimensions.
One inch or two pounds over really could make a difference of three to four dollars on just a simple parcel, right? So there's a lot of things behind the scenes that could happen that, that 3PL could do to help you stay lean on inventory, for example. So sometimes it's just visible. They just see it on a, "Here's my stock status report, here's my cubic fees, my billable pallets," but what else can the 3PL offer you to help [00:20:00] offset some of that stuff, too?
Matt Horine: Yeah. No, that's really insightful. It's... We're in a pretty volatile market right now. Just input costs for manufacturers, like we talk about utility costs, energy costs, all of those things. For you guys, whatever the spot rate is and whatever is going on, pricing doesn't work anymore. It's not like a static thing that people can rate shop and expect within a 5 to 10% markup.
So it's, that, that's definitely a really insightful thing, and one that I'm sure you've probably come across several where it's like, "We're not the right partner." I think the there's the case where that makes sense because people do need to view the 3PL and the structure as somebody who's their partner, not, to your point, just a vendor.
It's somebody that should be able to help them grow their business. A- as we've gotten more into this complex shipping environment and how folks have, brands have been out there scaling across DTC, Amazon, wholesale, I wanna talk about the omnichannel question. I wouldn't call it a problem. But a, a brand selling direct to consumer on Amazon and to wholesale retail is really running kind of three different [00:21:00] fulfillment businesses at once, right?
And there's different rules, different penalties, different rhythms. What breaks first when a brand tries to scale across all three simultaneously or too fast, and how do you build one operation that can serve them all reliably?
Leo Rodriguez: Yeah, it's a great question there, too. The thing that we've seen evolve is the 3PL has, should have, most of them, have the ability to, regardless of the marketplace, the channel, the, the client's customer, right?
That they have a able, a way to integrate and pass order data as well as, so input and output, right? Input of the order information, output if that channel requires a sense to be sent or obviously a trigger point for a tracking number, as well as a big one obviously there is also inventory syncs, right?
So you have a lot of syncs going every five minutes, 10 minutes. The old school way, even with integrations, you have direct one-to-one integrations. So their shopping cart, for example, you have a Shopify integration come directly to the, your, the warehouse [00:22:00] management system. It's one-to-one connection. That data's passing, one lane in, one lane out, right?
Then you had your Amazon FBM, right? Another virtual platform. That order's coming in. Now you have a direct integration from the Amaz- from Amazon directly to you. Then you have another channel, whatever it might be, another marketplace. So now you just have all these, this, this data that's living in two, three, four different platforms.
But you need to manage inventory all together and understand what's happening on... Essentially you need a headquarters. You need a virtual, a space to where it is, it's reviewing what you have available in inventory, 'cause if we're one, if we're your only 3PL, even, sorry, if it's we could be one 3PL, you could have another 3PL.
Are those, are you pulling, is h- how are you gonna communicate to make sure that, is this order even getting split properly? There's so many things there, but what you're seeing more and more now is more sophisticated integrations through ERPs, order management systems. One system is [00:23:00] connecting to the, to, to that headquarter systems, those order management systems, those ERPs, and then that's pushing to the WMSs and making decisions based off of those back configurations on where it sh- where that order should go, and, uh, also obviously flagging anything before it becomes a problem early on.
Matt Horine: For sure. That makes a lot of sense, and it's a really great way of framing it. And I kinda wanna pivot somewhat to zoom out maybe from the four walls, because your operation sits in one of the most strategically important logistics corridors in the country. You sit next to the largest port complex in the Western Hemisphere.
From your vantage point, receiving freight, watching what flows through your docks, what is the Southern California corridor telling you right now about the state of American supply chains?
Leo Rodriguez: Yes, you, we've seen also it's a moving target there. We've seen, gone through just recently, obviously with the whole tariff situations, you have strikes at the port, at, you've had issues with sometimes the labor, trucking, [00:24:00] chassis.
There's some freight forwarders are better in line than others. Overall though, what I see is there's a lot of resilience, not only just from the brands, but from freight forwarders themselves a- and the 3PL being able to Be strategic, and it's... A- a- again, it goes down to... There's... Let's say there's a lot of communication, there's a lot of things going on at once, so it's hard just to pinpoint.
But from our end of it, fortunately, the delays that we were seeing about five, six, seven years ago, outside of COVID and some of the, the tariff situations, what that just created a jam up for everyone, right? That's not just only impacted our port or our side, right? It was all over, right? We feel like it's still...
it's actually become pretty smooth. What we would say these deliver- before when we... These containers are reaching port, and they land. There's, they're cl- we're seeing most of these are being cleared through customs be- between two to four days. You used to see a lot of [00:25:00] hold ups between one to two weeks, at least from our, the freight forwarders that our clients engage with, the ones that we're engaging with, 'cause we require delivery appointments for all these.
So once they receive a dock appointment that it's, that's cleared, these freight companies are delivering to us. We're giving that delivery point at pretty much the next day, bringing it on in. We're not, you're not waiting two to three days to bring it in. An advantage there, huge one there, it's like it's a lot of...
strategically, a lot of our client or n- new business are... They're like, "All right, we started with a 3PL in Dallas," or so- we have one in, in Knoxville, wherever it might be, right? And they're realizing, okay, though, but the speed of what they need that inventory has now just skyrocketed, right? So getting it now, even though it clears fast at the Long Beach port, LA port, the problem is now you gotta freight it over, right?
And that process, there's an extra, you're adding an extra four to seven days. So more and more they're looking strategically for, we're in a hub zone, we're an hour away from port on a good day with traffic. [00:26:00] But it, it's vital now that as soon as a, these, these vessels arrive, and you're able to... a- and it clears customs, you're able to give a delivery point into your facility to begin to verify, inject it into our part of the distribution fulfillment, right?
But overall, I've seen in the last... even with that disruption of the tariffs, the last three, four years where it's been ab- from our point of view, it's gotten better.
Matt Horine: That's good to know because we talk a lot about like tariff policy and trade policy in the abstract, and what most on, mostly on the manufacturing side, where people are finding suppliers, where they're finding new materials, what domestic manufacturing's actually doing.
But it doesn't sound like that trade policy immediately impacts your floor as it can with others who are making things, and like most in logistics, you just ride the wave and work through it. Looking a little bit ahead now, what trends are you watching most closely in ful- fulfillment and logistics, and how is AI impacting your business?
Leo Rodriguez:
That's the trend there. The AI, like just how to d- really deploy AI is what we're currently looking at, right? And just not for a tool for our, our clients to use [00:27:00] within our, within our tech stack, right? That's available to them, but also The deployment throughout our operations to make better decisions, to be faster, be more efficient.
That all trickles down to obviously California, higher labor rate. Any savings that AI can or the efficiency of AI and providing solid data to you to, to make better decisions is going to... Hopefully that could translate into to have some savings for the clients as well, right? Even now from the front end of the supply chain where there's, and now this is outside the WMSes.
There's WES, warehouse execution systems, that we're also reviewing to where it's able to, from now the 3PLs are taking a step forward or ahead, and already getting that, that PO information or those ASNs that we were talking about earlier from the manufacturing to where they're loading it from overseas, and the trace- and it's already happening, right?
The traceability on that inventory specific on certain [00:28:00] vessels, and that could be, it could be as large scale. Like, you could have maybe five to 10 different containers coming in. You might have some from China, you might have some from Malaysia, but essentially what it's doing is it's tracking that and still connecting the dots to what orders are sitting in their systems to be able to see what work can you do, where can you be proactive, right?
Essentially it's giving you insight and giving you early deliverables to your operations teams to take specific actions to prep or to speed up as soon as it hits, then now it hits the, your, the dots that you might be three, four steps ahead, which is, that's worth the weight of gold there, right? So that, that's a huge one.
Matt Horine: Yeah. O- obviously all businesses are looking at ways they can implement AI and how it's gonna impact their business. You caught a couple there with margin protection and potentially cost savings and labor impact, all of those things. This is the part of the show where we ask for the free advice part. We, we don't ask for much, but we try to get your perspective on this.
For the brand owners and operations leaders listening who feel like their [00:29:00] fulfillment is a black box, what's the one action you'd recommend they take in the next 30 days to get control of it?
Leo Rodriguez: So I'm gonna isolate this to a lot of these direct to consumer brands, these ones that are primarily doing e-commerce fulfillment.
Really dive deep with your 3PL and engage further to understand parcel, right? Their parcel network, and allow them, open the doors to have these constructive conversations on building out, uh, a- and not only doing this once a year. You're doing this multiple times a year to allowing them to take a, a... With your assistance, take a look at your back ends and what really are your goals, 'cause there's a lot of these parcel, there's shipping options that are being put out there that could be...
There's a lot of competition. Some of these brands are doing, selling, they're... You're in skincare, you're in CPG, just CPG brands, just in general, but there's, you have a lot, there's a, there's a lot of competitors and there's a lot of options. You could compare it to Amazon, or you compare it to another marketplace.
What makes you [00:30:00] stick out? Engage with that 3PL to really, what's gonna set yourself apart, open it up, don't be scared to let them look at some of that data. You don't have to show them everything, but take... A lot of these 3PLs now, including ourselves, are really being able to go in there and tweak and offer, even if it's tr- just because it's free shipping doesn't mean it needs to take two to seven days.
You could even have some of your product options, or say your packaging, package types, to ship two day, still offer free shipping, and you just think, "Oh, it's just gonna be too expensive." No, you can literally do it for maybe 20 cents or 30 cents more. I could go more broad, but I just, I think that's, these direct to consumers, these e- these brands are like really, that's their focus.
They want, they, they wanna push a lot of volume that way, is that you can s- there's a lot of money that can be saved on your end, and also passed on to your clients so that you don't have abandoned, or that they choose your, to close your cart instead of someone else's.
Matt Horine: Great point. And really good free advice there.
So the last question I have for you, what's next for River Plate, and where can our listeners go to [00:31:00] find out more about you, maybe get in touch with you if they're looking for a new provider, and see what's going on with y'all's organization?
Leo Rodriguez: Yeah, appreciate it, Matt. Yeah, you can find it www.riverplateinc.com.
You can find River Plate on LinkedIn. We have also, we're on social media, Instagram, constantly putting new content, material up there. And yeah, it's, feel free to jump in there, put a RFQ in. A lot of our clients, the sales email there, that also is reviewed by our team, but I also take a look at it myself.
And what's next there for River Plate, we're really trying to expand more internationally. We've constantly done a really great job over the years of, we have brands from all over the world, right? But how can we, how can we better service these, the, these accounts that are, that are overseas, that just feel like they get jammed up to where they're trying to break into the US market, or they're not feeling...
I get it here at all times. They'll send these RFQs and they're like, "Wow, you were one of the few 3PLs that actually got back to me." There's a lot of opportunity, right? That we're putting a lot of focus there. [00:32:00] Obviously, the buzzword, the AI doing a lot of deployment so that we can offer better solutions and for our clients and for internally in our team.
And, uh, another big one there is we're doing, really expanded our production and value-added service department. A lot of different types of kitting, bundling programs, promos. We're, you know, a lot of these influencer entrepreneurs are coming to us with their brands, and they really want someone that has some experience in that.
We've ha- we've done some great jobs with a handful of clients, and they're saying our praise in terms of our speed and how flexible and nimble we are. And that's something that we wanna, we also wanna focus on, 'cause I feel like that's, it's a, a lane that there's opportunity for everyone.
Matt Horine: For sure. No, that's excellent to hear.
Exciting growth stage for, for you at River Plate. We're glad to hear that the logistics industry and 3PLs are, are out there making it happen every day. This was really insightful. Thank you for coming on the show today, Leo.
Leo Rodriguez: Appreciate it, Matt. Thank you, everyone.
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