A group with four island shops was buying from six wholesalers in Male and sending cargo whenever somebody happened to be at the harbour. Loads arrived in pieces, two shops were always short of something, and nobody could say what the freight was costing per shop.
We put them on a standing weekly booking. We collect from all six wholesalers on the Monday and the Tuesday, measure and mark everything by shop as it arrives, and build four island loads that go out on two sailings.
The measurable difference was the freight. Consolidated as one booking, the group's cargo dropped about a fifth per cubic metre, simply because it was no longer four small bookings with four minimums. The difference nobody expected was the stock: the shops stopped running out, because the order now arrived complete rather than in halves.
Eighteen months on, the standing booking has been missed twice, both times because a wholesaler was short.
