The price on the shelf is built layer by layer — from raw materials and labour to logistics, margins, and taxes. Most people who work in warehouses know roughly what a product costs. They see the PO, they know the unit price, they've got a general sense of margin. But that number on the PO is not the price of the product. It's the starting point. By the time a unit is received, putaway, counted, picked, replenished, maybe miscounted and recounted, and finally shipped — it has

Saving on upfront costs leads to expensive breakages down the line. There's a vendor a lot of DCs have dealt with at some point — great price per unit, decent lead time on paper, always answers the phone. And then you start noticing things. Cases that scan as one SKU but contain another. Poly bags that aren't labeled the same way twice. You catch it at receiving if you're lucky. You don't catch it until a pick if you're not. That's when the real invoice arrives. Not from the

Nobody tells you that the inventory you had perfectly dialed for one channel becomes a liability the moment you open a second. You go from shipping full pallets to one DC to picking singles for three different fulfillment paths, and suddenly the count accuracy you thought was fine — 98.2%, respectable — is no longer fine. A 1.8% error rate on bulk outbound is a rounding error. That same rate on ecom singles means real customers getting apology emails. The problem isn't the om