Halloween has shipping deadlines that can’t be missed.
For the imports team at Spencer Spirit Holdings, the company behind Spencer’s and Spirit Halloween, every container must arrive ahead of a season with a fixed date. That makes knowing where each container sits, and what happens to it next, a daily requirement.
Where the team started
Before working with EDRAY, tracking container activity was a manual job. The imports team compiled a large report by hand, and it took several hours to complete. Those were hours the team could not spend acting on what the report showed.
What the team changed
The team moved its container tracking onto EDRAY’s Import Platform, which gave them one place to follow each shipment from milestone to milestone. In their words, the platform “has streamlined this process and strengthened our ability to track container milestones, status updates, and overall shipment progress more efficiently.”
The team describes the reporting as “clear, well-structured, and easy to use.” They point to two changes that matter most in their daily work:
- Hours of manual reporting have been replaced by a centralized view of shipment activity and container movement.
- Internal teams and external partners now work from the same consistent picture of container status.
Those two changes build on each other. With less time spent gathering updates, the team has more time to spot potential issues early and communicate them, which they describe as “a more organized and proactive approach to managing our import activity.”
The people behind the platform
Spencers opted to work with an EDRAY Destination Management team to supplement their in-house team and get the most value out of the platform. They credit their day-to-day EDRAY representative, Imelda, for being “efficient, responsive, and consistently committed” through platform setup and the daily workflow, for both their own team and their partners. They also note that EDRAY’s executive team stayed accessible throughout the season to answer questions as they came up.
What comes next
The team is candid that customs clearance is the next area to strengthen. The current limits come from the availability and consistency of their internal customs data, and they expect milestone tracking and exception management to sharpen as that data improves. It is a useful reminder for any importer that a platform performs best when the data feeding it is consistent.
The biggest benefit
Asked to name the biggest benefit, the team pointed to “the improved visibility and streamlined communication across our container lifecycle.” One platform now does the work that used to require hours of compiling, and everyone involved sees the same status.
If your team is still building container reports and tracking your imports by hand or in a spreadsheet, we would be glad to walk you through what’s possible with the EDRAY Import Platform.
Reach out to the team here: Contact EDRAY
