Do you really know what the logistics costs of your company are? Subcontracting your logistics needs with logistics operators such as Transgesa can lead you to the conclusion that the invoices you receive are all your logistics costs. But the reality is somewhat more complicated. In this article we are going to try to unravel the different concepts that are included in logistics costs so that you are able to control them better.

What are logistics costs

Logistics costs are the expenses that a company incurs when moving and/or storing products -not necessarily finished products- from the suppliers to the final customer.
What types of logistics costs are there

Provisioning costs

What it costs us to stock up on products or raw materials and bring them to our facilities. It is one of the great forgotten and ignored when companies think about logistics costs.

storage costs

Once the merchandise is in our facilities, it must be kept in storage. This requires facilities and machinery, whether we do it ourselves or subcontract it. They are so important that many of the logistics and manufacturing trends of the last decades involve trying to reduce stocks. Often resorting to a greater frequency of shipments and their reduction in volume. In other words, what we save on storage compensates for the increase in transport costs.

Internal transport costs

Not all transportation is from our suppliers to us or from our warehouses to the end customer. Companies also carry out internal movements of merchandise for many different reasons -manufacturing, stock, etc.-. and those costs continue to add to the total of our logistics.

distribution costs

This cost is the one that is usually most automatically identified with logistics costs. It is the one that takes the finished products to their destination. But, as we are seeing, it would be a mistake to believe that these are the only logistics costs.

Costs of not quality

Have you ever wondered what are the logistics costs associated with poor quality? It is a possibly more common question in quality audits, but one that should be asked. How much does it cost you to replace damaged merchandise, to repeat incorrectly prepared shipments, withholdings for delays in deliveries? Or the loss of customers!

personnel costs

In all the previous points we have voluntarily omitted the mention of personnel costs. The purchasing staff for the supply, the warehouse people, the workers who monitor the status of shipments and who deal with customer queries or complaints… All of them are part of the logistics costs of your company.

Management tool costs

Among the logistics costs that we had also left unmentioned, but that were in the previous processes, are the management tools. Among the main ones are the computer tools that allow you to manage your warehouse and its stock or shipment tracking.

When you have a comprehensive logistics operator like Transgesa, many of these costs will be included in your service. For example, access to shipment tracking tools or the ability to know your updated warehouse stock in real time

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