The Challenge
FitDirect's warehouse math: significant working capital tied up in 40-ft containers of Chinese dumbbells waiting out 8-week sea-freight, plus the safety stock to cover stockouts when ships are late. They wanted to collapse that to pallet-level reorders with 1-week replenishment.
The Solution
We ran a 90-day pilot with FitDirect: they ordered 2 pallets of our best-selling dumbbell pairs, cross-checked against their Chinese-origin stock for dimensional tolerance, rubber adhesion, and drop performance. Commercial tolerance held identically, drop test matched or exceeded on every sample. They migrated 6 SKUs over Q3-Q4, keeping one Chinese fallback line.
Results
Working capital tied up in inventory dropped sharply — a roughly 70% reduction, from container-scale commitments to weekly pallet orders. Stock-out incidents went from 7 in 2024 to zero in the 12 months since migration. Gross margin per SKU held within 1–2% of the Chinese line after factoring in saved freight, customs, and lost-sales cost.
"The sticker price per dumbbell is higher from Turkey. The cash tied up in our warehouse is massively lower. We stopped losing sales to 'out of stock'. It's not close."