Title: 17 Closing Company Case
Course: Principles of Marketing > Section: Chapter 17

Closing Company Case

Global Containers & Custom Packaging Inc.

It happens without much thinking—you go online, click on the item, add it to your cart, pay for it, and then wait for it to arrive, usually in just a few days. And although you don’t give it much thought, there is a lot going on when making a purchase. It may appear that the product “just arrives” at your location, but it’s not quite that simple. The manufacturer must decide how to best ship the product, whether it be by truck, ship, air or some combination of all three of them. Also, depending on the size of the company that is purchasing the product and the size of the order of the product, it might make a stop at a wholesaler before ending up on retail shelves or in your mailbox.

One company that is working “behind the scenes” to ensure that your package arrives intact and on time is Global Containers and Custom Packaging. Global Containers and Custom Packaging is a full-service logistics company. It offers logistics and warehouse management, packaging distribution, and quality inspection and sorting.^11

Strategically headquartered along the US-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, Global Containers and Custom Packaging offers local packaging distribution services that provide value and solutions to the retail and maquiladora market. Customers include companies like Amazon.com, Hewlett Packard, Honeywell, Align Technology (the makers of Invisalign system for straightening teeth), and ASO (a leader in consumer first-aid products).

Started in 2009, the company was founded to provide a full-service logistics solution. José Ochoa, one of the company’s founders, started off as an industrial engineer and saw a need for a full-service logistics solution offering a high level of customer service. Some of the solutions that the company offers are just-in-time inventory management, report management, flexibility in hours (it will receive a truck or ship a product after hours or on the weekend with no extra cost to the client—a service that is practically unheard of in this industry), traceability of consumption behavior, and coming soon, accepting crypto payments.

Managing all of the pieces of a logistics solution can be tricky, especially in an environment with unprecedented shipping delays. Global Containers and Custom Packaging takes a proactive approach in managing its clients’ business—it will advise customers on upcoming delays on products that it doesn’t currently have in inventory. By staying in constant contact with the client, it has been able to keep delays and bottlenecks because of missing items to a minimum. All this is accomplished while the industry has seen shipping delays skyrocket.

It’s not surprising given the company’s proactive approach to managing delays, offering superior customer service and comprehensive offerings, that it has received the prestigious Bridge Accelerator Award, an award focused on businesses that are looking for ways to grow and innovate in the Paso del Norte region.^12

Case Questions

1 .

Is the marketing channel a direct channel or indirect channel in this case? Why?

2 .

Global Containers and Custom Packaging provides trucking shipping solutions primarily between Mexico and the United States. What are the six factors impacting the choice of channel? Which have the most important impact in this case?

3 .

What are the main product-related factors that have an impact on the choice to ship products via truck from the United States to Mexico?

4 .

Name the different supply chain management levels that Global Containers and Custom Packaging provides.