[#282] Supply Chain in Numbers - Apr 21, 2025
Parallel Systems raised $38M, 90% of Petsmart's e-com fulfilled via SFS, Vallor raised $4M, Amazon's launches LTL service in the US, Zhuji produces around 25B pairs of socks per year
Welcome to “Supply Chain in Numbers.” This newsletter tracks significant numbers from the supply chain world. Five prominent numbers are published every Monday. If you have any feedback, please send it to me.
$38 million for e-railcars
Parallel Systems, which is developing battery-electric railcars that operate autonomously, will launch testing in April on two railroads in Georgia. The Los Angeles-based company also announced it had raised an additional $38 million in funding, bringing its total to date to about $100 million. In January, the Federal Railroad Administration approved a request from Parallel, Georgia Central, and Heart of Georgia Railroad to test its self-propelled intermodal flatcars. Parallel said it already had a backlog of more than 300 of its autonomous railcars with leading railroads and expects to launch commercial operations in 2026. Competitor Intramotev of St. Louis has deployed autonomous railcars in commercial operations at a calcium mine in Missouri. [Freight Waves]
90% of e-commerce via SFS
In 2023, PetSmart began shipping some online orders directly from its stores, instead of using its seven distribution centers. Just two years later, 90% of PetSmart’s shipped orders placed online or through automatic, scheduled deliveries are now fulfilled from its 1,600-plus stores. Out of those orders shipping from stores, 70% of them are to customers within 20 miles of the store, allowing the company to deliver to customers quickly and offer same-day delivery through services including DoorDash, which is embedded on PetSmart’s app and website, as well as Instacart, Uber Eats, or Shipt. [Modern Retail]
$4 million funding
Artificial intelligence-powered contract automation platform startup Vallor raised $4 million in new funding to save enterprises time and money by giving procurement teams the tools to eliminate manual tasks. Vallor, officially Broad AI Inc., offers an AI-powered contract management platform designed to automate tasks and optimize procurement processes. The platform allows organizations to extract valuable insights from contracts. Procurement in enterprises often remains manual and fragmented. Vallor argues that the industry’s default is a patchwork of spreadsheets and shared drives or software built in the early 2000s, with duct tape solutions that create more friction than clarity. The result is a reported 9% loss of annual revenue due to poor contract management. [Silicon Angle]
60,000 trailers for LTL shipping
Amazon is now offering less-than-truckload services to customers shipping inbound to its fulfillment facilities. Customers can access the new offering via the e-commerce giant’s self-service portal. The platform provides quotes for shipments 14 days in advance, compares FTL and LTL options, and tracks the status of shipment loads. Billing, invoicing, and online payment features are also available. The new LTL capability has access to over 60,000 trailers and thousands of lanes across the U.S. Introducing LTL services in the U.S. builds on Amazon’s efforts in international markets. In 2024, the company launched an LTL program in Germany, expanding its LTL offering in the United Kingdom. [Trucking Dive]
25 billion pairs of socks per year
The world’s largest wholesale market, the famous Yiwu Market in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province, has 75,000 vendors across an area larger than 1,000 American football fields. China accounted for 56% of all sock and stocking imports to the U.S. in 2023. One district in the nearby city of Zhuji produces around 25 billion pairs of socks per year. Lowering their prices to offset 145% American tariffs–paid by importers–wouldn’t be feasible for sock makers because they are such low-margin items. This means the importers will need to cut into their profits, ask U.S. customers to pay more, or find another country to buy socks at a lower cost. This isn’t impossible, as Pakistan, Honduras, El Salvador, and other countries make lots of socks. But China’s prices and speed, backed by an army of skilled workers, are hard to beat. [WSJ]