Industry
Service
Our partnership with a UK household name e-commerce retailer, who specialise in home products, in particular furniture. Since partnering with Denholm Good Logistics in 2020, the business has experienced rapid growth, expanding its global supplier network across Asia and Europe and significantly increased inbound container volumes during a period of major disruption in global sea freight.
Our customer’s rapid expansion put pressure on an increased requirement for ocean freight, UK port capacity and warehouse storage with volumes expanding dramatically from 68 containers in 2020 to surpassing 3,600 containers in 2025. This meant that DGL’s role was not simply to transport goods, but to build a flexible supply chain solution that supported a business-critical need for reliability, speed, and cost efficiency.
This exponential growth coincided with one of the most turbulent periods in global sea freight, marked by fluctuating freight rates, vessel schedule disruptions, container shortages, and significant port congestion. DGL’s role, went beyond moving goods to build a flexible, sea freight solution that supported our customer’s business-critical need for reliability, speed, and cost efficiency during rapid expansion.
Key challenges included:
- Managing rapid growth amid turbulent sea freight disruption
- Balancing transit times with overall cost efficiencies
- Port congestion and limited carrier free time increasing cost risk
- Warehouse capacity constraints during peak periods
- Limited visibility across shipments and SKUs
Denholm Good Logistics delivered a fully tailored solution that addressed the customers key challenges by introducing flexible sea freight options, inland transit solutions and technology integration, the partnership created a more resilient supply chain capable of supporting rapid growth.
The solution included:
- Optimised fast and slow sea freight as floating warehouses for urgent/non-urgent cargo
- Named Account allocations with spot market use to balance capacity and cost
- Rail-based inland transport and drayage service to ease port and warehouse congestion
- Extended free time and off-quay storage to reduce demurrage risk
- Integration of DGL CargoWise with the customer ERP platform for real-time visibility
This partnership has delivered a more resilient, cost-effective and scalable supply chain. Service reliability has improved despite ongoing market challenges, while operational and sustainability benefits have been realised across the network.
Key results included:
- Maintained service continuity amid a growing number of 3,600+ containers
- Avoided demurrage with 100-container iPort / DGL warehousing / off-quay yard storage
- Consistent and reliable inland deliveries with rail drayage and shunting operation
- Achieved savings of 3.1Million kg CO2 by transitioning from road to rail
- Enabled real-time visibility of thousands of SKUs and containers
Industry Recognition
Denholm Good Logistics’ collaboration with the retailer has been widely recognised within the logistics sector with winning the Sea Freight Forwarder of the Year at the BIFA Freight Service Awards 2025. This industry acknowledgement highlights the value of this long-term partnership and its innovative, scalable approach to managing complex sea freight operations.
