ANNUAL PREDICTIONS
2020 A Year in Review and What to Expect from 3D Group in 2021
What a year 2020 has been for all of us . I think many of us are glad it is over ; however , it wasn ’ t all bad . Here is a quick look back at what we accomplished in 2020 and what is to come from us in 2021 .
» FIRSTLY , WE WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY New Year … Let ’ s hope that 2021 is better for all of us . The UK ’ s first COVID 19 lockdown seems like a distant memory now but at the time there was a lot of worry within the industry and we are not afraid to admit that we felt the same . It was a relief to hear that the government provided support for many businesses , but unfortunately there were always going to be gaps within the system and they completely forgot about wholesalers that supplied those businesses . Fortunately , we came out of the first national lockdown stronger than ever . We streamlined a number of our processes , becoming a much more productive business and our team worked extremely hard to make sure those customers still operating were supplied like any other normal working day , regardless of the pandemic .
Despite COVID 19 , we have grown over the last year in many ways . Firstly , our stock levels have increased on a great number of lines , processes have improved and an extra few faces have been added to our ever-growing team . One of the teams with new faces is our purchasing department . We have brought in a new member of staff who has years of experience in purchasing and his expertise is helping us to improve stock levels and implement more forecasting measures . Forecasting sales is one of the hardest things in this industry , but I suppose we all struggle to predict when a customer will lose their keys .
With stock levels increasing and the widening of our range has ultimately resulted in the demand for more space ! We have not been in our current premises for long but we are now looking to increase our square footage either by extending or moving to a bigger warehouse . Furthermore , in 2020 we started using sea freight more regularly for our GTL , Xhorse and KeyDIY orders . This has continued to be very effective and we intend to increase the number of sea shipments in 2021 . We aim to raise our stock levels by around 30 % across the board and our sea shipments will enable us to do this in a cost-effective way whilst helping with our quality control process . We are finding this department is becoming overwhelmed at times which can cause issues including a backlog of stock building up whilst waiting to be quality checked before we can send them to our customers . We feel that this process cannot be missed or rushed though , and so investing in their area of our business is a must for the coming year .
In 2020 we teamed up with Keyline . We really love their business ethics , vision and the way they deal with things . We visited Italy just before the first Italian lockdown and we came away from our meeting saying nothing but positive things about them . We have always given our customers a choice instead of us choosing for them and having Keyline onboard allows us to offer another great quality brand alongside those we already stock .
‘ our stock levels have increased on a great number of lines , processes have improved and an extra few faces have been added to our ever-growing team ’
Recently , we have we have implemented Royal Mail digital labels for all our first class and special deliveries . The major positive to this is that we have a much better chance of tracking down a lost package within the Royal Mail system . Additionally , we have also implemented cheaper shipping methods for our non-UK customers . They can be a little slower to arrive as they travel via road but can be as much as half the price off the current express FedEx rates .
Some of you may remember back in March 2019 when we had to close
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JAN / FEB 2021
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