Customers rarely think about procurement.

When they walk into a shop, place an online order or receive a delivery at their door, they’re focused on one thing: whether the experience lives up to their expectations.

Is the product available?

Did it arrive when it was supposed to?

Was it the quality they expected?

Most people never stop to consider that those moments often begin months before they become customers. Long before an order is packed or a delivery vehicle leaves the warehouse, someone has already decided who will supply the product, how it will be sourced and how it will make its way through the supply chain.

Those decisions quietly shape almost everything the customer experiences.

The Customer Only Sees the End Result

Businesses spend a great deal of time discussing procurement, inventory, warehousing and logistics.

Customers don’t.

They simply judge what happens at the end.

If a product is out of stock, they don’t wonder whether a supplier experienced production delays. If a delivery arrives late, they’re unlikely to think about transport schedules or inventory planning.

They remember the business they bought from.

That’s what makes procurement so important. The decisions made long before a customer places an order often determine whether that customer leaves satisfied or frustrated.

Every Supplier Changes the Experience

Choosing a supplier isn’t simply a purchasing decision.

It’s a decision about how the business wants to operate.

One supplier may offer a lower price. Another may have a stronger record for delivering on time. A third might be more responsive when plans suddenly change or demand increases without warning.

None of those qualities appears on the shelf beside the product.

Yet every one of them can influence whether customers find what they’re looking for when they need it.

By the time procurement teams sit down to compare suppliers, they’re often thinking about much more than the quotation in front of them. They’re considering how dependable each supplier has been, how easily they communicate and how confidently the business can rely on them when circumstances become less predictable.

The Best Customer Experiences Start Earlier Than Most People Think

One delayed shipment doesn’t necessarily create a problem.

Neither does one supplier running behind schedule.

Supply chains are remarkably good at absorbing small disruptions.

The real challenge comes when those small disruptions begin happening more often. Deliveries start slipping by a day here and there. Inventory takes longer to replenish. Warehouses begin adjusting schedules to accommodate late arrivals.

Eventually, those small changes reach the customer.

From the customer’s perspective, it feels as though the business has become less reliable.

In reality, the first signs may have appeared much earlier inside the supply chain.

Procurement is Really About Trust

The strongest supplier relationships aren’t built on price alone.

They’re built on confidence.

Confidence that products will arrive when they’ve been promised. Confidence that suppliers will communicate when circumstances change. Confidence that both businesses will work together when unexpected challenges appear.

Those qualities don’t always stand out during a tender process.

They usually become obvious months later, when the supply chain comes under pressure.

Customers Remember How You Made Them Feel

Most customers will never know who supplied the product they purchased.

They’ll never see the purchase order, negotiate a contract or visit the warehouse where their order was packed.

What they will remember is whether the experience felt effortless.

That’s why procurement reaches much further than purchasing products.

Every decision made at the beginning of the supply chain has the potential to shape the experience waiting at the very end.

Long before a customer forms an opinion about a business, procurement has already helped write that story.

Not long ago, most deliveries followed a fairly predictable route. Products arrived at a large distribution centre, were stored until needed and then transported to stores or customers across the country.

That model still plays an important role, but changing customer expectations are reshaping the way many businesses think about warehousing.

Today, shoppers expect groceries in under an hour, online orders within a day or two and accurate delivery updates every step of the way. Meeting those expectations isn’t always about driving faster. Increasingly, it’s about storing products closer to where customers already are.

Bigger Isn’t Always Better

For years, businesses focused on building large distribution centres that could supply entire regions from a single location. Centralising inventory reduced operating costs and made stock easier to manage.

As online shopping has grown, however, a different challenge has emerged.

Sending every order from one large facility often means longer delivery distances, increased transport costs and less flexibility during busy periods.

That’s why many retailers are complementing their larger distribution centres with smaller fulfilment facilities positioned closer to urban areas.

Speed Starts Inside the Warehouse

Businesses such as Checkers have shown how customer expectations have changed. Services like Sixty60 have raised the bar for grocery deliveries, making rapid order fulfilment part of everyday retail rather than a premium offering.

Behind those deliveries is a network designed for speed. Products are stored closer to customers, picked quickly and dispatched within minutes of an order being placed.

Retailers such as Takealot and Amazon South Africa are also investing in fulfilment networks that shorten the distance between inventory and customers, helping reduce delivery times while improving service levels.

It’s Not About Replacing Large Warehouses

Smaller fulfilment centres aren’t replacing traditional distribution centres.

Instead, they’re becoming another layer within the supply chain.

Large facilities continue receiving bulk stock, managing inventory and supplying regional networks. Smaller urban facilities focus on processing customer orders quickly, allowing businesses to respond to growing demand for faster deliveries without placing unnecessary pressure on their main warehouses.

Each type of facility has a different role, but together they create a more flexible distribution network.

The Warehouse Is Getting Closer

As delivery expectations continue to evolve, businesses are rethinking where inventory should be stored rather than simply how quickly it can be transported.

For many organisations, that means bringing products closer to customers, reducing the distance between an online order and the front door. It’s a reminder that faster deliveries don’t always begin with the truck. More often, they begin with where the warehouse is located in the first place.

The South African Freight and Logistics Association (SAFLA) and the Road Freight Association (RFA) are jointly calling for an immediate, unified recovery plan to restore predictable cargo flow through Durban Gateway Terminal (DGT) after sustained disruption across vessel, yard, system and landside operations.

The record is stark. In July, vessels at DGT averaged some 80 hours at anchorage and 106 at berth. After the mid-August NAVIS N4 cutover, weekly throughput fell 26% and reported terminal waits reached eight to 12 days. Independent monitoring data shows average Durban port call time rising from under five days in late June to more than twelve by late August, and monthly berth calls down from 34 to 19 since May. On the roadside, the time transporters spend in the port precinct per visit has risen by more than half in three months, while Bayhead Road transit times have climbed steadily since January. The whole gateway is slowing.

The cost runs well beyond storage and demurrage: production lines waiting for inputs, emergency airfreight at a multiple of ocean cost, and trucks standing without bookings. In the 2023 logistics crisis, the GAIN Group put the cost of freight-system dysfunction at around R1 billion a day in lost output. Durban is running the same mechanisms again.

International Container Terminal Services Inc (ICTSI) assumed operational responsibility for DGT on 1 January 2026 under a 25-year partnership with Transnet, inheriting longstanding infrastructure, yard, road and rail constraints alongside pre-handover investment in 20 new straddle carriers and four ship-to-shore cranes. The question is no longer equipment purchased, but equipment available, reliable and synchronised. The NAVIS N4 transition did not create DGT’s constraints; it compounded them.

Accountability must follow the contracts: cargo owners contract with shipping lines, the lines with the terminal, and Transnet granted the concession under defined performance commitments. Transnet and the shipping lines therefore hold the standing to bring the terminal to account — and neither should pass the cost of disruption down a chain that controls none of it.

“Cargo owners and freight forwarders do not experience the port as separate institutions. They experience one chain,” says David Logan, Executive Officer of SAFLA. “If systems, straddles, slots, gates, roads or rail fail to align, cargo stops. The priority is not institutional blame. It is disciplined recovery, with clear owners, deadlines and one trusted set of numbers.”

“Transporters are carrying this crisis on their balance sheets,” continues Gavin Kelly, Chief Executive Officer of the RFA. “Fleets are standing without bookings while fixed costs run, drivers are queuing on Bayhead Road, and every standing hour ends up in the price of goods. Slot releases must match real capacity, and truck staging must be fast-tracked now. Without trucks, South Africa stops.”

The associations propose a DGT Recovery Compact built on five actions:

1.  One recovery structure — the terminal, Transnet entities, eThekwini, shipping lines, transporters, labour and industry bodies in one daily structure, with government facilitating rather than managing.

2.  A public, 30-day recovery plan — daily targets and one public dashboard: vessel waiting and berth times, crane productivity, equipment availability, system stability, yard utilisation, dwell, truck turnaround, rail evacuation.

3.  Stabilisation of systems, equipment and the yard — NAVIS Hypercare retained until cargo-flow thresholds are sustained, backed by a straddle and crane reliability programme and accelerated evacuation of long-dwell containers.

4.  A coordinated landside plan — appointment releases aligned with real capacity, published slot schedules, reasons for cancellations, disclosure of any preferential access, and fast-tracked truck staging.

5.  Fair commercial treatment — transparent prioritisation of reefers, perishables and critical cargo, and published relief processes for storage, demurrage and detention where delays lay beyond the cargo owner’s control.

The associations acknowledge DGT’s Hypercare support, storage extensions and Radar platform, and the Presidency’s involvement. What is still missing is one consolidated, independently understandable set of performance indicators.

“The Transnet–ICTSI partnership was created to change Durban’s trajectory, and we want it to succeed,” Logan says. “Success will be measured by predictable berthing, productive ship hours, reliable truck access, effective rail evacuation and cargo arriving on time. Durban needs one recovery plan, one set of trusted numbers and shared accountability. Cargo must move — and it must keep moving.”

SAFLA and the RFA stand ready to contribute member evidence and practitioner expertise to a joint recovery task team alongside DGT, Transnet, government and other industry bodies.