Midway Catalogue

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
The reason so many things at Midway are listed as out of stock, back order ok is because Midway doesn't stock it. You order from them and then they order it from their supplier. Saves them a tremendous amount in over head with nothing more than an inconvenience to the customer.
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
". . . with nothing more than an inconvenience to the customer."

Except for an added shipping charge.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
midway is it's own UPS shipping hub.
they do that much business, airc it's something like 10,000 orders a day.
new inventory is coming in at the same rate and has to be stocked.
since they ain't making anything just doing in/out business, keeping things flowing with a minimum amount of stock on hand is kind of the only way they can keep up.
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
Saw a video, don't know how I came upon it, that was shot in Midway's warehouse/shipping facility. It's very modern with all sorts of conveyor systems and such.

Found it:
 

KeithB

Resident Half Fast Machinist
I once read a case study about a consultant that would go through the warehouse/part storage facilities for the businesses that hired him with the top management in tow. He would ask how long a particular item had sat in storage and when told the time he would measure the footprint and then write a dollar figure on a label that he would stick to the item. He knew the cost per square foot per year and could calculate the storage cost pretty closely. When he was done he made the management go through and total up the bill. The end result was a renewed focus on storage costs, making JIT (Just In Time) part deliveries a very attractive option.

Having run a a mini storage facility for a number of years I can tell you for real that it costs money to store things, and you, the customer, pay for it.
 

popper

Well-Known Member
A lot of Midway, Amazon & other 'orders' are filled by drop ship, not JIT. Assembly plants use JIT and suppliers are penalized for early or late - thus the large number of semi trailers that 'stored' stuff. Midway does 'combined' shipping, just like P.V. to get orders. Hornady doesn't like to do 'user' orders as it's not efficient. Distributors used to play the game of drop ship but charge you like a custom order and pocket the difference (handling charges). A 'Sale' is usually an over-run or slow mover that gets discounted to reduce cost - save on storage and tax. Loss-leaders are something else.