How a Fast-Growing Home Goods Brand Scaled 10x with Terminal49’s Container Tracking Software
Discover how a fast-growing home goods brand scaled their global operations 10x while reducing shipping delays and demurrage fees—using Terminal49’s real-time container tracking platform.
10x Revenue, 7.5x Freight Growth—Scaling with Terminal49
Terminal49 keeps this home goods brand’s global supply chain moving with confidence
In a world of fast furniture and impersonal marketplaces, this direct-to-consumer home goods brand stands apart. They source handmade and vintage rugs directly from artisans in Morocco, Turkey, and India—reviving old-world craftsmanship for modern homes while prioritizing ethical sourcing, sustainability, and fair wages at every step.
But building a global supply chain rooted in those values is no small feat—especially while scaling monthly freight volume by 650%.
As container volumes surged and operations spread across continents, the brand faced the same logistical chaos that troubles many fast-growth ecommerce businesses: missed deliveries, spreadsheet silos, costly delays, and communication breakdowns. What they needed was clarity, collaboration, and control.
What they found was Terminal49.
We grew sales 10x—but our logistics were a mess. Terminal49 gave us confidence, and ability to capitalize on the growth.
Challenge: Shipment Volume Grew 7.5x—Manual Ops Couldn’t Keep Up
As the brand’s shipments grew 7.5x—across multiple international vendors and forwarders—managing the global supply chain became increasingly complex. They faced:
- Limited visibility from forwarders
- Inconsistent delivery estimates, unreliable ETAs
- Tracking containers manually in spreadsheets
- Communication gaps across time zones and teams
- Costly demurrage and missed delivery appointments
They needed a modern ecommerce logistics software platform that could support growth without overloading their team.
When you’re the small fish, you don’t always get the best visibility from your forwarders. Sometimes you’re left guessing.
Solution: One Dashboard. All Containers. Everyone Aligned.
Terminal49 gave the team a centralized logistics dashboard to track all shipments, regardless of which forwarder handled the freight. It became their daily source of truth, enabling them to:
- Track every container from port of lading to final delivery
- Search by PO, container number, or internal tags
- View milestone events and delays in real time
- Set up custom alerts for exceptions (e.g. containers past LFD)
- Share data easily across ops, inventory, and leadership
Melissa starts every morning the same way: with Terminal49 open on her screen before her coffee is brewed. Whether she’s validating arrival estimates, coordinating warehouse intake, or collaborating with other teams, Terminal49 is the first place she looks for a clear picture of container tracking and shipment status. The platform required almost no onboarding—“It just works and it’s easy-to-use.” More importantly, it’s brought a new sense of calm to her day.
We’ve avoided a lot of demurrage and missed appointments. That alone has saved us tens of thousands.
I used to wake up with anxiety about what I’d missed overnight—what containers were late, which emails I hadn’t seen. Now I just open Terminal49 and know exactly where things stand. It sets the tone for my whole day.
Built for Collaboration With Accurate Data
The brand has several active users across different departments. Terminal49 has become a shared, trusted source of validated data that everyone—inventory leads, finance, the COO—can access. They automatically get the latest, accurate, time-zone-aligned data without needing to dig through emails.
| Collaboration Feature | Impact Across Teams |
| Daily email digests | Inventory and execs can monitor key milestones at a glance |
| Live dashboard access | Ops, finance, and fulfillment see the same status updates |
| Custom PO tags and notes | Track by vendor, warehouse, or product line |
| Forwarder-neutral tracking | Consolidation across all forwarders and continuity through forwarder changes |
Terminal49 doesn’t sugarcoat. It shows exactly what happened and when—so I can plan around reality, not spin.
If there’s a delay, I don’t have to explain it in five emails. Everyone just checks Terminal49.
Demurrage Cost Savings and Operational Wins
Before Terminal49, the team was often caught off guard by delays—especially when managing multiple forwarders. Delivery appointments were missed, demurrage fees piled up, and they found themselves reacting too late. With demurrage and detention charges running hundreds of dollars per container per day, those delays added up fast.
We’ve avoided missed deliveries, launch delays, and late fees just by catching issues early.
Since adopting Terminal49, they estimate saving tens of thousands of dollars annually by proactively managing delivery schedules and planning around real-time ETAs.
One example: during a peak season shipment from India, Terminal49 flagged a container as still pending transshipment—despite a forwarder estimate that suggested it was en route. Melissa immediately coordinated with the warehouse team to reschedule receiving, avoiding a failed delivery attempt and the associated rescheduling fees.
Smarter Warehouse Coordination Across the U.S.
Coordinating inbound shipments across three U.S. warehouses used to be a constant juggling act. Without reliable ETAs, Melissa often had to scramble to alert receiving teams—sometimes too late to avoid missed appointments or costly rescheduling fees. With Terminal49’s accurate data, milestone tracking, and daily digests, warehouse coordination has improved across the board.
The Terminal49 dashboard is intuitive, reliable, and helps us move fast with less stress. That’s everything in a business like ours.
During high-volume periods, even one missed delivery can derail a product launch or disrupt the customer experience. Real-time data updates now allow Melissa to reroute containers, shift warehouse intake, and communicate changes across teams and partners without confusion.
It gives me peace of mind during our busiest times. Terminal49 is the source of truth we share with our 3PLs and warehouse teams—it keeps everyone aligned.
Future-Ready and Flexible
Growth has meant new partners, changing forwarders, rethinking warehouse locations, and evolving fulfillment strategies. Terminal49 has enabled them to stay flexible throughout those changes. "What’s unique is that Terminal49 isn’t tied to any one forwarder. So we have visibility across all partners in a single dashboard. And we can hold them accountable using Terminal49’s accurate and complete data" said Melissa, Director of Operations.
The data is already there. Now we can use it to negotiate better and operate smarter.
Forwarders can sometimes offer overly optimistic ETAs—or leave gaps in communication when shipments change hands between carriers. That’s where Terminal49 becomes indispensable.
Sometimes a forwarder will tell us something is arriving in two days—but Terminal49 shows us it’s not even gated in yet. That saves us from making bad decisions.
Terminal49 = Calm, Clear, Scalable Operations
This brand didn’t just grow fast—they grew with intention. With Terminal49, they gained end-to-end visibility and are now shifting their focus to optimization: analyzing which lanes or suppliers cause the most delays, syncing container data into Fulfill.io and Airtable, and holding vendors accountable through milestone history.
At its core, Terminal49 empowers fast-growing brands to scale without bloat.
We’re not reacting anymore. We’re proactively planning.
If you’re a growing brand trying to scale without losing your edge—take a page from their playbook. Book a demo with Terminal49.
Get your containers back on track
