Cross-docking 101 for high-velocity DTC brands

What cross-docking is

Inventory comes in the dock door, gets staged for outbound, leaves the dock door — without ever being put on a shelf. Inside the warehouse, the time-on-floor drops from days to hours.

When it makes sense

Cross-dock when (a) inbound is predictable, (b) outbound is high-velocity, and (c) you'd rather hold cash than inventory. A Black Friday SKU surge is the canonical use case: receive Wednesday, ship Friday, dock empty Monday.