[Transcript] Leveraged Supply Chains – Episode 12: Urban Import: Jonathan Guerrero

Key Takeaways

What does it take to keep more than 1,000 fitment-specific automotive aftermarket products moving across five in-house brands and two US locations? More than the customer ever sees.

In this episode of Leveraged Supply Chains, Andrew Stroup sits down with Jonathan Guerrero of Urban Import to unpack the operating model behind the catalog. Jonathan explains why some air-suspension management products contain up to 30 components, why inventory may need to be ordered 90 days in advance, and how one missing component can cascade from purchasing to the warehouse to a customer backorder.

Before automation, supplier details arrived through email threads and Excel files, purchase orders were entered manually, and specialized team members had to reconcile invoices, packing lists, and physical inventory. Jonathan estimates that the purchasing work consumed at least 30 hours per week, sometimes involving supplier conversations at 2-3 a.m.

The conversation covers why Urban Import chose automation rather than spreading the work across more people, how supplier-entered data can improve ERP visibility, what implementation exposed about existing workflows and supplier relationships, and why acknowledgement response rate is now a critical operating metric.

You’ll hear about:

• The inventory-planning challenge created by fitment-specific demand and multi-component kits
• Why inaccurate quantities create work across the warehouse, customer service, and purchasing
• The decision logic behind supplier-driven PO automation
• How implementation can become a useful inspection of existing SOPs and relationships
• Why better information beats more safety stock when the underlying data is unreliable
• Jonathan’s advice to follow your gut, make clear declarations, and stay willing to change your mind

If your team is still relying on email and spreadsheets to manage supplier acknowledgements, quantities, pricing, or ETAs, this episode offers an operator-level view of what that manual model is really costing the business.

Subscribe to Leveraged Supply Chains for more real-world conversations on AI, procurement, supplier performance, and operational excellence in manufacturing and distribution.

Full Transcript

Andrew Stroup (00:05)
welcome back to Leveraged Supply Chains, the show where operators unpack how modern supply chains actually work. The automotive aftermarket may look like an e-commerce business from the outside, but underneath every order is a global supply chain. Overseas production, long lead times, inventory bets, supplier changes.

And a customer who still expects the right part quickly. Urban Import has been building in this market since 2001. Today it manages more than a thousand products across five in-house suspension brands and two US locations. I'm joined by Jonathan Guerrero of Urban Import, a customer who recently deployed Leverage AI to talk about how a lean team manages that complexity, why they modernize purchase order visibility in their ERP.

And what implementation really required and what has changed since GoLive. Jonathan, welcome to the show. Before we go deeper into the supply chain and the workings of what you guys do, let's give listeners a sense of your path and how urban import became the business it is today. Give me the rundown, the path into urban import, what is your role put you closest to every day? How did you end up there? And let's begin there.

Jonathan G. (01:15)
Well thanks for having me, first of all. Urban Import. We've been in business since 2001. we basically started as an eBay seller and then got exclusive rights to some popular brand or some well known brands, D2 Racing, and others. And then we just grew from there. and as for me personally, I started at a very low

wrong just entry position. and as I became more familiar with our workflows and I started to identify problems, errors, and other things, small things that just accumulate, and I I started fixing those. I just kind of made myself a position here that that allows me to manage pretty much any project.

that comes to our hands.

Andrew Stroup (02:02)
I I love that. A a Swiss Army knife, as some say.

Jonathan G. (02:06)
Yeah.

Andrew Stroup (02:06)
and you know, it's it's interesting because I I love the narrative of urban import around how you started with the enthusiast roots and now operate in-house brands, not an easy task and an evolution of I think what I call customer demand or pool. from your experiences you've been there since the early days, how did the business and its supply chain evolve as that portfolio expanded?

Jonathan G. (02:29)
well it certainly got more complicated, especially when we started focusing on fulfilling kit products or products with multiple components. that on top with the fact that we have multiple warehouse locations. that's really where things got really complicated on the internal end.

because some of our kit products have so many components and it's really hard to first of all see how many of each component is necessary for a product and in which location those components are available. so yeah as we grew, as we had a a a more diverse product catalog, it certainly got more complicated in that way. And not to mention customer service and other things that you might

encounter with a business like ours

Andrew Stroup (03:20)
Totally. Well, you know, because of that increased compli complexity, I I I think it's very fascinating because it's deceptively challenging from what you present to the customers versus the reality, what goes under the hood, especially delivering on what I think many call like the simple customer promise of just a fast, speedy, snappy purchasing and customer experience. But most importantly though, you have to get the right product and the part.

to the right person quickly.

Jonathan G. (03:48)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Stroup (03:48)
I'm curious if you have like one popular product or one that comes to mind from the factory to customer. And what do you think typically has to go right from the purchasing, inbound freight, inventory, fulfillment before the box ships? Would love to talk about that journey that you've had to help construct.

Jonathan G. (04:06)
Yeah, so well yeah, we d we do have some popular products. Well, first of all, our coil over products, they're fitment specific, but we also we and our airstrot products airstrot product products. and one thing that can work with any of our coilover or airstrot produ products is the managements that we offer. the things that

the basically the mechanism that helps your suspension inflate and deflate. And those products are manufactured in-house. And some of them have up to 30 components and even components that have components. So maintaining inventory for those while for every component.

while maintaining a just in time inventory model can be really difficult and it involves constant monitoring, constant ordering, constant forecasting.

Andrew Stroup (05:08)
Totally. Well, that's a really great example and something that else came to mind, especially when it comes to custom parts. have you seen any common early signal that would typically tell you that an order or launch is at risk in that workflow?

Jonathan G. (05:23)
Actually no. There was actually n basically no signals. once once we well, when we were at our worst, right? There there were no signals. basically we would get to the last product and sometimes the inventory might have been wrong on our end. So we wouldn't find out if there was an issue until warehouse staff you know identified the fact that we don't have any of some particular component left. So that there was

Really w yeah, we were kinda just out there, just suffering. Uncertainties.

Andrew Stroup (05:54)
That's it's

it's wild yeah, it's wild, especially when you you expand, right, with the brands and the product offerings. And I would I would love to pull that thread a little bit more on the complexity behind the catalog, because as you described, the vehicle specific products create a very different planning problem than a generic SKU business that I think others are probably more used to, with you know, the thousands of products across street, track, off-road, OE replacement applications.

What makes fitment specific inventory hard to plan?

Jonathan G. (06:25)
Well well we certainly have contracts to fulfill. So there's a quantity aspect of it. And I'm probably not the best person to speak on it, but I do know that we have to well, first of all, wait, we have a good knowledge base here on our team. multiple of our our staff here, multiple members, just off the top of their head know if a specific component

fits on a specific trim of some specific car. So we really do lean on them a lot and have to interpret trends as well. yeah, one thing for me as a non-automotive expert person that kind of like shocked me is that we focus a lot on Honda Civics. a lot of our products, the most popular products that flow through our inventory are geared towards Honda Civics.

And those are just, you know, enthusiast market cars and late eighties, nineties cars. so yeah, we have to interpret the market, the desire. We gotta see trends. we gotta spot yeah emerging trends as well and stock for those cars. At the same time understand that you know it our product isn't for for everybody. And

at the same time also offering the capacity for custom made air mailed products directly from our manufacturers. so we offer a balance. we can offer we can we can plan for popular models, we can offer custom made on demand for less popular models, or we can even plan for the future and have something

on order for when our big containers of inventory come in basically.

Andrew Stroup (08:10)
Love that. and I can only imagine that that diversity is a necessity to be competitive and also deliver value and trust with the customers, which I I you know, I've acutely been a part of as well. And I think that's great. You you did you did mention something specifically around, you know, working with the manufacturers or suppliers, as you as you build out these different workflows and different channels and capabilities. Anything that you wish that those manufacturers gave you a little bit earlier?

or information to help you in that that workflow.

Jonathan G. (08:38)
yeah, yeah. especially in the case of having multiple warehouses. you know, what we'll do a a a large forecasting blanket order, but we won't know exactly where those quantities will be shipped to, essentially because there there previously was a lack of communication in that way. and maybe there was also just a missing component in our work.

flow that would allow us to really specify quantities going to each warehouse. But on top of that, since we have to order large amounts of inventory, often 90 days in advance, it's hard to have a clear ETA for the dealers that offer our products as well. So that yeah, that I wish that we had almost a a a sort of GPS

method to seeing

Andrew Stroup (09:26)
Hmm.

Jonathan G. (09:27)
that inventory come in.

Andrew Stroup (09:29)
we'll dive into that about more. maybe that was a little bit of a leading question, but we'd love to rewind to the operating model at Urban Import before any real automation and how we think about anchoring that to the manual work to specifically make it tangible for the listeners. Before you got involved with and dug into the build out of this automation workflow and even to include leverage.

in that piece of the puzzle. Would can you describe some of like the normal purchase order lifecycle look and what that felt like within your ERP as it goes from the creation to acknowledgement, changes, shipments, receipt. We'd love to talk about the life of Jonathan andor Urban Impow import team before any of that was put in place.

Jonathan G. (10:13)
Yeah, yeah. So I I guess it's important to know for a company like us, I would describe ourselves as non traditional. we build relationships and we kind of maintain like they were our real friends. they are our real friends actually and and we hang out with them. so that kind of leads to a like private

relationship expectation. And that's kind of what what I kind of perceive we had where we had to directly communicate with somebody at our supplier and receive you know quantities and pricing in that type of thread. and so we would then have to take that data

piece it together sometimes. Maybe it might have been split in that thread, or maybe it could be provided in an Excel document. And then whoever was maintaining that conversation would then input a purchase order.

Andrew Stroup (11:12)
Hmm.

Jonathan G. (11:12)
so that was the first stage, and and and this process was broken up between a bunch of us here. and

So that created a couple of issues. one, since we have kit products and some of these products that we order, we order them as kits, even though we have the capacity to break those kits up the break those kids up when we physically have them here. that makes a verification it makes verification more complex, basically. it

Andrew Stroup (11:41)
Mm.

Jonathan G. (11:42)
not anybody

can verify one of our packing lists against one of our invoices, against the data that we've input into our program. so that just added a bunch of difficulty and specialty that we had to focus on here. And but yeah basically that that that was the timeline we would order in a basically archaic type manner through email.

we would input, we would verify. and then non-traditionally, our last component was to verify physically. you know, physically that the quantities and products were here. but we di I say non-traditionally because we received those products before we verified

Andrew Stroup (12:27)
Mm.

Jonathan G. (12:28)
physically. So that that that caused a lot of

a lot of issues on our end with inventory ac accuracy, but unfortunately that's that's what we had to do because those are the resources that we had available to us.

Andrew Stroup (12:40)
I I I love that last part, by the way. I think a common thread I've seen across our customers, whether it's manufacturing or distributoring, is you sometimes just have to do what you have to get done. And that's

Jonathan G. (12:49)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Stroup (12:50)
the reality of it. in that motion, you know, when it comes to the workflow and managing entering the purchase orders and what a typical buyer would have to work any idea how much

time in a given week would be spent sending, chasing, interpreting the data, rekeying the information before any automation was put in place.

Jonathan G. (13:10)
Yeah, actually, yeah, yeah.

in an uncalculable amount of time. And I say that because like I was saying earlier, our suppliers are our friends. the the first time

Andrew Stroup (13:20)
Mm.

Jonathan G. (13:21)
that I realized one of the people here was a superhuman was when I would see him talking to our suppliers via email at two AM, three AM.

so that's why it's it's you can't calculate it, to be honest with you, because it's an ongoing conversation and literally it I would say at least at least thirty hours a week.

Andrew Stroup (13:44)
Wild. and as you know, keeping now then the ERP up to date, the intent of that is to help support other workflows. I'm very curious what other as that information ideally was or was not before automation in the ERP and the systems to help support what other workflows were impacted along the way within or without that data?

Jonathan G. (14:05)
After a before before automation?

Andrew Stroup (14:08)
Yeah, before automation, when it comes to thinking about like what other workflows relied on keeping, you know, the ERP or the system

Jonathan G. (14:14)
Mm.

Andrew Stroup (14:14)
record up to date, I would love to think through or would hear your perspective of what was kind of the top workflows that were impacted, whether it was or wasn't present.

Jonathan G. (14:23)
Yeah, yeah. So we were certainly creating more work for ourselves, and on all workflows basically, by not having first of all, accurate quantities. yeah, so

Andrew Stroup (14:34)
Mm.

Jonathan G. (14:34)
there would be many, many times where we would you know, fulfill an order, print out a label, get ready to ship it, but it wasn't there. so that

Andrew Stroup (14:44)
Mm.

Jonathan G. (14:45)
doesn't only affect warehouse staff. the once we've identify an error like that, it creates a kind of a trickle up additional labor. so we would have to physically confirm inventory, we would have to go back to that purchase order invoice and packing list to confirm there weren't any other errors.

The the yeah, obviously if it was a kit product and one of the components was missing and the picker had already gone through half of the components he needs to gather and then realizes that he's missing one critical component, he then has to put all those other components back. so yeah, it's a it's a real trickle up all the way to the customer, all the way to us having to notify them

Andrew Stroup (15:32)
Hmm.

Jonathan G. (15:33)
that

We're sorry. We're we can back order this for you, you know.

Andrew Stroup (15:38)
It's it's crazy. and and I think similar thread that I've heard, which you're describing, is that the gap of that visibility from the supplier or into the ERP of the context really moves both directions, right? Which is

which

Jonathan G. (15:51)
Yeah.

Andrew Stroup (15:51)
is I think I think we've talked about this. I know we've talked about this, but sometimes you have to figure out what the right actual root cause problem is to solve to help support solving those other pieces, which there's been a fun collaboration even outside of some of this conversation here.

Well w we'll love to talk a little bit more about, you know, if that being the before state, now thinking a little bit more post things like leverage and other tooling that was implemented to help support the automation. What was there a trigger point or what led to you making the decision to take action on towards automation versus more people and or other types of different ways to solve this? And also then why not, you know, things like

Other types of solutions like EDI supplier portals or custom ERP workflow. There obviously I know was some type of decision logic of both why and what. Would love to hear your thoughts on

Jonathan G. (16:40)
Yeah, so yeah, here at Urban Import we're growing. and we could have kept on the way that we were doing and just spread the task of purchasing over more people, but we're already pretty burdened with labor with tasks and stuff here. So the decision to automate just seemed natural because like I I mentioned earlier.

these inconsistencies were reverberating to everybody up the everybody it was trickling up and having the capacity for to outsource the data input for to a supplier it not only makes it easier for any internal user here to see the ETA of any specific component

but it also I feel makes it easier for the supplier where they don't have to for example if we had sent them an email for a specific component ETA, they'd have to go review that ETA and respond to us by wording an email basically. with a automation type solution, they don't have to do the respond.

the the response to us basically. They they they can just input the the data and send it over to us and it's automatically input into our program. So that that certainly it was was a a decisive feature. but yeah and I I I don't think we we really considered many other options for for this specific process. I think that this one

was the the leverage was the the first one that just kinda hit everything for us. yeah I don't I don't remember looking into many other programs because none of them automated it in this way. None of them promised to outsource basically to the supplier. Yeah, and that's that's

Andrew Stroup (18:32)
Mm.

Jonathan G. (18:33)
pretty important.

Andrew Stroup (18:34)
Totally. Well, gl glad glad we glad we crossed the checks there and and the threshold. in the process, 'cause I know you were very involved with both the implementation and going live and wrapping up with the suppliers. Any specific edge case you thought was particularly hard or that was uncovered during testing that comes to mind.

Jonathan G. (18:53)
Edge case. No not really. Not not in not in terms of like real maximum and minimum data, but in terms of person to person communication, that that has been revealing to me where yeah, it's it's it's difficult to communicate these days with anybody, especially with

a abstract and specific questions that may revolve around quantities, unit prices, components of a a bigger parent skew. so yeah, yeah, just it has increased my communication with our suppliers and that's been pretty revealing. and it's also been very helpful actually, because now we are basically

kind of restarting our relationship, kind of starting from the beginning. And I think that's helpful because maybe we forgot something about our old process and we had just kept on at it, you know, with missing components. But now we have the opportunity to start new and decisively make a workflow that works both for us and the supplier.

Andrew Stroup (20:02)
T

totally. And I I I think you hit on a very hidden benefit that customers sometimes discover. Let's call it a feature. Not necessarily always a good one, is that you get the opportunity to revisit those relationships and the dynamic and also even sometimes surface more problems that just weren't visible as you dig into it, which I know we've also talked about. That's actually a great segue also into not just then the implementation and the go life, but also post

go live value and things that you've observed, different and or things that happened. Anything measurable that comes to mind around the buyer's day, supplier responsiveness, the accuracy of the data in the system of record or ERP that you have observed.

Jonathan G. (20:45)
Yeah, actually. So yeah, we're we're much like our relationship with the suppliers and actively working on our workflow, that's also the case for our laborers here, you know, the people who the people who put in the labor to purchasing and by the buyers, they also are not necessarily relearning these workflows, but they're getting the opportunity to revisit them, getting the opportunity to have

discussions about them in a way that's outside of our previous paradigm, which that's always gonna expose things that we need to fix, things that are already good and we can improve on. so yeah, yeah, post implementation, it's been very good. It's I I could honestly say that it's increased our capacity for for high communication teamwork.

Andrew Stroup (21:35)
I I I I love that. that's great because I think ultimately I and I know this is a parting line I constantly talk about, but I think leverage is a fantastic tool and something that is very helpful. But at the end of the day, it's still just a tool to be used by people in a capacity and how we think about applying AI and other capabilities to enable the humans to be more impactful.

Well, I I know as we look to wrap up quickly, something I always love to do is a little bit of a lightning round. There's a quick fire questions to you and get response. and so would love to trigger those off and and I'll tee you the the first one up here in a second. But you know, I think as we think about the lightning rounds and even just the relationship there on how it ties to what you've learned. This is great to be able to hear and the context around

What things were very impactful, what continue to need improvement or nurturing, and also where you think about going next with urban import and the foundation built. and so yeah, here we are with the light winning questions. first one: one supply chain metric, you would never run the urban import business without.

Jonathan G. (22:40)
That's a good question. Supply chain metric. yeah. The rate of response. the rate of acknowledgement requests

Andrew Stroup (22:47)
Mm.

Jonathan G. (22:49)
that we've we've sent and we can clearly see how many of those they've responded. That is so revealing it it lets us know exactly where we need to attack.

Andrew Stroup (22:58)
Love that. you know, from your experience when it comes to safety stock or better information and data, would you if you had to pick one or the other, which would you pick first?

Jonathan G. (23:08)
better information and data for sure. It's critical.

Andrew Stroup (23:11)
Love

that. all right, next one. What is one aftermarket automotive brand or product or vehicle platform you personally get excited about?

Jonathan G. (23:20)
honestly, freedom off road. Freedom off road that that gets me going just because it's i i it it really sucks to say it this way, but it's so American. in a in a time

Andrew Stroup (23:31)
Ha ha ha.

Jonathan G. (23:32)
that America is front and center, but I would say that it's American in a good way. New new American.

Andrew Stroup (23:39)
Love that. and then final question, which I love to always ask one piece of advice you give your younger self just starting in the industry?

Jonathan G. (23:48)
I'd have to say to myself, yo, follow your gut and do not be afraid to make declarations if you think they're right. And at the same time, don't be afraid to be wrong and don't be afraid to change your mind.

Andrew Stroup (24:04)
I love that. Stick to your guns and strong opinions loosely held, right?

Jonathan G. (24:08)
Yeah, exactly.

Andrew Stroup (24:09)
well, Jonathan, really appreciate you joining us. And this is a wrap-up on Leveraged Supply Chains. Huge thank you for joining and taking us behind the catalog and into the operating system that keeps urban imports brands moving. The lesson obviously is bigger than just automotive. When a lean team is managing long lead time, supplier changes.

Inventory, better information is not just administrative efficiency, it definitely changes the decisions that businesses can make. So if this was useful, please subscribe, share the episode with other people that you know in your network or who could benefit when it comes to supply chain operations, especially the leaders in your organization. I'm Andrew Stroup. See you next time.