They realized they were tying up millions in inventory. They hit on an old giant retailer trick. Years ago, when I had a fling in the cutthroat manufacturing business we would make a big sale to a major retailer. The sale condition was that we warehouse an amount equal to the amount we delivered. It meant we would bear the cost of inventory and the retailer would be off the hook.
Big manufacturers keep as little as a couple of days worth of component parts in stock.
As they need components they call and the trucks would roll. Down went inventory costs. But someone had to pay. The supplier had to shoulder the cost of inventory. What happened then was that these big trucks, and they kept getting bigger, literally turned into rolling warehouses.