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The growing size of today’s consumer market sets the stage for entrepreneurs and companies of varying capacities to take part. The US consumer market alone was at $1.5 trillion in 2016. And this number is continuously increasing, including omnichannel customer service.
According to an article from AdAge, US Gen Y or millennials are also swiftly increasing their slice of the pie, spending more than $200 billion annually.
Continue reading “Omnichannel Customer Service Best Practices!”Now that the record-breaking Black Friday is behind us, retailers small and large must place their focus over the coming weeks on preparing for the Christmas retail holiday shopping season.
According to a report by Gartner L2, nearly 85%of holiday sales in 2017 took place in brick-and-mortar stores. It’s therefore hugely important for retailers to make the most of this time to get everything ready to maximise sales over the holiday period.
If you’re unsure where to start, we recommend taking a look at this helpful infographic from the team at Colourfast Printing which offers a handy Christmas retail checklist.
Continue reading “The Christmas Retail Checklist – Get Your Store Prepared! (Infographic)”
At the start of my career, most brands and OEMs used a traditional two-tier distribution process through wholesalers and retailers to sell their products. There was no omnichannel alphabet soup.
“Advanced” companies passed orders via EDI. Brands knew little about their end-users, a far cry from today’s growing customer-centric approach with expanding arrays of channels and convenience options.
Continue reading “The Omnichannel Alphabet Soup!”Black Friday is almost here!
Retailers have been anticipating and preparing for this over the last year. It has become the biggest online shopping period of the entire year with expectations for exponential growth over last year.
Further this period is so dramatically busier than at any other time of the year that it has an absolutely enormous impact on the Supply Chain of these companies.
In fact the readiness of the Supply Chain can make or break the success of Black Friday for most any company.
Continue reading “Last Minute Supply Chain Preparation for Black Friday!”
Shippers face many challenges in successfully delivering products to end-users, and last mile logistics will be a core focus of change in the coming months. Consumer demands and expectations are rising, and up to 25 percent of consumers are willing to pay extra for same-day delivery.
Also, same-day delivery will reach a 25-percent market share by 2025. By 2018 alone, same-day delivery and last mile logistics will be valued at more than $1.35 billion.
E-commerce is the driving force behind the sudden uptick in last mile logistics, and as explained by Logistics Management, e-commerce is expected to grow to $2.4 trillion by 2018 as well.
To gain a competitive advantage in last mile logistics, shippers need to understand the top seven trends in last mile logistics.
Continue reading “What are the Top 7 Trends in Last Mile Logistics?”In February, 2018 it was reported that Amazon was going to launch its own delivery service: Shipping With Amazon!
Effectively Amazon has declared that they are officially entering the logistics business. The “Shipping With Amazon” service, albeit currently on a much smaller scale, competes with the logistics service and delivery capabilities offered by UPS, FedEx, and UPS.
But these are incredibly large, well established logistics companies. And they are also the major delivery service suppliers to Amazon.
So why would Amazon choose to go into this space?
Continue reading “Shipping With Amazon: Cutting out the Middle Man!”The retail company I had joined had just invested $25 million to automate their Distribution Centre. They automated the process of fulfilling orders in individual units, or eaches, instead of case fulfillment.
As I learned more and more about the system and the operation it became obvious to me that the entire paradigm that went into the $25 million investment was wrong. They wasted at least $20 million by perpetuating individual unit.
They could have save a lot of time and money by changing their fundamental operating model to one of case fulfillment – the Retail Holy Grail!
Continue reading “Full Case Fulfillment – The Retail Holy Grail!”“We are out of space!”
“What? We’re only in the middle of September.”
“The receiving docks are backed up. We have trucks in the parking lot waiting to unload their goods. There are even more containers on their way. And we have no empty space left in the warehouse racking.”
That was the actual conversation I had with the head of the Distribution Centre (DC). We had a big problem on our hands to say the least.
Continue reading “Space Planning: Could You Run Out of Space in Your Warehouse too?”The latest advancements in technology have had huge impacts on the world we live in, almost overnight transforming industries such as taxi services, food and grocery delivery, and music. Sometimes this change happens so fast it’s hard to even comprehend the growing expectations and what’s happening for businesses and consumers alike.
Although many of these growing expectations have been positive, creating a more efficient and faster-moving world (can you imagine a world without Uber?), there are many that reach too far, not taking into account the realities of the industry they are frantic to establish themselves in.
Continue reading “The Growing Expectations of Last Mile Delivery!”Fulfillment by Amazon or Amazon FBA lets sellers in the Amazon marketplace take advantage of Amazon’s giant logistics operation to ship their orders.
FBA items are eligible for Amazon Prime shipping and Amazon handles your angry customers (which Amazon considers its customers, not yours). Amazon has dozens of warehouses all over the country, and more around the world, so your products may be in your customers’ hands quickly.
If you pull back the Amazon curtain, however, you find the picture isn’t always rosy.
Continue reading “7 Pitfalls of Amazon FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon)!”“We just spent several millions of dollars on a new Warehouse Management System for our E-Commerce Online Distribution Centre. We do not need to spend any more money on our Supply Chain.” That sounded very intriguing to say the least. At a minimize we needed to optimize storage.
The E-Commerce business anticipated 20-30% year to year growth. I could only interpret, having just joined the company, that all of the steps and planning needed had been taken. We had to ensure that the Distribution Centre could handle Holiday volumes, especially over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday period.
However imagine my surprise when I went to the Online Distribution Centre. All I saw was a very large warehouse with nothing but racks and shelving as far as the eye could see. Employees were pushing carts up and down aisles, across the entire warehouse. They were trying to find each of the products required to fill a particular customer order. The company had just invested in an expensive Warehouse Management System.
Yet no time or money had been spent on process optimization, order fulfillment cycle time reduction, cost reduction, or peak capacity load management.
We were in for a hectic Holiday season, at best!
Continue reading “Warehousing: Optimize Storage Locations!”The Holiday season finished recently. And the next Holiday season may seem far away. But in the area of E-Commerce Fulfillment it will be here before you know it. Now is the time to begin implementing the improvements and strategies you need to make this coming Holiday season more successful than last year.
Having gone through the ups and downs and stresses of several Retail Holiday seasons myself, one January I gave this direction to my team. For the upcoming Holiday our theme was that we were going to have a BORING Holiday season … from a Supply Chain perspective.
Continue reading “Get Ready for Holiday Now: Make It Boring (From A Supply Chain Perspective)!”Amazon is far and away the leader in the E-C0mmerce space. Their growth continues at an exceptional pace. And they continue to expand their products, services, and capabilities. In short they continue to press their advantage and make it difficult for anyone else to compete with them. You need a Blue Ocean strategy!
But if you are in the E-Commerce space that is your reality. Amazon is the biggest shark in the room. So how do you compete in the face of such an overwhelming adversary?
One technique is to consider creating your own Blue Ocean Strategy to create competitive advantage! If you can define dramatically different space in which to do business you may be able to keep this shark, and others, at bay (at least for a period of time).
Continue reading “Competing against Amazon? You Need A Blue Ocean Strategy!”In 1994, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos read a statistic that the Internet had been growing at 2300 percent annually. He fashioned that changing tide into a business plan that has been breaking barriers across supply chain and e-commerce that has left an indelible mark with the Amazon effect.
Beginning with booksellers, the e-commerce giant has expedited the closure of many retailers and threatens to redefine the standards of shopping in a digital world. Retailers are forced to lower prices, optimize their systems and processes, and reduce profit margins in favor of competition; meanwhile, Amazon continues its trek toward dominance.
Continue reading “The Amazon Effect is the New Walmart Effect!”Our latest “Featuring” series article covers the topic of Warehouse and Distribution Centre order fulfillment. With the exponential growth of E-Commerce and online shopping the backbone of activity that makes it all happen is order fulfillment.
Every time you place an online order someone somewhere is picking up those items and placing them in a box for delivery to you. Given that hundreds of millions of people are doing the same thing at the same time it is imperative that companies have the most efficient fulfillment process possible, whether they do this work themselves or outsource it.
We have had the opportunity to lead the implementation of some world class fulfillment processes, even surpassing the speed of Amazon. So take some time and check out our very best Warehouse and Distribution Centre fulfillment articles!
Enjoy!
Continue reading “Featuring Our 10 Best Warehouse Order Fulfillment Articles!”
