Mike O'Brien
Mike O’Brien has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for … well, quite a while. At Multichannel Merchant he focuses on the world of direct-to-customer operations and fulfillment, editing MCM’s weekly O+F Advisor newsletter, and programs the annual Ecommerce Operations Summit conference. Previously Mike was a senior account executive for Marx Communications, a boutique public relations firm working with marketing and advertising technology companies. Other past work includes stints as a media relations consultant for a concert promoter, a marketing communications specialist for a pharma software firm, a research analyst covering corporate e-learning and a daily newspaper reporter on every beat imaginable – except sports.
Gently hopes to become a disrupter of urban fulfillment and major retailers with multi-billion-dollar networks, offering a same-day, nano fulfillment model using small nodes located around a city, tapping a predictive analytics engine to stock and position inventory in anticipation of demand.
Best Buy reported Q1 earnings that beat expectations while revenue fell a bit short, warning of continued weakness in spending on larger-ticket electronics but expecting demand to pick up this year as consumers who bought gadgets in droves at the start of the pandemic begin to upgrade.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy detailed how his team is working to implement an extreme makeover of the U.S. Post Service’s distribution and delivery network, in an effort to “unwind” past mistakes that created inefficiencies and hobbled its ability to execute on its mission.
Geodis, a provider of freight forwarding and logistics, has added drayage at southern and gulf ports with the acquisition of Southern Companies, following its 2022 purchase of Need It Now Delivers. Southern Companies provides drayage, container deconsolidation and consolidation, trucking and warehousing services at ports in Miami, Tampa, the Everglades, Houston, Charleston and Savannah.
All signs point to a muted retail peak outlook for 2023, with many shippers booking later sailings than in the past as they continue to burn through inventory, figure out demand signals and determine what new products to introduce for end-of-year holidays, Seko Logistics executives said on a media day call. The company’s CEO still sees “green shoots” of optimism with ordering picking up.
Standards body GS1 US is looking for major retailers and brands to step up and implement its QR-like Digital Link 2D barcode on packages, in order to drive broader market adoption and enable the transmission of richer data that can unlock a trove of value-added services like discounts and offers at checkout.
Walmart saw 25% growth in Q1 ecommerce, as the beast of Bentonville outpaced expectations on the top and bottom line and raised its full-year guidance, three months after warning that the 2023 outlook was not a particularly good one based on consumer sentiment and macroeconomic signals. The company also addressed theft concerns while reporting strength in advertising and fulfillment services.
Google is pulling out all the stops to incorporate generative AI across its ecosystem, in an effort to demonstrate to the world that the search giant is a leader and not a follower when it comes to the biggest disruptive technology to hit the business world in decades. A handful of new products announced at Google I/O enable a range of capabilities built on its Vertex AI generative engine.
Google saw a 50%-plus increase in search traffic in December to its “popular products” integrations, where shoppers can view and filter results with a variety of product details in an ecommerce-friendly carousel display, as it works to claw back the enormous flow of checkouts to dominant Amazon. Google is leveraging aggregated shopping feeds based on structured product data from merchants.
Retail sales inched up 0.4% in April from the prior month, exactly matching a rise in the Consumer Price Index, according to figures from the U.S. Commerce Department. It represented the first gain in retail sales since January, a positive sign amid economic fears and continued inflation. Excluding gas and auto, retail sales were up 4.3% in April vs. a year ago, adjusted for inflation.