Ending months of speculation, Amazon says it has leased 20 Boeing 767 cargo jets from Air Transport Services Group Inc., while taking a 20% stake in the Ohio company. This gives Amazon a significant boost in its air freight capacity, as much as 15%, and signals to the major carriers it is eager to control more of its logistics destiny.
Between posting 98% growth in Q4 direct sales, plans for Canadian and European expansion and a new analytics-driven catalog, Wayfair had a pretty good week. The company also announced plans to open its fourth customer service center in Bryan, TX. See what other news and events transpired this week in the world of direct-to-customer retail and ecommerce.
UPS took a big leap this week by investing in crowdsourced startup Deliv, getting a seat on its board and a front-row seat on its operating model. Stay tuned to see how the carrier is able to leverage this relationship to better understand and take advantage of the burgeoning sector of the on-demand economy.
Amazon was going to keep its store expansion plans a mystery. And Jeff Bezos would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for those meddling CEOs. So is Amazon going to open 300 to 400 bricks-and-mortar stores as General Growth Properties CEO Sandeep Mathrani said during its earnings call on Tuesday?
It is probably not a coincidence that Amazon Payments and PayPal both announced record number of users following what’s been the most successful holiday season for mobile commerce.
Despite all the doom and gloom news that came out of Macy’s, Inc. on Jan. 6, chairman and CEO Terry Lundgren said its omnichannel investments are paying off.
It’s hard to argue against that: In November and December, the company filled nearly 17 million online orders at macys.com and bloomingdales.com.
But Macy’s really has the same problem other omnichannel retailers are experiencing. They are sacrificing store-level salespeople at the expense of technology, and not finding a happy medium to make the omnichannel experience a positive one.
A little Star Wars’d out lately? With “Star Wars: Episode VII” (AKA “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”) having its much hyped and anticipated opening today, everybody is trying to get in on the action. And this also means Multichannel Merchant’s inbox has been flooded this week with all sorts of Star Wars stats and pitches.
The major package carriers’ general rate increases for 2016 are rolling in… just in time for the holidays! Here’s a look at what the carriers are doing, plus the news, commentary and events that shaped the direct-to-customer world last week…
And the first Christmas shoe of the 2015 holiday season has dropped… Staples has announced will not be open on Thanksgiving Day. I mean, really, a retail store not open on … Continue Reading →
The deadline for U.S. merchants to be on board with EMV technology is less than a week away. Here’s hoping the ecommerce world is prepared for the post-EMV world…