Roadie, a crowdsourced last-mile delivery platform that is owned by UPS, is expanding availability of an app that allows same-day delivery and pickup of ecommerce orders by Roadie drivers from warehouses to local customers, which was launched a year ago by sports apparel retailer Fanatics. The app enables pre-sortation and staging of local orders in a designated area within a facility.
There are fewer mega warehouses of 1 million square-feet-plus going up, tracking with reduced demand in retail and ecommerce and the challenged economy, according to CBRE, while smaller facilities in strategic locations near population centers are in short supply. Ecommerce companies accounted for seven of the top 100 deals from January through June, down 50% from 14 in 2022.
MyFBAPrep, one of several companies brokering warehouse space and fulfillment services between shippers and 3PLs, has expanded its network from 15 million to 85 million square feet in the past four years to meet demand, increasing coverage in the UK, Germany, Canada and Mexico as well as the U.S. Expansion to Australia is on the company’s roadmap as well.
Preparing for peak season volumes in DTC fulfillment requires not only cooperation among partners but scheduling stress tests, ensuring sufficient server capacity and nailing down carrier commitments well in advance, attendees were told during a panel discussion at Home Delivery World in Philadelphia.
Warehouse automation enables today’s retailers and brands to keep growing and preparing for the future, while being flexible and agile enough to adjust to sudden shifts in demand. There are many different flavors of advanced technology to help you get to where you need to be to remain competitive. Here’s a primer on them.
Scaling for growth and business fluctuations are expected to be a primary focus for retailers and brands this year, and has a major impact on fulfillment operations. Before you get ahead of your skis on automation and robotics, here are some basics on doing a needs assessment and a system check to align investments with business needs.
How are you leveraging your WMS KPIs? The answer can dictate your level of success in ecommerce and direct-to-consumer (DTC) fulfillment operations performance. The post-holiday peak period is the right time to assess your data and KPIs to help you measure performance and the bottom-line impact of process changes.
Drawing parallels with Amazon’s expansion of Buy With Prime to all U.S. merchants — do they each have moles in the other’s operation? — Walmart and Salesforce have linked up to provide the former’s delivery and fulfillment services to a wider swath of merchants in the latter’s app store.
Ask a millennial (the generation born between 1981 and 1997) or Gen Z (born between 1997-2015) to name his or her top 5 exciting and rewarding careers, and there is a strong chance that a supply chain professional isn’t going to be on that list. Here’s how to overcome this recruitment roadblock and attract the next generation of talent.
If any sector was ever ripe for consolidation, it’s third-party logistics (3PL), with literally thousands of companies plying their trade, looking to help retail shippers outsource fulfillment, storage, shipping and other operational aspects. Well, 2022 got us at least part of the way there. Here are some of the deals that got done.