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.
Flexing its Whole Foods Market muscles, Amazon announced an expansion of same-day grocery delivery in New York and three cities in Florida, after Walmart’s Jet.com and FreshDirect both announced plans for fulfillment centers in the Bronx, NY.
Flytrex, an Israeli company that developed a control system for automatic drone flight, may soon be helping deliver food to residents of a North Carolina town as one of 10 FAA-sanctioned test projects. As the first company to launch commercial drone delivery in Iceland, Flytrex is looking to expand the service to other countries.
Following similar moves by FedEx, Amazon and Jet.com, UPS is piloting deliveries to multi-unit New York dwellings when residents are absent, in partnership with smart lock maker Latch. Preliminary tests began in Manhattan earlier this year and have now expanded to Brooklyn.
It’s been almost a month since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Wayfair decision, and ecommerce sellers are still wondering what comes next. Matthew Schaefer of Brann and Isaacson, whose firm represented Wayfair and the other defendants, details the landscape in the latest MCM CommerceChat podcast.
Amazon said Prime Day was another big winner, calling it the biggest shopping day in its history, with more than 100 million products purchased by Prime members during the 36-hour extravaganza that stretched from mid-afternoon on July 16 to the early morning hours of July 18 on the east coast.
XPO Logistics has added an augmented reality app to its last-mile delivery service that lets shoppers visualize a piece in their living space before having it installed, with a view to cutting down on returns for its retail customers and improving the overall experience.
Vancouver is the world’s hottest market for industrial and logistics facilities, followed by Beijing, based on a lack of available facilities and skyrocketing rents, according to a new report from CBRE. About a third of the activity is attributable to ecommerce, the company said.
Amazon Prime Day got off to a bit of a rocky start, with a website glitch that disappointed and angered shoppers, a strike in European fulfillment centers and some protests in the U.S. over the sale of books by fringe groups. Yet the company said sales out of the gate were pacing ahead of 2017.
UPS has reached a tentative agreement on a new five-year contract with the Teamsters union for 11,000 workers at its less-than truckload (LTL) freight division, with a vote expected in 60 days.