Mike O'Brien

[email protected] / MikeOBmcm

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.

Multichannel Merchant Publishes Top 3PL List for 2018

| Mike O'Brien

The Multichannel Merchant Top 3PL listing for 2018, a directory of leading third-party logistics (3PL) providers in ecommerce and direct-to-customer operations, is now available. For the third year in a row, the editorial team at MCM has put together this valuable service for our readers.

Porch Piracy: A Year-Long Struggle for Customers

| Mike O'Brien

While many people associate porch piracy with the holiday season, new data shows that it’s an issue all year long.
To better understand how package theft is impacting ecommerce shoppers, Shorr Packaging developed this infographic, based on a survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers.

Black Friday Sees $5.03 Billion in Ecommerce Sales, Up 16.9%

| Mike O'Brien

A record $5.03 billion was spent online this Black Friday, up 16.9% from $4.3 billion in 2016, according to data from Adobe. It’s also been a very mobile holiday thus far, with more than half of ecommerce traffic coming through smartphones or tablets for the first time, Adobe reported.

Hincapie Sportswear Finds Omnichannel Success in the Cloud

| Mike O'Brien

As your omnichannel business continues to grow, how do you create a unified view of customer and sales data across channels? For Hincapie Sportswear, a cloud-based unified data solution helped it gain greater visibility into revenue streams, turning opportunities into sales more quickly while gaining overall operating efficiency.

Alibaba Pursuing Walmart Stores on its Home Turf

| Mike O'Brien

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is investing $2.9 billion in China’s largest “hyper-market” or superstore company, Sun Art Retail Group, in a move there against Walmart and its partnership with Alibaba rival JD.com. This is yet another chapter in the growing “clicks-to-bricks” trend, including Amazon’s Whole Foods acquisition.

Singles Day 2017 Again Sets Record with $25.3B in GMV

| Mike O'Brien

Continuing to dwarf U.S. sales holidays and Prime Day, Alibaba’s Singles Day pulled in a record 168.2 billion yuan ($25.3 billion) in gross merchandise value (GMV) settled through the Alipay platform, up 39% from 120.7 billion yuan ($17.8 billion) in 2016. See what other staggering stats and figures came out of Singles Day.