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.
The USPS said its projected loss by 2030 has been cut from $160 billion to $70 billion, adding it still expects to reach break-even by then, even factoring in $3 billion in inflationary costs. It also touted a number of other milestones two years into its overhaul plan. At the same time, APWU union leadership called for a series of protests across the nation over USPS service issues and increasing workforce turnover.
A new testing protocol to gauge the protective qualities of ecommerce packaging has been released by the International Safe Transit Association to help retailers, brands and partners ensure proper packaging design that can withstand the rigors of handling along the ecommerce/DTC chain. It addresses the fact that traditional retail packaging is often not up to the task of protection.
UPS continues to see volume declines impacting results, as it steps up automation and finds other ways to drive greater efficiency in order to offset the decline, which helped boost revenue per piece in the first quarter even with the volume falloff. The company also remains confident of a Teamsters settlement, while working overtime to retain business and keeping a contingency plan at hand.
A small group of drivers for an Amazon delivery contractor in California has joined the Teamsters union, the first fruits of a concerted effort by the country’s most powerful union to organize workers at the massive ecommerce company both inside and outside its warehouses. Amazon said the DSP employing them had been terminated some time before the Teamsters announcement for performance reasons.
The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) has ordered a public review of various aspects of the U.S. Postal Service’s ten-year overhaul plan, including consolidating sort and delivery operations into regional centers, opening up public input on the impact of the changes. The PRC will issue information requests to the USPS about proposed network changes as part of the Delivering for America plan.
Bed Bath & Beyond as expected filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection April 23 as its turnaround became untenable, loans were in default, debt far outstripped assets and buyers have yet to surface for its three retail brands. The company said in its filing it plans to maintain operations through the court proceedings thanks to a $240 million debtor-in-possession loan from Sixth Street.
It was quite a week in the ever-expanding universe of generative AI, as the arms race among tech titans escalates, new solutions proliferate and more retailers jump in with both feet. From Elon Musk to Google, Amazon, Walmart and Levi Strauss, more companies are moving beyond the experimentation stage and planting a flag as a wide range of applications hit the market.
Amazon is inviting other retailers to join an anti-counterfeiting cooperative, begun as a pilot program in 2021 to help stem the flood of illegitimate goods on its marketplace and across the industry, two weeks after filing three separate lawsuits against counterfeiters. The Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange (ACX) grew out of a 20211 pilot by a division of the Department of Homeland Security.
Import volume, measured in container TEUs, was up 6.9% from February to March, according to data from Descartes. Last month’s volume was down 27.5% from the prior year but ahead of pre-pandemic 2019 by 4.2%, an encouraging sign even as the 2023 outlook is cloudy due to labor and economic issues.
With more legacy software giants embracing cloud-based, composable commerce offerings, such as recent moves by SAP and Adobe, members of the MACH Alliance (microservices-based, API, cloud, headless) are seeking to differentiate themselves while also seeing it as validation of their model. The group says usage is growing faster in the U.S. than Europe, home to many early adopters.