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.
Boding well for the holiday spend here, the U.S. was the top seller of goods during Alibaba’s Singles Day 2020, which raked in $116 billion combined on Alibaba and JD.com. Alibaba itself reported $75.28 billion yuan in GMV, while JD.com said its Singles Day GMV was $40.72 billion. Sales from U.S. retailers topped $5 billion.
Walmart is planning to launch a pilot for autonomous delivery in Scottsdale, AZ early next year, through a partnership with Cruise, which is majority owned by General Motors, the latest wrinkle in the ongoing push toward driverless delivery.
Amazon is adding perks for its legion of thousands of crowdsourced delivery drivers through the Flex program, creating a rewards program that includes things like a cash-back debit card and the ability to earn access to more desirable routes and slots.
In the peak holiday season like no other, Adobe is calling for a 33% increase in holiday ecommerce sales from Nov. 1 through Dec. 31, hitting a record $189 billion, equal to two years’ growth from a single year, as retailers, carriers and solution providers alike gear up for a blowout.
In a linkup of major players, ecommerce platform Shopify, with more than 1 million merchants, has partnered with hugely popular Chinese video sharing site TikTok. A new TikTok channel on Shopify lets sellers can set up, manage and track campaigns natively within the platform, accessing a global audience of 800 million users.
Ecommerce fulfillment software and systems integration provider Vargo has partnered with robotics sortation and grasping robot maker Kindred and autonomous mobile robot (AMR) creator Fetch Robotics to help their systems better sync with order orchestration and workflows. This continues a recent trend of SI/robotics partnerships.
Warehouse employment is up 3.8% since the coronavirus lockdowns began in mid-March, one of the few bright spots in an economy that has seen an overall dip of 7% in payrolls during that period, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
After parting ways with Amazon last year, FedEx is now jumping deeper into ecommerce returns, much as Amazon did with Kohl’s, by adding Happy Returns bars to 2,000+ FedEx locations, including 300 inside Walmart stores. Unboxed returns will be accepted from 150 different retailers when the program launches at the end of October.
Three out of every five parcels shipped in 13 major world markets is originating from China, and Amazon shipped more than 1.9 billion parcels in the U.S. alone in 2019, a 155% increase contributing to a five-year CAGR of 30%, according to Pitney Bowes’ annual parcel shipping index.
Global Privacy Control focuses on letting consumers opt out of the sale of their personal data to third parties. The early-stage coalition includes the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Mozilla. Rob Shavell, CEO of Abine, who was involved in Do Not Track and now GPC, discusses what’s ahead and why merchants should get on board.