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.
After years of hyper growth, demand for industrial space, especially ecommerce fulfillment centers, will slow between now and 2023 as supply has caught up, according to a new report from the Deloitte Center for Financial Services. The availability rate of industrial space is projected to rise from 7% in 2018 to 10.3% percent in 2023.
Amazon just turned up the heat in the three-way battle for dominance atop ecommerce sellers, announcing more than 10 million items eligible for its new one-day delivery standard via Prime. This compares with 220,000 items available for free next-day delivery from Walmart, announced in mid-May, and 35,000 from Target ReStock.
Locus Robotics, makers of autonomous mobile robots for fulfillment, and RightHand Robotics, creators of a stationary robotic picking arm, have partnered to work on joint solutions that combine batch picking and conveyance with automated sortation.
Starting in January, FedEx will make deliveries seven days a week to meet increasing demand from ecommerce shippers, while diverting about 2 million packages per year from the U.S. Postal Service’s last-mile service to build necessary density and shave costs.
Amazon is offering third-party sellers on its marketplace discounts of up to 75% to use its warehouse space in an effort to make more inventory within reach of one-day shipping for its new Prime promise. This will allow Amazon to place more items closer to customers to meet the new Prime guarantee.
As the bar is continually raised on customer experience expectations for ecommerce orders, partnerships like the recent one between popular CRM platform Zendesk and post-purchase management software firm Narvar will become more common.
The largest two-story fulfillment center in the country will be under construction later this year in the Bronx, NY, with a planned 2021 opening, enabling ecommerce tenants to service the New York metro market with same-day delivery. It will total 969,000 square feet, including 595,000 square feet of fulfillment space.
Stein Mart has become the latest retailer to partner with Amazon, betting that increased traffic to the ecommerce giant’s lockers in the back of its stores for order pickup and returns will translate to sales for the struggling discount chain. The lockers will be located in about 200 of Stein Mart’s 283 stores by early June.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling, which denied UPS’s legal claim that the U.S. Postal Service’s pricing model gave it an unfair advantage over parcel shipping competitors. In 2018, a U.S. Appellate Court in Washington, DC upheld the pricing methodology. Amazon backed the USPS in the case.
Drop shipping is seen as beneficial by nearly all retailers and manufacturers who take part in it, the former from an expanded SKU assortment without inventory carrying costs and both parties from increased sales, according to a new survey from Lehigh University and DiCentral. Eighty-seven percent of respondents said it boosted sales.