–“Don’t confuse your logo with your brand,” Tom Burke, senior vice president, marketing and e-commerce for Discovery Channel Stores, said during a Thursday roundtable discussion at Shop.org’s FirstLook 2005.
“Merchants and marketers are nervous,” Paco Underhill, founder/managing director of New York-based research and consulting firm Envirosell, said during his keynote address at Shop.org’s FirstLook 2005 on Thursday. “The basic tools of marketing do not work the same they used to.”
A new report estimates the size of the U.S. commercial warehousing market at $25.7 billion. The report, “An Overview of Warehousing in North America,” is the second from Armstrong & Associates Inc., a Stoughton, WI-based supply chain management consulting firm specializing in market research, mergers and acquisitions and outsourcing, and also the publisher of Who’s Who In Logistics. This detailed report — significantly expanded from that issued last January — covers major service providers, prices and value-added services.
A key element to successfully reaping benefits by improving business process sourcing, is to analyze end-to-end business processes carefully and consider a range of possible sourcing options, before deciding if one or perhaps several implemented in combination will best serve the company’s needs. According to executives presenting at a one-day conference held by The Hackett Group, an Atlanta-based business advisory firm, it is important that companies understand core competencies and make sure they keep activities relating to their core business value in-house as they consider sourcing options.
Here’s a novel approach to meeting the need for hourly workers in your warehouse or distribution center: use the local fire department as a labor pool. That’s one of the creative ideas in the annual “Looking Ahead” report from industry newsletter Distribution Center Management.
The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (formerly the Council of Logistics Management) has sponsored a set of six handbooks for supply chain management standards. The set, whose overall title is Supply Chain Management Process Standards, comprises six handbooks: Plan, Source, Make, Deliver, Return, and Enable.
The Retail Weather Index published by Wayne, PA-based risk management firm Planalytics claims that favorable weather, especially in the East, finally drove consumers into stores in the last two weeks of shopping before Christmas. The National Retail Federation, which staunchly upheld its positive prognostications for the retail season in the face of seemingly daunting statistics, opines that retail discounts and gift cards were behind the last-minute shopping surge
Brisbane, CA-based cataloger/retailer Flax Art & Design has put its Reliable HomeOffice catalog business up for sale.
Promo teaser: Rochester, NY-based test, measurement, and calibration equipment merchant Transcat posted a profit for the quarter ended Dec. 25.
New York-based Redcats USA announced on Jan. 18 that it has launched Intimate Promise, a catalog selling plus-size lingerie, sleepwear, and swimsuits.