Wakefern Food Corp., parent of grocery brands ShopRite, Price Rite, the Fresh Grocer and Dearborn Market, has opened an automated micro fulfillment center in Clifton, NJ through a partnership with Takeoff Technologies, with plans to launch more.
Moving above and beyond the game-changing Whole Foods acquisition from 2017, Amazon is considering creation of a new hybrid grocery chain that would combine aspects of a pickup and delivery operation with a smaller retail space for shopping fresh items, according to a report in the New York Times.
While the prospect of increased sales volume is welcome, a barrage of incoming orders can overwhelm up-and-coming subscription box companies, or even established retail or ecommerce companies new to the game. How do you know when you need outside fulfillment help? Here are 6 signs that it’s time to engage a 3PL partner.
Taking a shot at Amazon’s leading position, eBay will launch a fulfillment program next year targeting high-volume sellers and tapping a network of partners to provide end-to-end services including shipping, tracking, warehousing and customer service. This is similar to a move made last month by ecommerce platform Shopify.
Through new partnerships with Michael’s, CVS and Advance Auto, UPS is more than doubling its network of U.S. Access Point locations and adding Sunday pickup and delivery in January for business and residential customers as it engages in an arms race with FedEx. This gives UPS 63,000 U.S. locations, compared to 62,000 for FedEx.
The Postal Regulatory Commission has approved a range of postal rates for smaller packages originating from overseas to the United States, part of an effort to level the playing field for U.S. merchants and manufacturers disadvantaged by international postage rules.
Despite public pronouncements from FedEx Chairman and CEO Fred Smith that he is unconcerned about Amazon as a logistics competitor, the company used that term in its recently released annual report for the first time in connection with the ecommerce giant. Further actions by Amazon will “reduce our revenue” FedEx stated.
Israeli firm CommonSense Robotics is building what it says is the world’s first underground automated fulfillment operation for grocery delivery, anticipating a future where facilities like this will occupy abandoned urban spaces above and below ground to fulfill one-hour deliveries for city dwellers.
After robotics and automation, order management systems (OMS) and inventory management systems were the highest priority for tech investment in 2019, based on the MCM Outlook survey, noted by 12% of respondents each. The results also reflect rising customer expectations for ecommerce fulfillment: make it cheap and fast.
About 70% of U.S. adults use one or more social media sites, according to Pew research, with many making direct purchases there, and savvy merchants are tapping into this trend. But they must be at the top of their order fulfillment game to succeed. Here are some best practices top brands are using in social commerce fulfillment.