A strong economy is good for business, but it strains your ability to find and retain quality candidates. In the retail and ecommerce fulfillment sector, employers are facing ever-growing demand and labor shortages. Now is the time to implement proactive strategies for finding qualified talent and optimizing resources.
Considering all the challenges facing today’s ecommerce fulfillment center operations, how should you go about conducting an assessment, and what are the objectives? Here are 12 key aspects of a complete ecommerce fulfillment center assessment that will help make your operations more productive and efficient.
This was a busy M&A week among operations and fulfillment vendors. FOG Software Group acquired shipping software firm ProShip from Quadient; Hy Tek Material Handling acquired Johnson Stevens Consulting; Dematic acquired Digital Applications International Ltd; and Aptean acquired TMS firm Paragon Software Systems.
Retailers that understand what’s at stake with ecommerce fulfillment and commit to reducing costs and streamlining the customer experience are turning to automation to make it happen. Automated carrier selection, delivery alerts, invoice auditing and BI help them gain a competitive foothold and boost customer loyalty.
Micro fulfillment centers are all the rage in e-grocery – small, highly automated systems that use robotics to fulfill online orders in 1 to 2 minutes. Neil Stern of McMillonDoolittle talks all things MFC in this latest MCM CommerceChat podcast. He’ll also lead an MFC session at Ecommerce Operations Summit (4/14-16, Orlando).
Walmart has launched a fulfillment service for sellers on its marketplace, similar to Fulfillment By Amazon, leveraging its vast logistics network to provide storing, picking, packing and shipping returns processing and customer service for a fee and entice more sellers onto the platform.
Evolv Ventures, the investment arm of CPG giant Kraft Heinz, has joined a $110 million funding round in automation and robotics firm Fabric with an undisclosed investment, keeping an eye on ways to tap into Fabric’s expertise and capabilities in ecommerce and applying it to the B2B world.
Overall productivity in ecommerce fulfillment centers has remained flat over the years for many companies, and hourly wages continue to rise. After factoring in that cost, productivity in terms of labor dollars has declined. To help you become more efficient, here are 10 ways to improve your productivity levels.
Amazon is reportedly using a micro-fulfillment center solution from Dematic at its first grocery store not named Whole Foods outside Los Angeles, sending a loud signal to the rest of the market that an MFC capability is critical to success and maintaining market share in the red-hot e-grocery sector.
Workers at a Target fulfillment center in New Jersey are considering union representation, stirring up labor issues for the retailer as it reworks the supply chain to move inventory closer to customers and better integrate store and online channels, the Wall Street Journal is reporting. Amazon and FedEx are also facing unionization pressures.