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.
While there are some concerns about robots replacing humans and taking their jobs, with U.S. unemployment at about 3.6% ecommerce companies are struggling to find enough workers. Thus companies are seeing robotics as a way to close the gap and augment human labor instead of replacing it. Find out more in a new MCM report.
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.
While the relationship between shipping options and cart conversion or abandonment is well established, the extent of the impact is shown in stark detail in a new report from ecommerce platform provider BigCommerce. More than two-thirds of consumers said they’ve abandoned a purchase based on poor shipping options.
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.
Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) remains very popular among Amazon sellers, with over 650,000 using it in the U.S., but it’s not the right solution for everyone. So how do you make that decision? Executives from Complemar, Motor City Distributing and Tech Armor discussed the pros and cons at this year’s Ecommerce Operations Summit.
Workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Minnesota are planning to rain on the company’s Prime Day parade, organizing a walk-off to call attention to working conditions, employee status and pay, according to a report in Bloomberg. The workers plan to stage two three-hour walk-offs on different shifts on Monday, July 15.
The global shipping landscape may be disrupted this fall, depending on the outcome of two major geopolitical events, and cross-border ecommerce sellers need to brace themselves for the potential changes. Experts discuss the ramifications of both Brexit in the UK and a possible U.S. pullout from the Universal Postal Union (UPU).
To determine if your ecommerce fulfillment center is running as efficiently as possible, start with an operations audit or assessment, taking into account quantitative and qualitative aspects of all processes and systems. Here are 11 ways to reduce costs, make your operations run smoother and improve the customer experience.