Amazon plans to build a $1.5 billion air hub at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky airport in Hebron, KY, part of its ever-growing logistics enterprise. Observers continue to believe Amazon’s endgame is to handle shipping and distribution not only for its own fast-growing ecommerce business but for other retailers as well.
Firing yet another salvo in its ongoing ecommerce war with Amazon, Walmart is eliminating its fee-based ShippingPass program that was designed as a counter to Amazon Prime, instead offering free two-day shipping on 2 million items at a $35 order threshold.
Critical to meeting customer expectations is delivering on the perfect customer order: the right product at the best price, when and where they want it. Find out what the key components are to making this happen, delighting customers consistently and driving loyalty while maintaining operational efficiency.
Having the opportunity to benchmark your DTC operations against your peers will help you determine where you need to focus your effort and investments to reach and exceed customer expectations. For an in-depth discussion on a joint benchmarking study between Multichannel Merchant and F. Curtis Barry & Co., join us at Operations Summit 2017, March 27-29 in Pittsburgh.
After years of an extremely tight market for commercial warehouse space, mostly due to the booming growth in ecommerce, a rapid increase in development including spec projects has been slowly closing the gap. See what the numbers show and how the market is trending.
Retailers need to focus less on the “shiny new objects” and instead focus on systems and solutions that actually move the needle, Ratnakar Lavu, Chief Technology Officer for Kohl’s said at NRF’s Big Show. See what tech tricks the company has up its sleeve, which are coming down the road and how they’re boosting loyalty and engagement.
Vendor selection is extremely important in determining how well you serve customers in a multichannel environment. The key is to understand which vendors are trying to adopt a multichannel model, the effectiveness of their approach, and how well they are working with merchants to make it fit their business models.
Major retailers including Macy’s, JC Penney and Nordstrom are placing larger bets on omnichannel as the future of retail, amid hundreds of store closings and even a chain shuttering in the wake of a tough holiday season for brick-and-mortar sales. See what moves the chains are making to counter Amazon’s incursions.
Three years after it had begun, the U.S. Postal Service is ending its relationship with office supply chain Staples, pulling its beleaguered Staples-staffed service centers out of the stores by early March amid labor pressure and a labor board ruling upholding an earlier court order.
What does 2017 hold for ecommerce shipping? Given the speed of change, you should look further down the road. Here are 5 trends to watch in 2017 and beyond, including shipping costs, labor, fulfillment and more.