Amazon announced plans to open a sixth Texas fulfillment center in Haslet, TX, making it the fourth Amazon fulfillment center in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The company operates an estimated 161 distribution, fulfillment and sortation centers in the U.S., totaling 68.9 million square feet, enabling it to deliver on Prime Now’s two-day delivery guarantee.
While there are many clear advantages to using a third-party fulfillment (3PL) partner for outsourcing some or all of your operations, the majority of merchant companies still opt for keeping these functions in house and firmly within their control. According to respondents to the MCM Outlook Survey, 26.5% of respondents said they use a 3PL in 2016, up from 21.2% in 2015, while the rest said they handle fulfillment internally. Of those who said no, only 2.9% said they are considering use of a 3PL, down from 6.2% in 2015.
Figuring out how to make omnichannel operations successful and profitable, dealing with Amazon’s continual disruptions, creating a consistently excellent customer experience across operational areas and growing cross-border commerce were among the hot topics at the fifth annual Operations Summit. The event was held in Cincinnati, OH, an ecommerce operations hotbed, and drew more than 800 direct-to-customer and omnichannel operations professionals and providers.
Everything you could possibly want to know about operations fundamentals, global ecommerce, shipping and distribution strategies, omnichannel and contact center/customer care – and then some – is being covered at 50+ information-packed workshops, keynotes and breakout sessions during Operations Summit and Growing Global 2016, April 12-14 in Cincinnati.
Ecommerce companies are seeing double-digit growth in a business that requires them to fulfill orders of low line numbers, often just a single item, compared to bulk orders for store fulfillment. To address these challenges, more companies are turning to a variety of order fulfillment automation solutions. But what level of automation is right? Find out what solutions are available, how they’re being implemented and what the future of automation looks like.
The consumer appetite for next-day and same-day order fulfillment can stretch DCs to their limits. Find out how order streaming lets DCs adapt their processes, maximizing legacy equipment and letting them become more responsive to direct-to-customer order fulfillment demands.
Hudson’s Bay Co. is introducing new robotic technology to its Ontario distribution center for internet fulfillment that CEO Gerald Storch says will put the merchant at the “absolute forefront of Internet distribution technology.”
Locus Robotics, a company spun out of third-party logistics provider Quiet Logistics, has begun production and implementation of a DC-based order fulfillment robot which it sees as a next logical step beyond Kiva. The company’s executives claim its robots can be deployed a few at a time without major facility retrofitting, and will eventually be used in stores as well as DCs.
Next month Amazon plans to offer Prime Now via its website, significantly increase the reach of the service which until now was limited to access via its mobile app.
I go to lots of conferences, but for me the Operations Summit is the most helpful to our clients and our consulting practice because it’s dedicated exclusively to improving direct-to-customer and omnichannel operations, presenting a broad range of operations experiences and solutions. It’s not too late to join us, April 12-14 at the Duke Energy Center in Cincinnati.