While the U.S. Postal Service ended the first quarter of 2014 with a net loss of $354 million, its shipping business increased by 14%. This growth, UPS said, was fueled by an increase in online shopping and Sunday deliveries in limited U.S. markets.
Online retailers are sprinting towards the day when they can offer consumers products anytime, anywhere and as quickly and affordable as possible. In the next few months we will see many big ecommerce players continue to pour funding into delivery projects that will bring instant gratification to the consumer. Here is a look at just some of those projects and tops trends we can expect to see for package shipping in 2014.
It’s no secret that online shoppers are looking for low-priced items, free shipping or free returns. As a result, merchants are looking for ways to keep costs low while fulfilling orders in ways that don’t break the bank. To help solve the dilemma, here are five simple ways to cut fulfillment costs that don’t involve big hardware or software investments.
If Holiday 2013 demonstrated anything to ecommerce merchants, it was that we need better ways to meet customer expectations and deliver products. So what did we as an industry learn during this challenging holiday season? Here are key observations by ecommerce and catalog operations experts.
DHL announced plans to resume foreign package delivery in Russia after reaching an agreement with custom officials. Russian express delivery shipments from DHL and FedEx to individual Russian customers had been suspended on Jan. 23 because of stricter customs regulations and procedures.
At-home try-on merchants such as Warby Parker mitigate many of the uncertainties and anxieties around purchasing online, but pose significant logistic and fulfillment challenges for retailers. Before offering try-before-you-buy, it’s important to understand the logistic and fulfillment implications associated with these types of policies. Here are three key tips you need to master in order to be a successful free, at-home try-on policy.
Innotrac has released the findings of its SmartHub Holiday Promotions study which tracked the entire ecommerce experience from ordering, to shipping, packaging, customer service, and returns through the eyes of the customer.
Amazon has announced that it will now offer Sunday deliveries to a number of customers in cities across the United Kingdom, and Amazon Prime members in the UK can now receive their packages on Sundays at no additional charge.
Retail supply chains are longer and more tangled than ever – the complexity of the data coupled with high customer expectations around service and reliability are taxing traditional approaches to supply chain management to their limits. In this article you will learn how to pinpoint problems faster, make adjustments quickly, prevent missed deliveries, and catch those out-of-stock situations before they can impact the customer.
In an effort to draw an even larger gap between itself and its competitors, Amazon has been awarded a patent that could potentially ship products to consumers before they even place an order. Welcome to Amazon’s new, futuristic fulfillment.