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ESG and Your Supply Chain: 3 Steps to a Streamlined Strategy

| John Chalhoub

ESG and DEI+J are hot topics in retail, and supply chain is a particular area of focus. Their importance will continue to grow, and their relevance increase as younger generations enter the workforce. Here are some important ways to boost sustainability in your supply chain as you work to integrate it into your overarching ESG/DEI+J strategy.

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Amazon Grows Boxless Packaging, and the Industry is Watching

| Mike O'Brien

Amazon has been quietly growing the volume of orders going out boxless, which the company says represented 11% of items shipped in 2022, a move that some see as a sea change in reducing packaging materials that will be imitated across retail. Amazon customers can choose to add an external “smiley” box at checkout, but boxless is now the default, with more apparently opting for it.

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Ecommerce Packaging in the Digital Age

| Tiffani Burt

With the opportunity for so much online revenue at stake, it’s critical to delight consumers with optimized ecommerce packaging that delivers products without damage. Packaging enhancements need to go beyond functionality, using materials that can be reused or recycled. This is good for the business and the environment, and increasingly attractive to consumers.

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The Case for Prioritizing Ecommerce Profit Over Growth

| Roei Yellin

Ecommerce business owners now face a reality in which inflation and slowing sales have changed the outlook entirely. Aggregators don’t have the funds they used to, with investments decreasing 60% from the first half of 2021 to the first half of 2022. With a slowdown in consumer spending, owners find themselves facing an important decision: prioritizing growth or profits.

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Happy Returns Integrates with Geodis eLogistics

| Mike O'Brien

Major 3PL Geodis has integrated Happy Returns into its Geodis eLogistics fulfillment division, enabling retail and ecommerce clients to extend the service to their end customers, providing another option for returning unwanted items and helping retailers track and manage the flow of returned goods. Retailers can initiate immediate refunds and the service offers box-free, label-free returns.

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OriginBX Data Standards Address Goods in Cross-Border Commerce

| Mike O'Brien

OriginBX, a nonprofit organization looking to standardize how detailed product data is shared for tax and trade compliance in cross-border commerce, including ways to ensure ethical sourcing by avoiding goods produced by forced labor, will soon publish version one of its standards. OriginBX’s initial standard will deal with digital sharing of product details in technology and electronics.

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Sustainable Ecommerce: A Competitive Tool for Global Success

| Lakshmanan Chidambaram

Sustainable ecommerce has moved from being a checkbox approach to a competitive differentiator driving global growth. In today’s economic landscape, most retail and ecommerce companies realize that sustainable practices are not only the right thing to do but essential to their success. But it needs to go beyond the bottom line.

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REI Ups Circular Efforts With Second New Store for Old Gear

| Ian McRae

Outdoor retailer giant and sustainability market leader REI announced plans to open a new circular Re/Supply location in Clackamas, Oregon in late August 2023.  The new store follows REI’s Re/Supply store in Manhattan Beach, California, which opened in 2020. The new store location will feature lightly used gear and apparel that REI receives through its returns and trade-in programs.

The Growing Importance of Sustainability: How Should Retailers Respond?

| Brian Kilcourse

For retailers, sustainability encompasses everything from ethical sourcing and social responsibility on factory labor to environmentally conscious manufacturing processes and reducing the carbon footprint associated with bringing products to market, and all the way to product end-of-life recycling. The reason: consumers have clear ideas about what “sustainability” means when shopping for products.