Supply Chain

Walmart said Tuesday it will start farming out its delivery service, using contract workers, autonomous vehicles and other means to transport rival retailers’ products directly to their customers’ homes as fast as just a few hours. The nation’s largest retailer said it will dispatch contract workers from its Spark delivery network, which was launched in…

The coronavirus pandemic has strained supply chains in unprecedented ways and has shed light on what happens to a marketplace when high demand meets limited supply. A recent report stated that customer shopping behavior will be permanently changed (by the pandemic) in ways that will further emphasize digital channels and put customers entirely in control…

If, like me, you’re of a certain age, you’ll be able to remember the first version of the Apple website. It was all text, had an appalling layout, and was light years from today’s sleek offering. Although that was all of 10 years before the first iPhone appeared so we shouldn’t be too hard on…

The supply shock that started in early 2020 due to COVID-19 and the demand shock that followed exposed vulnerabilities in the supply chains of retailers just about everywhere. The challenge for companies going forward will be to make their supply chains more resilient without weakening their competitiveness. Companies can learn from the supply and demand…

Consumers today are becoming less patient with shipping times by the minute, with many expecting packages to show up at their doorstep at lightning speed. Approximately 56 percent of millennials expect same-day delivery, and 26 percent of U.S. online shoppers abandon their carts when shipping times are too long. To accommodate this consumer shift, two-thirds…

For most large retailers, their recent bump to sales volume is not working out as expected. Instead of a banner period of profitability, retailers are finding the costs to manage supply chains expensive. Logistics costs have skyrocketed. Ocean freight rates from Asia to the United States are significantly higher than last year, as are truckload…

Merchandise facility managers are having a hard time catching a break this year, dealing with labor shortages and a dearth of shipping containers and air freight capacity. All of that has caused major inventory backlogs for brick-and-mortar retailers. These ripple effects, of course, stem from the pandemic, which temporarily shut down factories and other production…

Location intelligence (LI) combines location-based data with business intelligence (BI) to uncover new business opportunities that were previously hidden. Identifying new patterns and establishing critical relationships between trends and demographics create a gold mine of opportunities for chief merchants, supply chain leaders, and strategists who are waiting to explore new avenues. As the demand for…

Online retailers are facing a major crisis. Since COVID-19 hit, reduced headcount and social distancing practices within the walls of warehouses and distribution centers mean retail businesses are struggling to manage the stresses and strains of increased e-commerce demand, which is forecast to continue to soar. Grow Carefully While any increase in sales is good…

Amazon.com's encroachment into grocery has been rapidly increasing in recent months and presents another array of challenges to traditional grocers that have fought to survive in last year’s digital world. At the end of April, Amazon announced the expansion of its in-garage grocery delivery service to all markets where it currently offers grocery delivery. This…