Supply Chain

When San Francisco resident Catherine Lelong recently received a delivery from Sam’s Club, she was confused: She didn’t remember having placed an order with the membership club. She was right. Lelong hadn’t placed an order from Sam’s Club, but she eventually realized that the bottle of detergent inside the box was something she had recently ordered…

Before the rise of e-commerce, the intricacies of a complex global supply chain were mostly hidden from the consumer. Products appeared on store shelves and in the pages of catalogs seemingly by magic; the very appearance of a mail-order package on a doorstep was considered impressive in and of itself. Not so today. With each…

Out-of-stock inventory continues to be a huge problem for retailers and suppliers alike. There’s nothing more frustrating for consumers than an empty shelf, and even just one instance of an out-of-stock item can have lasting consequences in terms of customer loyalty and lifetime value. Consider some recent findings from the Trading Partner Alliance consisting of…

Total Retail Talks is Total Retail’s podcast channel, and it features interviews and insights with some of the leading minds in the retail industry. Please check out our podcast channel page for all episodes, show notes and additional information. Also, you can access Total Retail Talks episodes on iTunes and Stitcher. We hope you’ll join us! Jodie Fox, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Shoes…

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus — stung by its first holiday sales decline since the Great Recession — is spreading the pain. Drowning in designer duds and accessories that it didn’t sell during the crucial shopping season, the department store chain, which also owns Bergdorf Goodman, has asked its vendors to take back merchandise or risk not…

Most Amazon.com shoppers love how the site immediately predicts shipping costs and delivery date for their purchases. As soon as shoppers click on a product, they see a message such as, “Want it Wednesday, Sept. 30 by 4 p.m.? Order in the next 11 minutes, six seconds.” What’s noteworthy is that Amazon does this up…

For a while now, retailers have been betting big on bits and bytes as they invest in retail technology. Overall, retailer IT spend was estimated at $60 billion in 2013. Although e-commerce platform spending gets much of the press, it’s only a small portion, $1.2 billion, of the overall retail tech budget. So where's the…

J.C. Penney Co. Inc. has made its private labels a key part of its strategy to capture market share and continue to improve its results. J.C. Penney shares are up 15.4 percent in Friday trading in the wake of its fourth-quarter earnings release on Thursday and management commentary on the higher-margin private label approach.

Certain types of laminate flooring made by Lumber Liquidators have a greater risk of causing cancer or other health problems than previously believed, U.S. health regulators said Monday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that exposure to formaldehyde in the flooring was greater than it had calculated earlier this month, meaning people who purchased…

One thing retailers can count on in January is innovation. Each year, retailers across the globe gather for Retail’s BIG Show hosted by the National Retail Federation (NRF). This year’s event covered the usual topics, such as payment technologies and improving the customer experience, but also demonstrated that there’s a big shift affecting the retail…