Warehouse Management

Attendees of this interactive webinar will learn why retailers struggle under the weight of increasing amounts of data.

As multichannel retailers engage and sell products to customers across increasingly more channels — and collect data in each of those channels — their businesses become that much more complex. Siloed, disparate data sets exist throughout an organization, from inventory to POS to order management and more, leading to a fractured, incomplete view of customers […]

In episode 90 of Total Retail Talks, MC Halfpenny, director of operations at Uncommon Goods, an online retailer of unique gifts and creative home decor, talks about how proactive customer support is helping the company to improve the order delivery process. Halfpenny shares details about the support process at Uncommon Goods, the business benefits it…

While the rest of the world is transitioning into the final months of the year, the retail industry has been preparing for the holiday season since before the first signs of summer. Though the time to purchase gifts, decorations and party supplies may still be a few weeks off, retailers are well into the final…

The first thing online clothing reseller ThredUp did after clinching a new round of funding last year? Hunt for strategic warehouse space to get the goods to its customers as fast as possible. Amazon.com has spoiled them for anything less. Within six months, ThredUp's chief executive officer, James Reinhart, had signed leases on two additional warehouses.

Best Buy said yesterday it would open a technology development center in Seattle, taking the top floor of the Seattle Times Building. Set to begin operations in late spring, the office will employ more than 50 engineers, product managers, web architects and developers in the next year and is expected to expand to more than 100 e-commerce professionals over time. Best Buy looked at several cities before settling on Seattle because of its technology base, talent, cloud engineering and e-commerce strengths. 

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that warehouse workers who fill orders for retail giant Amazon.com don't have to be paid for time spent waiting to pass through security checks at the end of their shifts. The unanimous decision is a victory for the growing number of retailers and other companies that routinely screen workers to prevent employee theft. The justices said federal law doesn't require companies to pay employees for the extra time because it's unrelated to their primary job duties. 

Amazon.com employee Rejinaldo Rosales used to wander stacks of shelves to pick up merchandise for orders before finally returning to his station to place them in bins and send them to their next stop. But this summer, squat orange robots, called Kiva, began zooming around the shelves instead, picking up goods and carrying them to Rosales at his station. The result? What used to take hours of walking can happen in mere minutes instead. While walking the aisles was "good cardio," the new system lets him get through more orders since he stands in one place, Rosales said. 

Website "flash sales" are fueling lightning-fast growth for online retailer Zulily, and central Ohio has been one of the biggest beneficiaries. Zulily was founded in 2010 in Seattle and sells apparel, decor items and other merchandise via short-term "events." Sales are growing at warp speed, going from nothing several years ago to a projected $1.2 billion this year. As a result of the spectacular growth, Zulily has been adding employees at a fast clip. In Columbus, a market it quietly entered in 2012 with a distribution center in Obetz, the company has grown to 1,110 employees.  

Our experts walk you through opportunities to not only cut shipping costs, but also improve shipping service to your customers.