Operations & Fulfillment

As the United States hosts the World Cup, retailers, manufacturers, and logistics providers are positioning inventory, labor, and fulfillment capacity for what could become one of the most volatile demand cycles in recent years. Unlike traditional retail peaks such as Black Friday or back-to-school, the World Cup creates compressed, synchronized demand that can surge within…

Evaluating last-mile providers used to come down to three things: cost, coverage, and delivery speed. But as customer expectations rise, brands are under pressure to ensure predictable deliveries, accurate tracking information, and timely issue resolution. Meeting those expectations increasingly depends on another critical factor: the technology coordinating the delivery network. Research from McKinsey shows that…

For years, marketplace growth was largely viewed through a listing and marketing lens. Brands focused on ensuring listings were live, keyword optimization, sponsored ads, ratings, reviews, and creative content to win visibility on platforms like Amazon.com, Walmart, and Target. Marketplace success often came down to who could outbid competitors for attention and convert shoppers more…

International retailers have spent the past year navigating a trade environment defined by constant change. Tariffs shifted with little warning. Customs requirements tightened across major markets. Carrier conditions fluctuated week to week, forcing e-commerce teams to adapt in real time while still meeting customer expectations for fast, reliable delivery. Many brands anticipated some level of…

Most retail fulfillment technology investments don't fail at go-live. They fail months earlier, in a planning meeting where a vendor hands over a 14-week implementation timeline and nobody — not merchandising, not store operations, not the warehouse team — pushes back on the assumptions underlying it. By the time the project is six months in…

A single viral moment can reshape demand almost instantly. A product featured in a TikTok video or picked up by a creator can generate more orders in a day than a brand typically sees in a week. In some cases, that can mean a day’s worth of orders arriving in an hour. For e-commerce leaders,…

In today’s complex omnichannel retail environment, margin pressures are no longer a temporary headwind but a structured reality that isn’t going away. Rising labor costs, volatile freight rates, tighter delivery expectations, and the growing complexity of selling across multiple commerce platforms are forcing brands to rethink how their back-end operations are designed and managed. One…

In episode 507 of Total Retail Talks, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews Charlie Beer, chief operating officer at Naturepedic, the leading certified organic mattress and bedding company. Naturepedic was started over 20 years ago when the founder rejected conventional crib mattresses containing industrial foam and chemicals, leading to better products like organic cotton (0:55). Since then,…

Well before the war with Iran began, retailers were facing an impossible tangle of challenges, from supply chain volatility to upticks in theft to stubbornly high rates of staff turnover. Recent geopolitical tensions have merely added insult to injury, in particular by gravely exacerbating what was already a growing liability in the sector: namely, the…

Amazon.com has begun offering all businesses access to its logistics network, regardless of whether the business sells on the e-commerce giant's marketplace. In a press release, Amazon announced that it was opening its freight, distribution, fulfillment and parcel shipping capabilities to all businesses across all industries, including retail, healthcare and manufacturing. "We’re confident we can…