Operations & Fulfillment

Being able to swiftly adapt to changing market conditions is a key skill businesses must adopt. Operational agility has never been more important, especially when crafting powerful customer touchpoints. As demographics shift and align with viral trends, your consumer market is constantly evolving. Empowering your team to adapt quickly and make fast decisions means that…

Retailers have traditionally treated trade compliance as background noise. Products were classified, duties were calculated, and shipments moved through customs with relatively predictable costs and timelines. That approach is no longer viable. Now retailers are operating in an environment where tariff rates, trade restrictions, and sourcing strategies can change almost instantly. Products can leave a…

I’ve spent most of my career on the growth side of the business, where the mandate is clear: acquire customers, convert demand, and build experiences that keep people coming back. You learn quickly where to focus, and for years shipping rarely made that list. But times are changing. EMARKETER projects that direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce will…

As retailers pour investment into customer-facing artificial intelligence, are they overlooking the operational foundations that decide success? The race to put an AI face on retail is accelerating. Shopping assistants, conversational storefronts, and agentic checkout powered by the likes of Gemini and ChatGPT — attention and budget are gravitating toward the customer interface. Yet critical…

Across the retail industry, artificial intelligence has become the centerpiece of supply chain modernization conversations. From AI-enabled routing and workforce scheduling to predictive ETAs and dynamic network optimization, there's no shortage of pilots and proofs of concept promising to redefine retail fulfillment and store operations. While traditional optimization models have long helped organizations improve routing,…

Retailers have long known the value of customer data. Now they're required to pay the same level of attention to packaging data for their private label ranges. The catalyst for this shift has been the introduction of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation in states like Colorado, Oregon, and California — forcing retailers to report on…

DoorDash on Tuesday announced a first-of-its-kind integration that gives independent Shopify retailers a direct, seamless path to integrate with the delivery service through the tools they already use every day. DoorDash is now available as a native sales channel inside Shopify's App Store. This means any Shopify merchants with a brick-and-mortar presence in the U.S.…

Once upon a time, retail sourcing was a fairly predictable craft. Merchants ventured into familiar manufacturing markets, negotiated favorable costs, managed lean inventories, and relied on well-established trade routes to keep products flowing smoothly from factory floors to store shelves. The rules were clear, the maps were reliable, and surprises were relatively rare. Those days…

Retailers operate in a world of volatile demand. Holiday surges, flash promotions or unexpected supply chain hiccups can fill storage space and cause delays. Seasonal spikes in consumer behavior often lead to inventory overflow or stockouts. Businesses need a way to scale capacity without paying for unused warehouse space during slow periods. This volatility is…

The launch of Amazon Supply Chain Services reflects a broader shift in retail logistics. More retailers are moving away from fragmented arrangements and toward shared platforms that coordinate freight, warehousing, fulfilment and delivery at scale. For retailers, the platform approach is attractive because it can simplify fragmented fulfilment networks, meet rising delivery expectations, and support…