Office Depot has announced an agreement with cloud-based applications provider Elementum, to help enhance its ability to deliver products and services faster and at scale across its omnichannel operations, according to a press release. Elementum says that its apps will provide the ability for Office Depot to achieve cloud-based collaboration and visibility across all segments of its business operations, from procurement, logistics, manufacturing to inventory management.
We’re proud to introduce The Retail Solutions Network, a collection of robust, data-rich resources designed to help retailers become an indispensable part of their customers’ lives by delivering the personal experiences that constantly exceed expectations. Comprised of print and digital media, The Retail Solutions Network aids every member of the retail enterprise from the corner office to the store floor.
It seems product recalls are now the norm on a wide range of products from cellphones to ATVs, high heels, children’s clothing, and more. In one week, the CPSC reported several recalls on its website: incorrect venting Nutrilife® hydrogen peroxide bottles cause fires or burns; By Gary Barraco, Director, Global Product Marketing, Amber Road
As more people shop online, job opportunities in the fulfillment and transportation sectors have expanded dramatically to ensure consumers' holiday packages arrive at their doors on time.
With the surge in the e-commerce, the need to employ appropriate inventory management practices for e-commerce warehousing has increased tremendously. By Kevin Hill, Quality Scales Unlimited
If traditional retailers have not gotten the newsflash yet, here it is: Amazon is coming after your business. As demonstrated by Amazon’s intent to purchase Whole Foods, there is no stopping the e-commerce giant from using its vast resources to continue its pursuit of retail dominance. By Bernard Goor, vice president and industry evangelist, One Network Enterprises
A look at the future of retail in the wake of the Amazon-Whole Foods deal. By Heidi Dethloff, VP, Marketing, Digimarc Corporation
In the age of the consumer, every retailer must create the exceptional Amazon-like service experiences that consumers have come to expect or risk going out of business.
Intense competition and heightened consumer expectations aren’t unique challenges to the mid-market retailer. There’s one critical difference, mid-market retailers lack the resources that the biggest players do have to overcome those challenges. With already small margins, if you’re among this group, you may find yourself just scraping by. But the odds don’t have to be stacked against you.
Online employee time clock, time tracking, and schedule enforcement.
Employee scheduling that only takes minutes.
Digital Task Management System.
Life is hard. But ordering products is easy.
Sustainability, carbon footprint reduction, and supply chain transparency have, over the last few years, merged and morphed into what is now being called corporate social responsibility (CSR). A 2015 CSR study found that more than 80% of participating consumers take CSR into account when deciding what to buy or where to shop. While some retailers’ CSR efforts are driven largely by pressures of legislation and public opinion, others are discovering additional benefits beyond compliance, such as improved brand image, wider access to investment capital and an enhanced ability to attract the right employee talent just to name a few.
Recently, we’ve been focusing on the explosion in e-commerce sales, which are growing at 3x the rate of total retail sales, per Tompkins Supply Chain Consortium. This trend is creating several new challenges for retailers — from order fulfillment to returns processing. One example can be seen by observing a typical online order comprising a: t-shirt, comic book, perfume, and pack of ball point pens. In a large fulfillment center, these items might literally be on opposite ends of the facility.
Despite a recent report from DHL Trend Research stating that 80 percent of warehouses are still manually operated with no supporting automation, there are a few other trends that suggest things are about to change. First, the price of automated labor compared to human labor has fallen by up to 50 percent since 1990, per research from McKinsey Group, and the logistics industry as a whole is faced with a growing labor shortage crisis. Additionally, there’s been an influx of systems in recent years that augment human labor by reducing what laborers have to carry and the distances they have to travel to get the items that were ordered.
There’s a trend underfoot among omni-channel retailers that’s rewriting the definition of brick-and-mortar stores. Increasingly, omni-channel retail fulfillment professionals are facilitating the shipment of e-commerce orders not from distribution centers, nor direct from vendors, but instead from their stores. That’s in direct response to speed of fulfillment precedent set by e-commerce juggernaut Amazon.
Now that the peak season dust has completely settled, it’s the perfect time for a tune-up in your warehouses and DCs. Here, are some DC improvement ideas.
