Articles
Checking In
2023 Inventory… Too Much? Too Little?
Inventory. That was the theme unifying both attendees and exhibitors at the 2023 National Retail Federation (NRF) convention in New York City. More precisely, everyone I spoke to was interested in load balancing inventory to serve new retail fulfillment approaches striving to catch up with the blindingly fast evolution in consumer buying habits. For retail […]
Read MoreAttacks on Energy Attack You
Can you walk and chew gum at the same time? Leaders in the United States and globally cannot when it comes to balancing green energy initiatives with common sense energy requirements.
Read MoreRobots: Walmart Advances, Amazon Retreats
When faced with anticipated fall-off in consumer purchases, Walmart leans into new robotic solutions. The retailer also re-tasks existing store infrastructure by attaching market fulfillment centers (MFCs)—compact warehouses inside, or tacked onto, retail stores to help fulfill pickup or delivery orders. It gets inventory closer to the customer and amps delivery velocity to serve consumers […]
Read MoreShipping Containers: What Do the Cans Tell Us?
What can we learn from the movements of shipping containers, or cans? Plenty. Here’s how they provide clues about future global trading patterns.
Read MoreInflation Innovation Stagnation
Achieving demand-driven enterprise status would have been impossible without the innovative technology-driven processes brought to bear on how we source, ship, and fulfill product, all while meeting evolving customer needs and demands.
Read MoreDemocratizing Global E-Commerce?
Many small and mid-size enterprises (SMEs) report friction due to inflation and COVID. One way to rise above those headwinds is to expand both consumer and business-to-business e-commerce sales. But many SMEs don’t have the spend or techno skills to form a winning strategy to compete with the e-commerce big players who dominate the market […]
Read More3PLs Show Off-the-Chart Growth
What accounts for the explosive growth of the 3PL sector this past year? The results of our 2022 3PL market surveys—through the Top 10 3PL Excellence Awards voting and Top 100 3PL Providers questionnaires—are striking: 84% of 3PL respondents showed significant growth in gross sales year over year, with 90% reporting profits are up. Nearly […]
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Chick-fil-A Strikes Oil
Have you ever gotten a whiff of french fries as you pass an 18-wheeler on the highway?
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Reshoring? Not So Fast
Reshoring might sound like the solution to the United States’ supply chain woes, but here’s why it is not a cure-all for current and future disruptions.
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Artificial and Human Intelligence: An Unbeatable Combination
Investment in logistics technology—$26 billion in the past seven years—is white hot right now. Here’s a small sampling of the types of solutions that venture capitalists arefinancing: An artificial intelligence (AI)-driven demand-prediction engine that helps lifestyle brands forecast how many units of a particular item will sell. The mission? To better match global inventory levels […]
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