Oct 8, 2021 | newsroom
Facebook has fallen … for a few hours — Twitter users couldn’t wait to dunk on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp when their platforms went dark after a system update went awry. Facebook’s engineering team’s explanation: “configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication.” Aside from saving families and friends from each other’s scorn on the platform, what kind of impact did the outage have on retail? ShipHero founder and CEO Aaron Rubin tweeted that Facebook-driven non-Amazon e-commerce sales fell 27% on average. As hated as Facebook may be, it is apparent just how vital it has become to SMBs.
Read more at FreightWaves
Oct 8, 2021 | newsroom
CHICAGO, Oct. 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — According to a new market research report “Smart Warehousing Market by Component (Hardware, Solutions, and Services), Technology (IoT & Analytics, RFID, AGV), Application (Inventory Management, Order Management), Organization Size, Deployment Mode, Vertical, and Region – Global Forecast to 2026″, published by MarketsandMarkets™, the global Smart Warehousing Market size to grow from USD 14.8 billion in 2021 to USD 25.4 billion by 2026, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 11.5% during the forecast period. Various factors such as the proliferation of smartphones for faster goods management, the rising advancement in the eCommerce industry due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the emergence of multi-channel distribution networks, and the dynamic nature and globalization of supply chain networks are expected to drive the adoption of smart warehousing hardware, solutions, and services. However, the market faces restraints, such as a lack of uniform governance standards in the fragmented logistics industry and growing data security and privacy concerns.
Read more at PR Newswire
Oct 8, 2021 | Best Practices, Blog, Fulfillment
By: Maggie M. Barnett, Esq., COO at ShipHero
Technology is pretty miraculous. Tracking your flight from your own airplane seat; watching your Uber approach your location; even clocking the progress of a DoorDash driver as he circles your complex because he can’t find your apartment – all of these would be impossible without technology, and more specifically, technology in the last mile.
However, eCommerce fulfillment and delivery are high ticket items for eCommerce retailers, and it can be a struggle to justify some of the more robust tech offerings and upgrades with a P&L that barely passes into the black. How can you justify some of the cost to upgrade your current technology? And should you?
We’re going to examine five of the biggest benefits of using last mile technology, especially as it relates to route optimization and demonstrate the benefits of these upgrades.
Last Mile Delivery Defined
First, let’s define last mile delivery. In the world of eCommerce and shipping, this is the phase of delivery where a product or shipment leaves the warehouse to make it to the customer. This is the route that the Instacart driver takes from Target, with your groceries and random beach towel order in his backseat. It’s the route the UPS truck takes from Amazon’s Fulfillment Center to your customer’s front door.
Optimizing the route in the last mile leads to a host of benefits for both you and the consumer. Here’s how.
5 Benefits of Route Optimization
1. Increased Visibility
Tracking technology, like those mentioned above, have resulted in one giant change for consumers – they know where their stuff is at all times. This means, they know when it shipped, they know what distribution hub it’s at; and they know when it’s out for delivery. They also know when it’s late.
By investing in technologies that expose the last mile, consumers get peace of mind, and eCommerce retailers get a bit more leeway. If a customer can see a product has left your warehouse and has been sitting in a post office three miles from their home for the past four days, the onus of late delivery is technically off of the retailer (you). Now, it is the post office’s fault (for better or worse), that their product is late. This means that the retailer can cut back on the number of “where’s my package?” emails, chat requests and phone calls and focus back on the process of shipping.
It might be hard to put a price tag on the time you’ve gained back in your day, but consider the employee hours necessary to respond to these messages or to track down orders when this type of tracking wasn’t available.
2. Faster Delivery Times
The fact is, the more you shine a light on something, the clearer it becomes. By providing end-to-end shipment tracking, order delivery times have come under more scrutiny, encouraging questions of some retailers and carriers as to why it can take so long for one item and not as long for another.
This is all part of the “Amazon Effect” – the erroneous belief held by many consumers that just because Amazon can deliver fuzzy dice and a gallon of ranch dressing in 2 days, that any eCommerce brand should do the same. Regardless of how plausible this is, it is a concern that has forced many eCommerce companies and carriers to confront their delivery process and speed to make improvements.
3. More Accurate Delivery
Another stalwart of the last mile delivery process is the proof of delivery. It’s no longer acceptable for a carrier to throw a package on the porch and call it a day. Now, carriers and eCommerce fulfillment providers are requiring more evidence that the package was delivered. This typically takes the form of photos showing the package and delivery address in the same shot; a signature by the package’s recipient; and/or barcode scanning.
Once again, exposing the entire delivery process from warehouse to doorstep has led to higher accountability for carriers as consumers now know when a package was supposed to be delivered and can easily tell when a carrier has missed the mark.
4. Lower Costs for Gas and Maintenance
Some organizations, especially those in larger cities, have started to experiment with urban warehousing and micro-warehousing. Both of these are exactly how they sound: retailers use warehouses located in urban centers; or use smaller locations to store a fraction of their most popular inventory to cut down on fulfillment and delivery times for these orders.
Urban warehousing was again popularized by Amazon when they began their same-day delivery in major U.S. cities. However, it does more than just shrink delivery windows; it also allows for lower emissions from delivery vehicles, and lower costs for gas and maintenance. These are all places where carriers have struggled to cut costs in the past, and with the always fluctuating cost of oil, it’s nice to know that there is some way to keep these expenses in check.
5. Getting More From What You Already Have
One more tactic that some retailers are taking in order to cut down on delivery times and enhance last mile delivery, is the use of brick-and-mortar retail locations as fulfillment centers. In some cases, this could mean using a store that is currently open for shopping to also fulfill orders for nearby addresses. However, it has also given rise to a phenomenon of dark stores.
Dark stores are repurposed brick-and-mortar storefronts that are now optimized for picking and packing and order fulfillment. This was first seen on a large scale during the pandemic, when grocery store chains like Whole Foods and Kroger converted some of their locations into dark stores. This is an especially handy option for retailers to leverage the proximity of their retail locations to major areas to convert online purchases into Buy Online, Pick Up In Store (BOPIS) sales instead.
More Changes, More Opportunities
If the past 20 months have proven anything, it’s that people and organizations, even businesses can be adaptable when conditions warrant it. What that means for last mile delivery and every other process on the supply chain is that more changes are sure to come. However, what type of opportunities these changes will bring is the more exciting question.
If you’re new to ShipHero Fulfillment, please schedule a meeting today with our experts to learn more about how we can help you get your orders picked, packed, and delivered with our fulfillment service. No setup fees – simply pay as you go. ShipHero works to ensure that organizations invest in the solutions that match their needs, to improve productivity, revenue, and success.
Click HERE to Schedule a Meeting Today
Maggie M. Barnett, Esq., COO
ShipHero
About the author: Maggie M. Barnett, Esq., is the COO of ShipHero. She is responsible for planning and executing the overall operational, legal, managerial and administrative procedures, reporting structures and operational controls of the organization. Barnett’s greatest strengths are leadership, risk mitigation, change management and a passion for business transformation. She is known for her expertise in delivering operational excellence and an ability to provide guidance and mitigating risk. Her leadership of ShipHero is grounded in a servant mentality, always doing the right thing for our stakeholders. Her passion for ShipHero comes from the ability to drive operational excellence throughout the organization impacting the lives of our employees, customers, and partners.
Follow Maggie on Twitter & LinkedIn.
Oct 6, 2021 | newsroom
Retailers struggle to stock shelves for holidays amid port congestion, shipping delays.
Congestion at ports in the United States as well as Asia is causing major shipping delays and leaving retailers “desperate to get their goods to physical and virtual store shelves for the holiday season,” according to Eric Kulisch, FreightWaves’ air cargo editor.
Shippers are shifting cargo from oceans to air transportation to avoid delays. But this expensive ocean-to-air shift has ripple effects, including environmental ones. Moving freight via ocean vessel is much more efficient in terms of greenhouse gas emissions than moving it via aircraft.
Read more at FreightWaves
Oct 1, 2021 | Blog, Fulfillment, Warehouse Management Software
By: Maggie M. Barnett, Esq., COO of ShipHero
Despite everyone’s best efforts, the strain from COVID-19 is not diminishing. And it seems as though it will spill over into the holiday season. Oh good. (That was sarcasm.)
There’s been a lot of news lately about carriers and the challenges they’re facing, as well as how some larger brands are handling this challenge. There’s also been discussion about how these supply chain disruptions could easily get passed along into 2022 and 2023. The intent of this article is not to make anyone panic, but it’s important to level-set expectations and understand where things stand in the eCommerce space.
Delays, Delays and More Delays
According to data from the Port of Los Angeles, the time it takes a shipment to travel from China to the U.S. has increased 83% over pre-pandemic numbers. That’s an additional 73 days. And in retail, that is an eternity.
There’s also been reports of materials shortages. The chip shortage affecting the auto industry is the splashiest one, but now toy manufacturers are raising their hands to say that a shortage of resin is impacting their ability to make toys and get them to suppliers and retailers. So, not only are manufacturers and retailers finding it difficult to get product from China and other countries to the US and into their warehouses, now there are shortages that could prevent those products from being created at all.
The Big Guys Will Spend
Another recent development this week was news that large corporations like Home Depot and IKEA are willing to spend big bucks to charter cargo carriers in order to ensure delivery. This has resulted in some organizations also purchasing their own shipping containers (which are also facing a shortage). As demand for charters has increased, so has the cost.
Larger companies can afford to pay these exorbitant fees, but of course, smaller eCommerce retailers cannot. Plus, eventually the additional cost will have to be passed on to the consumer somewhere. There is very little chance that these companies will see these additional fees as just “the cost of doing business.” This could lead to inflation that for the most part has stayed relatively steady throughout the pandemic.
Chartering cargo planes has also become trendy for larger companies. Overall, the pressure to receive goods in time for the holidays is real. Shipping containers full of sellable merchandise won’t do the retailer any good, if it’s still sitting in a port halfway across the world when Christmas rolls around.
No One is Immune
A labor shortage combined with a supply chain shortage is a recipe for disaster, and we seem to have just yelled, “Bingo!” With companies, including carriers like FedEx still struggling to hire, packages are now taking even more circuitous routes to get to their destinations. FedEx Ground recently reported that around 25% of all of their shipments are being re-routed to different distribution centers to offset the labor shortage. Currently, FedEx estimates they are working with around 65% of the staff they need.
The United States Postal Service is set to levy surcharges to retail customers in an effort to deliver the mail on time. With horror stories in 2020 of people not receiving holiday gifts until January or February, the post office is enacting additional charges in an effort to get things delivered on time.
Is There Another Word for Unprecedented?
It’s been said often enough since March 2020 – everything we have experienced, whether personal or professional has been unprecedented. The 2021 shipping carrier crisis seems to be another item to add to the list.
Anecdotally, consumers in general are really starting to feel the effects of empty shelves. Earlier in the year, missing or understocked products were the exception. Now, people are noticing more and more items missing. Everything from sports drinks to Steam Fresh bags to canned goods to chicken wings have been running in short supply. While the USDA says there is currently not a nationwide food shortage, the pinch of low inventory is being felt by more consumers than earlier in the year. And the haunting look of empty shelves doesn’t help to quell consumer anxiety.
These shortages could lead to more consumers shopping earlier for the holiday season, choosing to snap up gifts and items they need instead of waiting for a sale or promotion. However, it’s still too early to tell if this is a trend that will bear out. As with many things surrounding the pandemic, we are in wait-and-see mode.
Keep Calm and Ship On
The best advice for any eCommerce retailer right now is not to panic. Stock the products you can get; use your historical reporting to make a list of SKUs that drive revenue. Focus on the things you can control, like warehouse efficiencies, employee satisfaction and shipping, and do your best to let go of the things you can’t (like cargo ships sitting in the Pacific Ocean). With so much uncertainty surrounding us, focusing on yourself and your organization is the key to success.
If you’re new to ShipHero Fulfillment, please schedule a meeting today with our experts to learn more about how we can help you get your orders picked, packed, and delivered with our fulfillment service. No setup fees – simply pay as you go. ShipHero works to ensure that organizations invest in the solutions that match their needs, to improve productivity, revenue, and success.
Click HERE to Schedule a Meeting Today
Maggie M. Barnett, Esq., COO
ShipHero
About the author: Maggie M. Barnett, Esq., is the COO of ShipHero. She is responsible for planning and executing the overall operational, legal, managerial and administrative procedures, reporting structures and operational controls of the organization. Barnett’s greatest strengths are leadership, risk mitigation, change management and a passion for business transformation. She is known for her expertise in delivering operational excellence and an ability to provide guidance and mitigating risk. Her leadership of ShipHero is grounded in a servant mentality, always doing the right thing for our stakeholders. Her passion for ShipHero comes from the ability to drive operational excellence throughout the organization impacting the lives of our employees, customers, and partners.
Follow Maggie on Twitter & LinkedIn.
