Near-term I think robots in the warehouse are going to be a game changer. With low unemployment rates and rising minimum wages, robots present a solution that quickly scales and increases productivity in a revolutionary way. With e-commerce’s continued pace of growth particularly during November and December, distribution centers that handle direct to customer and drop-ship orders need to be able to ramp-up extremely quickly. During cyber week, we…
Retail customer expectations continues to rise as technology evolves. As soon as a retail customer drives into the parking lot of a store, the clock begins to tick. Who is this customer? What did they buy the last time they were in the store? What have they looked at online before entering the store? How can the retailer keep them in the store ten minutes longer than their previous visit? A variety of technologies are trying to help answer these questions and more. Let’s take a look:
- A 2015 survey by Cisco, stated that up to 73% of shoppers…
In the very near future, that humming noise you are hearing in the warehouse will not be the air conditioning motor, but rather a fleet of drones cruising around taking inventory. We have reached a time when drone usage within the warehouse is being adopted by several major retailers as increased e-commerce demand is forcing companies to keep pace. The average amount of time it takes a Walmart employee to manually check inventory in a warehouse is one month. It will take a drone one day to complete the same duties. This significant cost savings will allow Walmart…
What was the most significant trend to impact the retail supply chain in 2016?
The most significant trend in 2016 was the continued shift of volume from brick and mortar to e-commerce. This issue is here to stay and we need to continue to help design and support flexible solutions for our customers. In our March blog we spoke about how brick and mortar stores were evolving and the shift to e-commerce was accelerating. The 2016 holiday shopping season was further proof as the growth of…

No, it’s not a new super hero movie or this season’s hottest toy, but rather what industry insiders are calling the busy online shopping period after Thanksgiving when shoppers can expect to find the best deals from their favorite retailers. More specifically, Cyber Five is the week-long shopping holiday defined as the five consecutive days from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday which includes Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Super Sunday.
The combination of growing online sales as well as mobile friendly shopping sites means that consumers…