Order Fulfillment

For many years, drop-shipping was touted as the best possible business model for online entrepreneurs who wanted to start lucrative, yet lean businesses from the convenience of their own homes. But with so much saturation, is it still a profitable idea? What is Drop-Shipping? According to Shopify, “drop-shipping is a retail fulfillment method where a…

For years, online shoppers prioritized free shipping over fast delivery by a wide margin. High shipping costs were a top cause of abandoned online shopping carts, and consumers would add items to their carts to qualify for free shipping thresholds. Today, “free” still trumps “fast,” as more than half of shoppers say free shipping is…

Amazon.com is blocking its third-party sellers from using FedEx's ground delivery network for Prime shipments, citing a decline in performance heading into the final stretch of the holiday shopping season. The ban on using FedEx’s Ground and Home services starts this week and will last “until the delivery performance of these ship methods improves,” according…

Seeing the success of Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA), many marketplaces and e-commerce platforms are racing to build their own fulfillment networks. No doubt, it’s great to have free and fast shipping in all channels, but at what cost? Do these marketplaces have their sellers’ best interests at heart? When third-party sellers began selling online, the…

The speed at which the retail industry is evolving to navigate e-commerce and gig economy disruption is happening far faster than we could have predicted. Gone are the days when shoppers were battling for parking at the local mall to take advantage of a department store sale, or shuffling through the aisles to hunt down…

Retailers are bracing themselves for a 2019 holiday shopping season that’s six days shorter than last year’s. What will make shoppers choose one retailer over another? How can retailers grow sales in the condensed season? And what can stretch this short shopping period into something longer and more lucrative? The answer to each of these…

When Amazon.com first introduced its “Fulfillment by Amazon” (FBA) program in 2006, it was impossible to know whether the online retailer fully recognized the growth prospects of the market it was walking into. Ironically, Amazon’s owner, Jeff Bezos, has joked about the difficulties of packing and shipping orders from his home-office during Amazon’s early years.…

In the race to keep up with the big boys like Walmart and Kroger, grocery chains are making major moves to adopt online ordering and other digital capabilities. In a study conducted this summer by Incisiv and AT&T, we uncovered that although grocers that have offered online delivery for at least 12 months report an…

In an effort to help brands and retailers stay on top of consumer mind-sets surrounding the evolving online shopping experience, Dotcom Distribution, a premier provider of B-to-C and B-to-B fulfillment and distribution services, conducts an annual e-commerce consumer survey. The 2019 study explores where brand decisions and consumer behaviors intersect, and how that affects purchase…

What if retailers could make real-time recommendations to customers based on current events happening inside and outside their online or physical storefront? Or resell returned merchandise even before it arrives back at the warehouse? In the age of “fast data,” retailers can leverage real-time data to better understand what customers want and need today, as…