Order Fulfillment

Online grocery shopping began heating up like a pot of boiling soup in late 2016. With the recent acquisition of Whole Foods by Amazon.com, it seems everyone has an opinion on the long-term viability of digital groceries. Is it a new concept? No, but it certainly seems its time has finally come. It’s hard to…

In Total Retail's recent survey and subsequent report, The Amazon Effect: How Retailers Are Adapting Their Businesses to Better Compete With the Industry Leader, nearly 90 percent of retail executives said they “strongly" or “somewhat" agree that Amazon.com has changed consumers’ expectations for order delivery. Specifically, consumers’ expectations for delivery of their online purchases have changed…

Nearly 90 percent of respondents in a recent Total Retail and IBM survey said they “strongly" or “somewhat" agree that Amazon.com has changed consumers’ expectations for order delivery (see the chart below). The report, The Amazon Effect: How Retailers Are Adapting Their Businesses to Better Compete With the Industry Leader, analyzes the impact Amazon’s growing…

Lowe's confirmed last week that it's laying off an undisclosed number of delivery workers nationwide as the company shifts to a third-party delivery service. In an email to The Charlotte Observer, the home improvement retailer said its decision is in response to “the growing demand for timely delivery,” including next-day delivery, in select markets. The latest layoff announcement…

Amazon.com is hosting a job fair today in an attempt to fill 50,000 warehouse positions by hiring people on the spot in some of the U.S. cities that host its largest operation hubs. The retailer announced last weekend that it would host job fairs in places like Baltimore and Buffalo, New York for full-time and part-time jobs…

Attendees of this interactive webinar will learn why retailers struggle under the weight of increasing amounts of data.

The fashion industry is supposed to be run by those designers who dominate fashion weeks in New York and Paris. However, in the last couple of years, the biggest changes on the catwalk haven't been the styles, but how they're presented — namely in season and ready for purchase today. The same forces that are…

Wal-Mart is testing a new program that lets store associates opt into delivering e-commerce ship-from-store orders. Marc Lore, chief executive of Wal-Mart U.S. e-commerce, explained that the program uses technology so workers can set preferences such as how many packages they want to deliver, weight limits for the packages and which days they would like…

When shoppers buy a product today, they're far more likely to be influenced by the experience than solely by the price or product features. Whether walking into a Sonos listening boutique to shop for speakers, “trying on” makeup through Sephora’s mobile app or heading into a Nike store to test out shoes in virtual reality,…

Car service? Check. Dinner? Check. Beer and wine? Check. In today’s on-demand economy, consumers can order virtually anything with the simple touch of a finger and have it at their doorstep in a matter of hours, if not sooner. Not only do consumers want this, they expect it. And they don’t want to pay exorbitant,…