The Material Handling Blog

Remaining competitive means staying ahead of retail's rapid changes, such as complex omnichannel business models, demanding planning cycles, and rising customer expectations. Retail leaders are coming together at this year's RILA LINK to tackle these challenges. They want integrated solutions to simplify operations and make customers happier.

Sales are on the rise again this holiday season and consumers are shopping in an omnichannel way. Black Friday, Cyber Monday and sales before and after the Thanksgiving holiday marked at least a week of special discounts and sales. It also marked a year over year increase in retail activity in the United States, spending an estimated $9.8 billion during Black Friday alone, according to Adobe Analytics. Originally a single day of sales, discounts and deals came early extending the sales period before Black Friday, potentially easing the Friday sales bump. In-store sales increased by 1.1%, while ecommerce sales rose by 8.5% year over year, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse. Final totals are still being tallied but reports from MasterCard SpendingPulse, Adobe Analytics and various consulting firms indicate that most likely due to the country’s inflation and economic pressures, consumers actively took advantage of the season’s special discounts, searching for the best deals. They are buying “closer-to-need” according to TD Cowen analysts.

With the global pandemic only a few years behind us, rising diesel prices, supply chain shortages and a drastically transformed customer shopping landscape, the closing of 2022 should have looked bleaker. However, the “hyper growth” that was seen in ecommerce during the pandemic moved 2025 projections up by years. At the closing of 2022 we’re seeing retail’s first trillion-dollar year. As the meteoric growth of online sales has begun to moderate, and as we look forward to 2023 it will be imperative for retailers to address the past, present and future of retail.

The average box is 40% too large for its contents and eliminating excess volume would result in 24 million fewer truckloads per year in the United States, according to DHL, The Logistics Trend Radar. With increased focus on sustainability and supply chain impacts to a company’s bottom-line, the importance of packaging strategy has never been higher. Fortunately for supply chain leaders, packaging automation has continued to evolve to address this need and the time has never been better to consider how right-sized packaging could positively impact your supply chain.

Bag or box? They aren’t the only packing options, but they are certainly the most prevalent when it comes to retail fulfillment. With ecommerce activity on the rise, planning for and designing DC efficiency around single order pick and pack operations is a necessary shift to remaining competitive in the retail industry. Not only does this factor into meeting consumers’ quick turnaround expectations but also in keeping costs low. When it comes to packing and shipping, you can make efficiencies in larger factors such as operations and system design but also in smaller details like the size of the parcel. Shipping fast and cost efficiently is a balancing act that starts in warehouse or distribution center design. Whether you are working with polybags, boxes or both, appropriate automation sizing and integration with surrounding equipment has immediate and lasting impacts.

Bastian Solutions will be present at RILA LINK in Orlando, FL this month. Joining the retail order fulfillment and automation conversation with thousands of supply chain executives to connect, learn and explore leading best practices. With over 2,000 retail supply chain leaders in one place, LINK is the perfect event for Bastian to connect with carriers, vendors and other key partners.

Dealing with returns and reverse logistics can be a struggle for ecommerce order fulfillment - especially in the retail and consumer goods industries. Here's how we helped one client improve their returns process.

Peak season is here. While Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the biggest sales days of the year, have come and gone, order fulfillment operations are busy ensuring that orders are filled accurately, packaged carefully and shipped on time. For retailers, this is both a time of getting through the peak and also an opportunity to shine ahead of competitors. Handling seasonal peaks requires automation that simplifies the surge in distribution.

From concept to micro-fulfillment reality, Decathlon and Bastian Solutions worked together to create an in-store, customer-facing micro-fulfillment system.

Du concept à la réalité de la micro-exécution, Decathlon et Bastian Solutions ont collaboré pour créer un système de micro-exécution en magasin en contact avec les clients. « L'objectif de Decathlon était de créer un nouveau parcours client unique et amélioré en supprimant idéalement les tâches sans valeur ajoutée pour le personnel », a déclaré Diba Aleagha, responsable des opérations et du commerce électronique pour Decathlon Canada.

In supply chain, decentralization makes it possible to obtain small urban warehouses which help to manage order preparation as close as possible to the end consumer. We are talking about micro-fulfillment warehouses (or micro-logistics platforms), or even nano-fulfillment for the smallest of them.

Post originally published and provided courtesy of Scallog. In order to coordinate and absorb those retail flows as effectively as possible to meet demand, logistics engineers must become more efficient and productive, beyond trading off their resources as an adjustment variable. Automation, and specifically goods-to-person robotics, is a crucial element to ensure efficient logistics without compromising on the operator’s safety and well-being.