Most Recent Articles

No one loves returns — not customers, not retailers, and not distribution companies. But returns are a fact of life after a busy holiday season. And the quality of the customer experience can make or break your business.

eCommerce has revolutionized the way we shop and get products into the hands of customers. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the growth of online shopping as many consumers turn to eCommerce for daily needs like groceries and other items such as clothing. In fact, U.S. eCommerce sales are projected to reach $1 trillion for the first time in 2022 and account for over 20% of retail sales by 2024.

eCommerce has evolved to become the preferred form of retail for many types of goods and services. According to a recent report by Adobe, the COVID-19 pandemic boosted online shopping in the U.S. by $183 billion, a 42% increase in 2020 over the prior year.

Twenty years ago, making a DC/warehouse “green” was almost universally a very low priority if it made the list of near or long-term goals at all. As the digital age was just starting to ramp itself up with the advent of e-commerce, managers were more focused on the building blocks needed to transform their facilities to raise the volume, speed and variety of services they perform. But while the last twenty years have been almost exclusively a race for adapting the business into a speedier, direct-to-customer version of it’s pre-internet self, prioritizing factors like energy use, reduced packaging, etc. is becoming a desirable skill-set and focus of KPIs.

The digital revolution that is transforming the broader economy continues to shape distribution models as well. Increasingly business distribution centers are evolving to serve customers directly in addition to their more traditional roles as distributors for retailers and resellers.

Larger businesses are leading the charge to transform their own warehouses into world-class distribution centers. However, smaller businesses find it difficult to match their efficiency and speed with similar facility and systems investments. This disparity begs the question, “How can smaller companies keep up?” The best way to stay relevant is to outsource these non-core functions to better qualified partners instead of trying to match what large companies are doing.

There is perhaps no more important part of your facility than your dock. It’s the start – and the end – of your day, your end-to-end process, and your accounting for your shipments! So making the processes that depend on your dock as smooth and efficient as possible gives everything in-between a better foundation for success.

Two years after the launch of our PowerSwap Nucleus^TM battery pack, we’ve seen a lot of success stories from our customers who’ve upgraded from their original Sealed Lead Acid (SLA) power packs. Although Lithium is something we are all using day-to-day in our personal lives in our cell phones, laptop and almost any other rechargeable device we have, we still get a lot of questions from our customers and readers about some of the more basic aspects of our power packs.

The “Merry” part of the Christmas season can often be forgotten quickly when the first trucks show up at the receiving docks with mountains of returns. There is nothing worse as a retailer than experiencing the feeling that your products were “unwanted”, but if you do it right, returns processing can be a positive for your customers and your bottom line.

If 2018 hasn’t gone fast enough for you, the holiday season is upon us and like every holiday season, nothing is ever easy! This year there are a number of potholes that are appearing on the road to the holidays and beyond, and if you have not already prepared for some of them you might find yourself celebrating without any “roast beast” this year!

Over the years you’ve seen a lot of material coming from us about using “Lean” Manufacturing and using Lean techniques in other areas like distribution and logistics. As a manufacturer ourselves, we have always strived to take our own advice, but like many of you, we also learned in the process that while the reward is great, the work to get there can be HARD.