Advice and insight to help retailers thrive in the new age of retail.
As digital technology advances at lighting speed, many predict that AI, machine learning and automation will remove over half of all retail jobs in the next 20 years. With countless bold statements in the media, this can often appear as […]
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As ecommerce scales and customer demands become increasingly complex, many retailers are opting for automated warehouse solutions to improve the efficiency of their ecommerce logistics operations and to drive down costs. This blog explores the main benefits of warehouse automation, […]
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Retailing is a particularly dynamic industry, and in 100 years has changed from the butcher and baker ‘living over the shop’ via organised retail, self-service and big-box to today’s omni-channel. But what of the next 10 years – how will […]
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Omni-channel is fast becoming the dominant retail model. Over 15%(1) of UK retail sales are now made online with rapid year-on-year growth. Tablets and smartphones are used for more than 50%(2) of online sales, and same day and next day delivery […]
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With logistics costs typically higher for ecommerce than store retail (5%-15% and 1%-5% of retail sales respectively) and sales increasingly moving to the ecommerce channel, there is a growing focus on the cost to serve. Competitive logistics costs are now […]
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With strong growth in international ecommerce, UK retailers with significant overseas sales frequently consider the option of local warehouses in their operating countries. This question usually comes in a number of guises: I’m shipping to the USA – do I […]
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Home delivery has come a long way since the height of the dotcom boom, where ‘standard’ and ‘next day’ (if you were lucky) were the only options for retail customers. Nowadays, customers are offered an amazing range of convenience, choice […]
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With 7% of all UK groceries and 5% of all French groceries ordered online, both growing at over 10% a year, online grocery is a huge phenomenon. Even in the USA, where grocery online sales are 1-2%, they are expected […]
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A retailer’s in-store colleagues are often the only touch point a retailer has to engage face to face with a customer, and the only opportunity to create a truly emotional connection between retailer and customer. Increasingly, a customer journey that […]
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We are living in a ‘now’ culture, with customers expecting fast delivery of purchased goods and services. A customer wants to know when (date and time) an item will be delivered, as well as track its progress. Retailers need to […]
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Omni-channel retail has radically changed customer behaviour and expectations, and supply chain teams are struggling to keep up. There has been a rapid, exponential increase in customers’ options to buy and receive goods. This has heaped pressure onto supply chains […]
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The US phenomenon, Black Friday, was adopted by many UK retailers in 2014 but with mixed results. How did it go wrong for so many, and what can retailers do to prepare their fulfilment and delivery operations for this year’s […]
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The rapid growth of the online grocery market in many countries has begun to put pressure on traditional store picking operations, leading to the rise of dedicated ecommerce grocery fulfilment centres, or so called ‘dark stores’. From the outset of online […]
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