The meteoric rise of business-to-consumer retail e-commerce has sent shock waves throughout the industry. Now, the impact is reverberating beyond Amazon and eBay to affect business-to-business companies everywhere.

The past decade has seen a monumental shift in the requirements placed on distribution centers. As customers continue to trend toward online sales and demand faster delivery times, retailers and wholesalers are feeling the pressure.

Your parcel shipping operations are unique, and so too are the transportation management systems for parcel shipping in the market — each with enough features and functionality to confuse even the most seasoned industry expert looking to implement a new solution.

In order to reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction, retailers need to take a more detailed look at why returns happen and what are the options for dealing with them. 

More than 50% of companies are using big-data analytics, a recent survey says, but a closer look reveals that adoption rate varies significantly by industry.

Tom French, founder and CEO of Supply Chain Coach, explains the concept of manufacturers owning the cost of fulfilling orders for all of their sales partners — a practice embraced by Lodge Cast Iron. A finalist in the 2019 Supply Chain Innovation Awards competition.