Retailers predict import volumes at the nation's major container ports will finish the year on a high note despite weak demand during this year's traditional peak shipping season.
The consumer packaged goods sector is a giant with global sales exceeding $550bn. The markets that make up this global sector are diverse in character and research for Ti's latest report, Global CPG Logistics 2015, has identified the key differences between them.
Sometimes city governments issue zoning requirements prohibiting the construction of giant retail stores. The latest: Swansboro, North Carolina, where town residents are hotly debating an ordinance that, in effect, would ban construction of a Walmart.
Last year Target opened 124 stores across Canada, with disastrous consequences that are only just starting to be felt financially. Items were coming into the distribution centres sporadically and then piling up in storage, partly due to the barcodes not corresponding with the warehouse management system.
In the next two years Amazon, the world's largest retailer, will use its own logistics network to deliver nearly every product sold on its Indian portal.
Among Americans who purchased a product that required shipping this year, 80 percent consider shipping options, including free shipping, to be an important factor in their overall shopping experience, according to a recent survey commissioned by Pitney Bowes Inc.
The first real estate investment trust to focus on logistics is set to float on the London market and raise £200m to invest in a new breed of e-commerce warehouses.
In a post-Rana Plaza world, one can only wonder how best to gauge the ethics and worker safety behind our garment-manufacturing industry. The Goliath that the fashion industry has become begs the question whether it's even possible to ensure suppliers do the right thing.
