Nearly two decades ago, just as e-commerce was taking off, a group of players emerged to claim their share of the home-delivery market. Remember Webvan, Urbanfetch, Kozmo, and HomeGrocer?
Now that retailers have put their Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales behind them, many are gearing up for another potential holiday season gauntlet: A possible crush of procrastinators hitting their stores and websites at the last minute.
The last decade has seen many technological advancements in known payment environments. The introduction of point-of-sale systems has changed payment experiences by replacing cash registers in many scenarios. Credit cards have become a preferred mode of payment and more merchants are working toward accepting them.
Innovation continues to rise in importance. In The Boston Consulting Group's tenth annual global survey of the state of innovation, 79 percent of respondents ranked innovation as either the top-most priority or a top-three priority at their company, the highest percentage since we began asking the question in 2005, when 66 percent said innovation was their top or among their three top priorities.
While more peak-season shopping will likely be done online this year than ever before in North America, one of the most important factors in a shopper's decision to use the web will be cost rather than speed of delivery, according to a consumer survey conducted by Canadian parcel and freight service Purolator International, along with the Stony Brook University Center for Survey Research.
Mobile has firmly won the battle of devices this holiday season at Walmart, where mobile made up more than 70 percent of traffic to the retailer's website since Thanksgiving.
More than two-fifths (42 percent) of European adults have bought products directly from a manufacturer in the last 12 months, according to the JDA Manufacturing Pulse Report, which surveyed 6,146 adults online across the UK, Germany, France and Sweden.
The latest supply-chain news, analysis, trends and tools for executives in the consumer packaged goods industry. Learn how consumer packaged goods companies and their suppliers around the world are managing the flow of products across all channels of the enterprise. Experts sound off on forecasting and demand planning, supply-chain visibility, logistics outsourcing, inventory optimization, transportation management, warehouse management, supply-chain security, corporate social responsibility and more.
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter!
Timely, incisive articles delivered directly to your inbox.