capacity by 5 million pieces a day. While trying to keep up, carriers’ investments in capacity may still not be enough for this peak season, meaning retailers face another challenging holiday period with limited space and higher costs. However, retailers can still find ways to effectively mitigate upcoming peak season concerns while also planning for future challenges ahead of other peak periods.
To better execute parcel shipping workflows and create greater fulfillment independence, retailers need to overhaul practices and adapt strategies. With many companies under immense pressure to successfully navigate peak season and prepare for ongoing shipping challenges, implementing the following shipping strategies can help establish improved business resilience and order fulfillment agility.
With e-commerce volumes having grown exponentially, creating a nearly constant peak-like level, retailers re-examined their parcel shipping operations to find ways to increase responsiveness and maintain service consistency and customer satisfaction, while minimizing costs.
Utilizing multiple e-commerce order fulfillment methods such as ship-from-store; buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS); and buy online, return-in-store (BORIS) can be a critical differentiator. These omnichannel distribution and return capabilities help retailers meet consumer demand for fast, flexible delivery while offsetting order fulfillment and return costs and increasing customer satisfaction.
With the adaptability to execute any number of fulfillment scenarios through omnichannel distribution, retailers can enhance the flow of products both within and without facilities, helping the organization overcome current challenges and adapt to future changes.
Retailers increasingly understand the value of using data effectively to enable next-level logistics and supply chain management, but there’s room for greater adoption. Data can inform strategic decision making and help retailers effectively tie parcel shipping operations to their company strategy. For instance, retailers can leverage data to monitor every shipment to ensure carriers perform services as contracted, effectively holding carriers accountable and improving on-time delivery.
Retailers can also explore alternate order fulfillment methods using data by running rate simulations and comparing different scenarios to current transportation strategies to set and measure parcel shipping key performance indicators. With the ability to analyze the impact of carrier capacity limitations and order demand through shipping data, retailers can pivot carriers and transportation budgets to match customer expectations and make cost-savvy supply chain decisions that align with business strategy.
