It’s difficult to pinpoint when the 3PL “industry” really began. In a quite definitive post on the history of 3PLs, our colleagues at Cerasis point out that the term can be traced back to the 1970s and 1980s as more and more businesses began outsourcing more and more logistics. In any case, due to the…
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The 2014 holiday sales season was a good one. In the U.S., the National Retail Federation hailed the sales results as a bellwether that “we have moved well beyond” the lingering consumer pessimism that followed the 2008 recession. The NRF numbers showed a 4% increase in overall retail sales and, even better for online retailers,…
We’ve written before about what manufacturers and marketers should look for in the fulfillment companies and services they choose. While the traditional fulfillment service staples, including warehousing, inventory management and shipping are obviously important, emerging technologies and online marketplaces have added significantly to the services you can choose. Order tracking, transaction services, CRM and customer…
“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” While the idea put forth in that famous saying is clear; that if you eclipse your competition with a better product you will get lots of sales, it’s really not true. Let’s say you did build the better mousetrap, then what?…
Is this a golden age for third-party fulfillment companies? Or is it a slippery slope of hyper-competition against a new breed of mega players? There’s no question of the benefits the incredible growth in ecommerce has produced for 3PLs. Whether it’s from a “basement bob” or a multi-national bricks and mortar retailer, ecommerce customers expect…