Logistics

Boston -- Gordon Brothers Group and Hilco Merchant Resources will begin going-out-of-business sales at all 287 Deb Shops retail locations nationwide beginning Jan. 9. Deb Shops, a Philadelphia-based women’s fashion discount retailer, filed for Chapter 11 protection on Dec. 4, 2014.  

Scottsdale, Ariz. – JDA Software Group Inc. is enhancing its JDA Warehouse Management solution as part of its Intelligent Fulfillment strategy. New features include an enhanced JDA Configuration Manager, which delivers user-friendly, prescriptive workflows for faster implementations, simplified process changes and easier onboarding.

By Evan Puzey, Kewill

Despite the fact that the supply chain community continues to discuss the nearshoring trend, outsourcing still reigns supreme – and that’s a problem for organizations that don’t have complete visibility into their supply chain.

Foothill Ranch, Calif. -- The Wet Seal announced it would 338 stores, or about 66% of its total portfolio, “on or about” Jan. 7, resulting in the termination of some 3,695 full and part-time employees. The struggling teen apparel retailer said the decision to close the stores was based on its overall financial condition and an inability to negotiate meaningful concessions from its landlords.   

New York -- U.S. mediators are joining the labor talks at West Coast ports in an attempt to jumpstart the stalled negotiations between the powerful International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA). The U.S. Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service announced its involvement in the talks late on Monday.

“We are prepared and ready to render prompt assistance,” Allison Beck, acting director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, said in a statement.

Seattle -- Amazon is not a company to shy away from touting its success. On Monday, the online giant announced that third-party sellers on Amazon Marketplace sold a “record-setting” more than two billion items worldwide in 2014, and that the number of its sellers adopting the Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service grew more than 65% year-over-year worldwide.

The 2014 holiday season has shown how shoppers’ growing preference for e-commerce can be challenging for retailers. By offering customers free shipping and ever-faster delivery, and by handling the higher rates of return that often come with e-commerce, retailers potentially face either reduced profit margins or loss in market share if they don’t keep up with customer preferences.

As they plan for 2015, many retailers will consider how they can provide a seamless customer experience that fundamentally helps them to maintain or improve profit margins.

New York – When it came to fulfilling holiday deliveries, Apple, Dell, Nordstrom and Zappos stood out among other major competitors. According to research from StellaService, all four provided an aggressive guarantee that orders placed by Dec. 23 would be delivered by Christmas and managed to meet that promise in all regions of the U.S.