Logistics

While most retailers haven’t upped their 2016 holiday hiring over last year, Amazon is not among them.   The e-commerce giant announced it plans to hire more than 120,000 workers in the United States this holiday season, with positions across its network of fulfillment centers, sortation centers and customer service sites.  

With its recent acquisition of Jet.com, a commitment to growing its online grocery business with a convenient grocery pick-up option and an extensive investment against delivering a seamless digital shopping experience, Walmart is once again flipping the script on what it means to compete for America's shopping dollar.   The company's investment in grocery pick-up services represents the cover of that new script - and Walmart is expanding that service to 600 stores this year and 500 stores next year.  

Not only is online shopping a way of life for many shoppers, more and more of them are doing it across borders.   Those are among the findings of the third annual Pitney Bowes Global Online Shopping Survey, in which nearly one-third of consumers reported they make domestic online purchases on a daily or weekly basis. While it's no surprise that consumers frequently make domestic online purchases (94%), more than two-thirds (66%) of these consumers have also made an online purchase from another country in the past year.

The University of Washington is teaming up with Costco, UPS, Nordstrom and other stakeholders on a new project that aims to improve the way consumers receive their goods.

The SCTL Center Urban Freight Lab says it will be working to improve the management of both public and private operations of urban goods delivery systems. Urban Freight Lab members plan to engage in strategic applied research projects at the SCTL Center, and help identify priority problems for future research.

Founding members of the SCTL Center Urban Freight Lab include:

Walmart has gone into high gear in its fight to challenge Amazon.   The chain is on track to double the number of warehouses dedicated to online sales to 10 by the end of 2016, according to a report on nbcnews.com.    

Advance Auto Parts has appointed Thomas (Tom) Okray as executive VP, CFO, effective Oct. 31, 2016.    In a previously announced succession plan, Okray will succeed Mike Norona, who will remain with Advance Auto in an advisory role until the end of the year.   

Simplicity is the name of the game for Giant Eagle’s new transportation endeavors.    It’s first step in this quest was to add a new transportation management system — a single platform designed to manage inbound and outbound transportation systems. Processes that were originally controlled by five systems are now streamlined through one core infrastructure. This new consolidated platform is also only piece within a much larger project: building a next-generation supply chain.  

The retailer opened 11 new stores in the U.S. and Canada for the quarter ending Aug. 1, 2016. This adds to the 12 new stores it opened in the first quarter, bringing the total for the year to 23.    PetSmart is on track to achieve its goal of 80 net new stores in 2016.   The new stores average around 14,000 sq. ft., with service offerings such as grooming and pet training.