Logistics

Amazon has reportedly obtained a patent for “anticipatory shipping,” or a logistics technique using customer behavior and history to prepare items for shipping before they are actually ordered. According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon received the patent in December 2013.

As the holiday dust clears and we settle into a new year, it’s only fitting that retailers take a moment to reflect on successes of 2013 and identify opportunities for 2014. How can we be more efficient this year? Can we waste less while producing more? Where can we make simple adjustments that add up to big bottom line savings?

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

San Bruno, Calif. -- Stella & Dot has selected GT Nexus to serve as the company’s end-to-end global supply chain visibility platform. The specialty jewelry retailer will leverage GT Nexus to help sustain its pace of business growth by standardizing processes and delivering visibility into the status of inventory from the moment goods are ordered through delivery to global distribution centers.

King of Prussia, Pa. -- eBay Enterprise has launched a ship-from-store solution, which the company calls a game-changing initiative that retailers can deploy within 99 days to effectively leverage their physical store inventories while gaining advantages in margin and shipping cost.

eBay Enterprise, an eBay company and leading global provider of omnichannel solutions, has unveiled a ship-from-store SaaS initiative that retailers can deploy within 99 days to most effectively leverage their physical store inventories while gaining advantages in margin and shipping cost.

Amazon announced a record-setting year for Marketplace Sellers, which sold more than a billion units worldwide, cumulatively worth tens of billions of dollars, in 2013.

You’ve got to hand it to Amazon.com. While consistently turning a profit has eluded Amazon for the past 18 years, the company has consistently taken a lead in disrupting retail. Whether it’s inventing e-commerce as a mainstream B2C transactional channel, taking a leading role in hosted cloud services with Amazon Web Services or helping to usher in the tablet era with Kindle e-readers, Amazon.com has never been afraid to do things in a way that alters how retail business is conducted.