Logistics

Mississauga, Canada -- Canadian shoppers are off to an earlier start with holiday shopping. UPS Canada's annual Black Friday survey conducted by Leger shows that one-third of Canadians plan to take advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals.    The findings forecast that 20% of Canadian consumers will travel to the U.S. to shop for Black Friday deals and 32% of Canadian consumers will make online Cyber Monday purchases from U.S. retailers.   

Altoona, Penn. -- C-store operator Sheetz cut the ceremonial red ribbon to officially open its new Burlington (North Carolina) Distribution Center.    The $33 million facility contains a Sheetz Bros kitchen, distribution and warehousing center for the Sheetz distribution fleet. There is also be space for various corporate support departments.    

I recently had the opportunity to visit the funky Las Vegas headquarters of online footwear/apparel/accessories retailer Zappos.com. Zappos is generally regarded as one of the most customer-friendly retailers around, and after seeing how things work behind the scenes I can attest this reputation is well deserved. Here are five cool ways Zappos uses corporate culture and innovation to disrupt the customer experience and behind-the-scenes operations.  

DHL Global Mail is rebranding itself as DHL eCommerce in response to projections of significant growth in e-commerce, especially in emerging markets, the company said.

DHL announced it is enhancing its services across the entire logistics chain to meet the rising demand for automated e-commerce solutions in such industry sectors as fashion, consumer electronics, media products and consumer pharmaceutical products. At the same time, DHL eCommerce will continue to provide customers with services for domestic and international B2C shipping.

Dallas -- X Team International announced that partner Venture Commercial Real Estate completed the sale of two properties in Richardson, Texas and Waco, Texas, representing more than 150,000 sq. ft. of retail space.   

Irvine, Calif. -- C-store operator ABC Stores selected DecisionPoint Systems to automate its Hawaiian warehouse operation using Wavelink's Speakeasy voice picking technology. The move reduced picking errors and increased efficiencies by 40%, prompting the retailer to look at further deployment.  

Washington -- Import cargo volume at the nation’s major retail container ports is expected to slow down this month following record levels seen in September and October as retailers rushed to bring merchandise into the country ahead of a possible shutdown of West Coast ports, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.
  

Customers and store associates at Sobey’s stores in Canada are seeing red after the operator of 1,500 stores became the latest company to use PECO Pallet’s distinctively colored pallets.

PECO said it added Sobeys to its growing list of authorized distributors in Canada so that Canadian and U.S. manufacturers and produce companies can now ship their products into Sobeys supermarkets throughout Canada on PECO’s wooden pallets.