No I’m not talking about winning Olympic golds, I’m thinking of customers. (Go on, let me throw in one quick Rio 2016 analogy in my first eDelivery editorial!) What has struck me during my first few days in the editor role at eDelivery.net is the colossal effort currently going into (more…)
This is my final editorial column. I’m moving on. But eDelivery is still here and is set to go from strength to strength. Some of you reading this will already know that I am stepping down as editor of eDelivery; this is my final editorial column, and next month a (more…)
Last month I wrote about the phenomenon of the Daily Mail moment. Back then I was talking about Sports Direct, but this week it’s been the turn of Hermes. Only it wasn’t the Daily Mail, it was the Guardian. The accusations and criticism being levelled at Hermes are likely to (more…)
At 32,000 square metres the latest addition to the IKEA UK store network is not the biggest, nor is it the smallest. But on a visit there earlier this week I had an epiphany. Reading. The largest town in England yet to be granted city status. Or so I am (more…)
One of my colleagues had a rubbish delivery this week, courtesy of Amazon. Only 24 hours earlier, a friend had Tweeted that rubbish deliveries were a direct reflection on retailers’ reputations. What’s this all about? Well, on both occasions they’d had parcels left in their rubbish bins. For anyone across (more…)
Every time Amazon does something grocery related, a lot of people start writing Ocado off. Why is that? It doesn’t seem to matter that Ocado covers most of the UK and AmazonFresh isn’t even in operation across the whole of London, but when it was announced that Amazon Prime customers (more…)
You may already be aware that Uber launched its food delivery service in London last week. That’s takeaway food and restaurant orders, as opposed to grocery delivery – although if you’ve been paying attention you’ll know I wrote about Amazon launching a grocery service in London in my column last (more…)
Do you remember when offering free delivery was the default for new customer acquisition? It wasn’t that long ago, really, but in some ways it feels like a lifetime ago. Now, I’m not about to start arguing there’s no place for free delivery or that free delivery won’t attract customers (more…)
In government press offices there is a phrase that sometimes gets used to warn of impending bad publicity – the Daily Mail moment. Who would have thought that a warehouse would have had one of those? But that’s precisely what happened in the case of Sports Direct’s distribution centre in (more…)
The final countdown has begun for fashion retailer Austin Reed, after administrators failed to find a buyer for the collapsed chain. The company’s website has ceased operations, and by the end of this month all 120 shops are expected to have closed with the loss of more than 1,000 jobs. (more…)
It’s 40 years since the birth of punk. Don’t be fooled by the whiteness of my beard, I was actually too young for all that and it completely passed me by. But what has that got to do with retail logistics? It wasn’t until 1979 that the Clash released London (more…)
I’ve been talking to people far and wide about whether in-store click-and-collect services might have run out of steam and what that might mean. For retailers and the rest of the industry alike, click-and-collect has been a runaway success. But last Christmas saw a rash of stories about shoppers having (more…)
Have the Aussies cracked the costly problem of failed first time delivery? Probably not, to be fair. But they’ve given me food for thought. Australia is an incredible country, as you’ll no doubt know if you’ve been; all the clichés apply … the weather, the beaches, the ocean, the weather, (more…)
Last week, something like 5,000 people visited EDX16 and IRX16 at the Birmingham NEC – the jointly-hosted expos of eDelivery and InternetRetailing, along with colleagues from TameBay and eSeller. I can’t remember the last time I walked as much in a single day as I did on Day Two, although (more…)
eDelivery Expo (EDX16) starts today at the NEC in Birmingham. If you’re coming, why not let us know by tweeting about it, using the hashtag #EDX16. Here’s a quick recap of some of the pre-show stories we’ve run, and themes you can expect to hear about, to help feed your ‘must (more…)
This time next week the eDelivery team will be at EDX16 at the Birmingham NEC. If you can make it there too it would be great to see you there. Keep reading for more on that. The second eDelivery Expo – otherwise known as EDX16 – gets underway next week (more…)
The latest edition of eDelivery Magazine is out now, and being delivered to readers across the UK and beyond. I caught up with my colleague Emma Herrod, executive editor of eDelivery Magazine, to hear about what readers have to look forward to from EDM05… the themes and issues covered and (more…)
The latest edition of eDelivery Magazine is out now, and being delivered to readers across the UK and beyond. I caught up with my colleague Emma Herrod, executive editor of eDelivery Magazine, to hear about what readers have to look forward to from EDM05… the themes and issues covered and (more…)
In just three weeks, eDelivery Expo, EDX16, will be getting under way. Stands will be buzzing, press releases will be stacked in the press office, and attendees will be visiting exhibitors and sitting in on some of the excellent sessions we’ve got lined up. We’ve got some truly world-class retail (more…)
Data rich, insight poor. That’s the way the retail sector was described to me several times recently when I started working on a series of features looking at the role of technology in the operations and logistics sector. To be frank, I doubt that description will come as a surprise (more…)