The long and at times winding tale that led Sainsbury’s to Argos’s door has concluded pretty much as we anticipated back in early February. OK, so we didn’t foresee the counter offer from South African retail group Steinhoff. Nor – once they were in the race – did we predict (more…)
D-Day for the much discussed Sainsbury’s / Argos takeover is almost upon us. Or is it? The deadline for a final, binding offer is 18 March – also known as this Friday. As things stand Argos has two potential suitors, one being Sainsbury’s and the other the lesser-known-in-these parts South (more…)
Do you drive along the M6 motorway? If you do, get ready to see the future in your rear view mirror, that’s if rumours concerning the Chancellor of the Exchequer are to be believed. Next week, when he announces the Budget, George Obsborne is expected to give the go-ahead for (more…)
If I shared with you my cynicism about the many predictions that Amazon is going to become a take-on-all-comers carrier business, it probably wouldn’t surprise you. Because for all the speculation on that matter in recent months, there’s been precious little analysis. Until now, when I suddenly find I in (more…)
Strike a pose! Amazon is planning the launch of its own fashion range, if the latest grapevine rumblings are to be believed. This latest development in the what next speculation that follows Amazon around, coincides with news that the etailer is now offering restaurant/take-away deliveries in seven cities across the (more…)
Put down all that ‘what will Amazon do next’ speculation I’m often talking about. We need to have a chat about Google. News that Google has been awarded a patent (by the US Patent office) for a driverless delivery vehicle containing secure parcel lockers means that another of the internet’s (more…)
Yesterday, 2 February, I was at MetaPack’s Delivery Conference – a packed event, and I’ll be writing up some of what I saw and heard over the next few days. On a personal note though, it was great to meet lots of eDelivery readers there, many of whom said they (more…)
If I had to sum up the theme of my column this week in one word, that word would be change. Change can be tactical, strategic, and truly transformational. And I think we have a dose of each of those among the top stories on eDelivery. For example, Yodel has (more…)
Ship to shore… we’re not sure what Amazon is up to anymore! On top of a tonne of speculation around the retailer’s involvement with aircraft, news leaked out last week that Amazon is now a registered sea container business too. There’s a story here from our colleagues on Tamebay with more (more…)
It only seems like last month when I wrote “Amazon is up to something.” At the risk of repeating myself, here we go again. But first, is click-and-collect broken? This time last year it was heralded as one of the saviours of Christmas 2014 (with a little help from weekend (more…)
Hello, welcome to the first eDelivery email of 2016, and from everyone on the team … Happy New Year. We’ve already got a few key dates and events in our diary – such as eDelivery Expo (EDX16) in April – and we’re starting to take stock of some of the (more…)
It’s been the case in my weekly columns that I try to look at a topical issue from a different perspective; to look at the bigger picture, as it were. But I thought I’d break with that tradition this week. This year has been eDelivery’s first full calendar year in (more…)
Amazon is up to something. I know, I know … it’s always up to something or other. But this time, if the smoke signals are to be believed, that something could have long-lasting implications for the carrier sector. It’s quite possible that last time I ploughed the Amazon’s at it (more…)
Back in July Yodel caused an industry-wide intake of breath when it announced it would be capping the amount of next-day delivery Black Friday business it would accept from retailers. Now those capped chickens are, of course (in the wake of cyber week), coming home to roost. Yodel says it (more…)
It came and it went … Black Friday passed, along with it Cyber Monday. The twin peaks, as it were, that usher in the Christmas peak season. Far from wishing to sound like archetypal ambulance-chasers, so far at eDelivery we haven’t heard or seen anything calamitous happen in the delivery (more…)
Not long now. Not long at all. On Friday, along with some of my colleagues from both eDelivery and InternetRetailing, I’ll be monitoring some of the retailers from the InternetRetailing Top500 to see how Black Friday is affecting things like site performance, availability of delivery options, and plenty more besides. (more…)
After announcing it was pulling out of Black Friday, Asda unveiled a new end-to-end parcel delivery and collection service it’s called ToYou, which will put the retail giant’s 600+ stores on the click-and-collect map. The economics behind this are worth reflecting on. One of the big questions the major supermarkets (more…)
So, Asda is pulling out of Black Friday. Hands up if you saw that one coming. Will it save deliveries from the peak period fire though? Probably not – it’s still going to be a very busy period, and if you’re not ready for it you’ll suffer. No one should (more…)
When we launched eDelivery, roughly a year ago, one of the little bits of shorthand we started using to explain our focus was that we were interested in the people, processes and technology that lie behind the business of fulfilling the multichannel promise. The procurement of logistics and operations systems (more…)
Where’s everybody gone? There’s a shortfall of 60,000 lorry drivers in the UK and the retail warehouse sector needs something in the region of an extra 100,000 people to get through peak. In about four weeks time that’s likely to be a bit of a problem – or at any (more…)