Hermes is seeking to recruit 50 new IT specialists for its tech hub in Leeds. The new 65000 square foot location in the centre of Leeds will bring together new and existing employees to support innovation and digital strategy. As well as relocating employees from other offices, the delivery company (more…)
US supermarket giant Kroger has announced two new sites where it will use Ocado’s distribution centre platform, sparking a rise in the Ocado share price after a difficult month. The new customer fulfilment centres, using Ocado’s smart picking and packing platform, will serve central Florida and the mid-Atlantic regions. This (more…)
The European Union is introducing restrictions on carbon emissions from new trucks as part of its goal of achieving carbon neutrality. The regulation, approved by the European Parliament and Council, requires new trucks to have 30% lower emissions in 2030 compared to 2019. The rules now need to be ratified (more…)
Dutch postal giant PostNL will stop working with third party contractors for its delivery centre staff, hiring temporary workers instead. The company said that while contracting had worked well in the past, the “recent social discussion about contracting” and the desire to offer equal pay to all parcel sorters had (more…)
Ford is trialling a “warehouse on wheels” service in London which will allow last mile deliveries to be more easily offloaded from trucks to bikes. The concept involves vans picking up parcels from depots and then stopping at strategic locations. Foot or bicycle couriers then collect parcels from these points (more…)
Two major companies in the transport and logistics space plan to merge in an effort to create an “end-to-end” sea and land provider. French shipping company CMA has made an offer to acquire the roughly 67% of Swiss logistics firm CEVA which it doesn’t own. The offer, valuing the latter (more…)
Whether to offer free returns is emerging as a contentious issue for retailers. We recently published an op-ed by Gary Rohloff of Laybuy putting the case against. Now Tobias Buxhoidt, Founder and CEO of parcelLab explains why he believes the pros far outweigh the cons. It’s understandable why returns are viewed (more…)
This week saw Co-op announce that it is trialling home delivery using Deliveroo from a number of its London stores. The service is now available from 11 London stores, in addition to the five in Manchester where it has been trialled since last year. The product range includes fresh foods, (more…)
This week eDelivery was in Amsterdam with logistics specialist DHL Express, seeing how the company is using the city’s canals to move parcels around and is already looking at replicating the same model in London. Last mile urban deliveries are an increasingly contentious issue due to their contribution to pollution (more…)
With urban deliveries on the rise, logistics companies are looking at ways to minimise their environmental impact as much as possible. For DHL, moving parcels by boat is providing a promising way to do so in Amsterdam and Venice – and the company is hoping to eventually export the model (more…)
The CEO of DHL Express has claimed that his company is “fairly well set up” for the UK’s exit from the European Union. John Pearson, who is also a board member of parent company Deutsche Post DHL, told journalists at a press conference that the company had been running “contingencies” (more…)
B2C delivery company Hermes has added a semi-automated carousel system to one of its biggest distribution hubs, claiming it will increase productivity by 30%. The new system, which the company says is worth £1 million, is designed to process larger items at the company’s Midlands Super Hub in Rugby. Replacing (more…)
Oliver Kingham, founder and MD at LLM Handling, explains the factors that need to be considered when choosing warehouse machinery. Whether you’re designing an entirely new warehouse, or just updating your current one, selecting the right equipment is essential if you want to move and store stock as quickly and (more…)
ASOS has launched a same-day click and collect service at a UK university that allows students and other customers to order a product and pick it up that evening. Available to customers in the vicinity of Leeds University, ASOS Instant – On Campus allows customers to order items before 12PM (more…)
The immediate damage from Ocado’s warehouse fire in Andover has been dramatic, but the online grocer seems to be anticipating a long-term impact as well. Staff have now been able to access the affected area as normal and pressurised materials have been removed from the site. However, Ocado’s share price (more…)
The UK click and collect market will grow 46% over the next five years despite the satisfaction rates lagging those of home delivery, according to a new study. The study by GlobalData projects that the overall market will hit £9.8 billion by 2023, before growth begins to slow. A number (more…)
Are we heading towards a world where next day delivery or same day is the necessity? This is one of the themes that jumps out this week, as Waitrose rolls out its same-day service across London and a UK logistics provider launches a next-day service on Sundays. As this story (more…)
eDelivery rounds up some of the biggest stories in the logistics and fulfilment sector this week. FedEx speeds up European service FedEx is improving shipping speeds on its Intra-European Economy parcel shipments, which it says are predominantly used by businesses. Transit times will improve on around 40% of lanes (more…)
Online grocer Ocado has seen deliveries disrupted by a major warehouse fire in Hampshire as it announced plans for a one-hour delivery service. The company said that nobody had suffered injury but a proportion of its mechanical handling equipment and some of its robotic grid had been damaged. Ocado said (more…)
According to Capgemini, warehouse automation could potentially increase margins by 8% through higher throughput and lower fulfilment costs. The interest is certainly there from retailers, with Zalando’s logistics head recently suggesting creating an “open operating system” for automation in distribution centres along the lines of Android, allowing different systems in a warehouse (more…)