Robot delivery company Starship has raised $40 million in new funding as it announces plans to expand to new locations. The funds, which brings Starship’s total up to $85 million, will be used to expand to 100 further university campuses over the next two years. Starship offers an app, which (more…)
UK shoppers are failing to actually pick up their click and collect orders as the service becomes more widely used, according to research. The survey by Barclaycard and Decathlon found that 71% of UK consumers now use click and collect, with the average person using it twice per month. However, (more…)
Zalando is delivering parcels for Adidas’s ecommerce site in Paris as it trials the new multi-channel offering of its Zalando Fulfilment Services (ZFS) arm. Orders from adidas.fr in the city are fulfilled from Zalando’s logistics centre in Moissy-Cramavel. The service will provide a two-hour delivery window on the same or (more…)
UPS has made an investment in autonomous vehicle company TuSimple as the two companies trial a self-driving tractor trailer on roads in Arizona. TuSimple’s technology is being used to ferry truckloads of UPS goods on a route between the cities of Phoenix and Tucson. The companies monitor metrics such as (more…)
Hermes is bringing its drivers and warehouse workers more closely into the organisation by providing them with employee emails and training programmes. The delivery company has provided 1500 employees with personal email accounts who traditionally did not need one. The employees will be able to use the accounts to access (more…)
A Netherlands-based JD Sports subsidiary will offer the paperless Doddle click and collect service in over a quarter of its stores through a new partnership. SUR will offer the digital solution for its retail brands Perry and Aktiesport. It will be available across 26 stores, allowing customers shopping on the (more…)
Sporting goods retailer Decathlon has chosen DHL to provide it with visibility over its global shipping operations. Through the partnership, the carrier will provide IT and freight solutions for Decathlon’s supply chain. The retailer will use DHL’s control tower service, offering visibility over shipments from factories in Vietnam and Taiwan (more…)
A Mercedes-Benz and Daimler service which allows customers to have in-car delivery of their parcels has expanded to Berlin. Called chark, the service allows drivers of certain Mercedes-Benz models to have parcels delivered to the boot of their car. Using the Mercedes me connect app, the customer provides the digital (more…)
Free delivery is a powerful motivator for customers, encouraging them to buy more and join loyalty programmes, according to a new report. The research by UPS, which surveyed online shoppers in 15 countries and regions, including Europe, North America, Asia and South America, found that delivery had a major impact (more…)
Nike has acquired a company specialising in predictive analytics to improve its inventory management across different channels. The sports brand retailer paid an undisclosed sum for Boston-based Celect, which has a range of technologies across the data science and software engineering spaces. Celect has a cloud analytics platform which offers (more…)
Shipping giants PostNL and DHL have both been buoyed in the first half of 2019 by growing ecommerce revenue. PostNL said in its results that 51% of its revenue in the first half of the year related to ecommerce, totalling €695.15 million out of its total €1.37 billion in revenue. (more…)
Amazon has begun using its Scout robot to offer autonomous delivery to customers in southern California. A small number of the cooler-sized robots will begin delivering from today (7 August) in Irvine, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, in daylight hours from Monday to Friday. They will follow pre-set (more…)
Derek Bryan, VP EMEA at Verizon Connect discusses how bringing digital tools to fleet management can reduce delivery times and increase sustainability. The ecommerce industry continues to grow at a rapid rate, with the latest figures from the ONS showing that more than 18 percent of overall retail spending in (more…)
Delivery giant Hermes has introduced a new mobile application which offers in-flight delivery options allowing customers to change their preferences according to convenience. As well as receiving notifications on the progress of a delivery, users can track and divert parcels, rerouting them to a neighbour or a safe place mid-transit. (more…)
DHL has teamed up with a UK-wide click and collect operator to expand its collection and returns offering to customers. The shipping giant is working with PayPoint to add 500 new pick-up and drop-off locations in convenience stores across the country. The service will add a further 3000 points by (more…)
The number of items shipped through Zalando Fulfilment Solutions (ZFS) has grown 400% in the last year, Zalando announced, as it unveiled three new features designed to win over more brands. ZFS is a service launched in 2017 through which Zalando keeps a brand’s stock in its warehouse and ships (more…)
Hermes claims it will be able to cut 1.5 million miles off drivers’ routes annually as it adds new double decker trailers. The 32 double decker trailers, designed specially by Don-Bur, will operate out of Hermes’s automated hub in Warrington and Rugby. The trailers hold 33% more than a standard (more…)
DHL and Austria Post are combining their last mile operations in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The agreement will see Austrian Post subsidiary In Time delivering parcels sent by DHL customers to Slovakia while DHL’s subsidiary PPL CZ will deliver the other company’s parcels to the Czech Republic. The collaboration (more…)
Amazon has announced plans for three new logistics centres in Spain, adding over 30,000 square metres to its footprint in the country and bringing its latest robotics technology Pegasus Drive to Europe. The online retailer is opening the new centres in the cities of Barcelona and Pontevedra as well as (more…)
JoAnn Martin, VP Retail Strategy at JDA Software, looks at how new technologies can solve the problems of returns management. Consumer behaviour is reshaping retail, ultimately challenging retailers to create enhanced solutions to address their increasing customer demands. Managing returns without compromising the customer experience is certainly one of these (more…)