Ben Ames has spent 20 years as a journalist since starting out as a daily newspaper reporter in Pennsylvania in 1995. From 1999 forward, he has focused on business and technology reporting for a number of trade journals, beginning when he joined Design News and Modern Materials Handling magazines. Ames is author of the trail guide "Hiking Massachusetts" and is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism.
Retail spending ticked up slightly in holiday shopping last week as a continued trend toward the “smoothing out” of demand throughout the entire winter peak has diminished the importance of traditional surge dates like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, according to an analysis from enterprise software vendor Salesforce.
U.S. shoppers spent $13.4 billion on “Black Friday” November 26, an increase of 5% over 2020, and are projected to spend $11 billion today on “Cyber Monday,” which would be flat growth compared to last year, the company said.
The data comes from Salesforce’s compilation of global shopping data from more than one billion consumers on its Commerce Cloud and Marketing Cloud platforms, which are used by 24 of the top 30 U.S. online retailers. The results showed a similar pattern for global trends, which showed a 2% rise on Black Friday to $63.4 billion and a predicted flat trend to $43 billion on Cyber Monday.
“After a strong start to the holiday season, momentum continued with moderate growth throughout Cyber Week,” Rob Garf, Salesforce’s VP and GM of Retail, said in a release. “With the smoothing out of demand throughout the entire season, peak days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday have less of an impact than previous years. It’s been less about Cyber Week and more about Cyber November. It’s always a retailer’s dream to pull demand early in the fall, and with supply chain bottlenecks and fears of inflation, consumers did shop early and often.”
To capture that spending, retailers in 2021 had to cope with supply chain challenges such as port delays and trucking capacity shortages, which have combined to create low holiday inventory levels. Salesforce found that “product catalogs” over Cyber Week shrank 6% compared to last year, both in the U.S. and globally.
Another sales hurdle this year is a rising concern about inflation levels, which could boost costs and prices. To combat those fears, retailers in 2021 are offering more creating financing terms, such as Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) deals, Salesforce said. Shoppers embraced those offers, driving a 37% increase in BNPL usage over Cyber Week by dollar amount. That rise covered 8% of all orders, with over $16 billion in holiday orders now being financed.
Those trends were also reflected in data on shopper visits to brick and mortar stores reported by commercial real estate giant CBRE Group Inc., which found that foot traffic on Black Friday was up significantly compared to pandemic-impacted 2020, and met or exceeded 2019 traffic numbers at most locations.
The data was generated by a survey of personnel at 16 of the malls and large-format retail centers managed across the U.S. by CBRE Retail Property Management.
“Although consumer sentiment has taken a dip, retail sales remain strong. Supply chain issues may hamper smaller retailers, but inventory likely won’t be a problem for larger retailers with purchasing power,” Brandon Isner, Head of Americas Retail Research for CBRE, said in a release.
And while inventory may be lean, retailers did not cite inventory shortages as an issue, CBRE said. In fact, shoppers trying to avoid shipping delays actually preferred to shop in-store, as shown by a drop in Buy Online, Pick Up in Store (BOPIS) and curbside pickup rates and an increase over 2020 in attendance at events such as such as Santa meetings, light shows, and movie theaters.
“We anticipated that in-store foot traffic would be much higher this holiday season, with shoppers eager to return to their normal traditions and the experiences they missed last year,” Isner said. “The feedback from our retail centers shows that people are more comfortable gathering this year and their activity will be a boost to not only retailers, but entertainment outlets such as theaters and restaurants. This narrative is backed up by data illustrating that retail foot traffic has steadily increased throughout October.”
The number of container ships waiting outside U.S. East and Gulf Coast ports has swelled from just three vessels on Sunday to 54 on Thursday as a dockworker strike has swiftly halted bustling container traffic at some of the nation’s business facilities, according to analysis by Everstream Analytics.
As of Thursday morning, the two ports with the biggest traffic jams are Savannah (15 ships) and New York (14), followed by single-digit numbers at Mobile, Charleston, Houston, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Baltimore, and Miami, Everstream said.
The impact of that clogged flow of goods will depend on how long the strike lasts, analysts with Moody’s said. The firm’s Moody’s Analytics division estimates the strike will cause a daily hit to the U.S. economy of at least $500 million in the coming days. But that impact will jump to $2 billion per day if the strike persists for several weeks.
The immediate cost of the strike can be seen in rising surcharges and rerouting delays, which can be absorbed by most enterprise-scale companies but hit small and medium-sized businesses particularly hard, a report from Container xChange says.
“The timing of this strike is especially challenging as we are in our traditional peak season. While many pulled forward shipments earlier this year to mitigate risks, stockpiled inventories will only cushion businesses for so long. If the strike continues for an extended period, we could see significant strain on container availability and shipping schedules,” Christian Roeloffs, cofounder and CEO of Container xChange, said in a release.
“For small and medium-sized container traders, this could result in skyrocketing logistics costs and delays, making it harder to secure containers. The longer the disruption lasts, the more difficult it will be for these businesses to keep pace with market demands,” Roeloffs said.
Jason Kra kicked off his presentation at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) EDGE Conference on Tuesday morning with a question: “How do we use data in assessing what countries we should be investing in for future supply chain decisions?” As president of Li & Fung where he oversees the supply chain solutions company’s wholesale and distribution business in the U.S., Kra understands that many companies are looking for ways to assess risk in their supply chains and diversify their operations beyond China. To properly assess risk, however, you need quality data and a decision model, he said.
In January 2024, in addition to his full-time job, Kra joined American University’s Kogod School of Business as an adjunct professor of the school’s master’s program where he decided to find some answers to his above question about data.
For his research, he created the following situation: “How can data be used to assess the attractiveness of scalable apparel-producing countries for planning based on stability and predictability, and what factors should be considered in the decision-making process to de-risk country diversification decisions?”
Since diversification and resilience have been hot topics in the supply chain space since the U.S.’s 2017 trade war with China, Kra sought to find a way to apply a scientific method to assess supply chain risk. He specifically wanted to answer the following questions:
1.Which methodology is most appropriate to investigate when selecting a country to produce apparel in based on weighted criteria?
2.What criteria should be used to evaluate a production country’s suitability for scalable manufacturing as a future investment?
3.What are the weights (relative importance) of each criterion?
4.How can this methodology be utilized to assess the suitability of production countries for scalable apparel manufacturing and to create a country ranking?
5.Will the criteria and methodology apply to other industries?
After creating a list of criteria and weight rankings based on importance, Kra reached out to 70 senior managers with 20+ years of experience and C-suite executives to get their feedback. What he found was a big difference in criteria/weight rankings between the C-suite and senior managers.
“That huge gap is a good area for future research,” said Kra. “If you don’t have alignment between your C-suite and your senior managers who are doing a lot of the execution, you’re never going to achieve the goals you set as a company.”
With the research results, Kra created a decision model for country selection that can be applied to any industry and customized based on a company’s unique needs. That model includes discussing the data findings, creating a list of diversification countries, and finally, looking at future trends to factor in (like exponential technology, speed, types of supply chains and geopolitics, and sustainability).
After showcasing his research data to the EDGE audience, Kra ended his presentation by sharing some key takeaways from his research:
China diversification strategies alone are not enough. The world will continue to be volatile and disruptive. Country and region diversification is the only protection.
Managers need to balance trade-offs between what is optimal and what is acceptable regarding supply chain decisions. Decision-makers need to find the best country at the lowest price, with the most dependability.
There is a disconnect or misalignment between C-suite executives and senior managers who execute the strategy. So further education and alignment is critical.
Data-driven decision-making for your company/industry: This can be done for any industry—the data is customizable, and there are many “free” sources you can access to put together regional and country data. Utilizing data helps eliminate path dependency (for example, relying on a lean or just-in-time inventory) and keeps executives and managers aligned.
“Look at the business you envision in the future,” said Kra, “and make that your model for today.”
Turning around a failing warehouse operation demands a similar methodology to how emergency room doctors triage troubled patients at the hospital, a speaker said today in a session at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP)’s EDGE Conference in Nashville.
There are many reasons that a warehouse might start to miss its targets, such as a sudden volume increase or a new IT system implementation gone wrong, said Adri McCaskill, general manager for iPlan’s Warehouse Management business unit. But whatever the cause, the basic rescue strategy is the same: “Just like medicine, you do triage,” she said. “The most life-threatening problem we try to solve first. And only then, once we’ve stopped the bleeding, we can move on.”
In McCaskill’s comparison, just as a doctor might have to break some ribs through energetic CPR to get a patient’s heart beating again, a failing warehouse might need to recover by “breaking some ribs” in a business sense, such as making management changes or stock write-downs.
Once the business has made some stopgap solutions to “stop the bleeding,” it can proceed to a disciplined recovery, she said. And to reach their final goal, managers can use the classic tools of people, process, and technology to improve what she called the three most important key performance indicators (KPIs): on time in full (OTIF), inventory accuracy, and staff turnover.
CSCMP EDGE attendees gathered Tuesday afternoon for an update and outlook on the truckload (TL) market, which is on the upswing following the longest down cycle in recorded history. Kevin Adamik of RXO (formerly Coyote Logistics), offered an overview of truckload market cycles, highlighting major trends from the recent freight recession and providing an update on where the TL cycle is now.
EDGE 2024, sponsored by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), is taking place this week in Nashville.
Citing data from the Coyote Curve index (which measures year-over-year changes in spot market rates) and other sources, Adamik outlined the dynamics of the TL market. He explained that the last cycle—which lasted from about 2019 to 2024—was longer than the typical three to four-year market cycle, marked by volatile conditions spurred by the Covid-19 pandemic. That cycle is behind us now, he said, adding that the market has reached equilibrium and is headed toward an inflationary environment.
Adamik also told attendees that he expects the new TL cycle to be marked by far less volatility, with a return to more typical conditions. And he offered a slate of supply and demand trends to note as the industry moves into the new cycle.
Supply trends include:
Carrier operating authorities are declining;
Employment in the trucking industry is declining;
Private fleets have expanded, but the expansion has stopped;
Truckload orders are falling.
Demand trends include:
Consumer spending is stable, but is still more service-centric and less goods-intensive;
After a steep decline, imports are on the rise;
Freight volumes have been sluggish but are showing signs of life.
CSCMP EDGE runs through Wednesday, October 2, at Nashville’s Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Resort.
The relationship between shippers and third-party logistics services providers (3PLs) is at the core of successful supply chain management—so getting that relationship right is vital. A panel of industry experts from both sides of the aisle weighed in on what it takes to create strong 3PL/shipper partnerships on day two of the CSCMP EDGE conference, being held this week in Nashville.
Trust, empathy, and transparency ranked high on the list of key elements required for success in all aspects of the partnership, but there are some specifics for each step of the journey. The panel recommended a handful of actions that should take place early on, including:
Establish relationships.
For 3PLs, understand and get to the heart of the shipper’s data.
Also for 3PLs: Understand the shipper’s reason for outsourcing to a 3PL, along with the shipper’s ultimate goals.
Understand company cultures and be sure they align.
Nurture long-term relationships with good communication.
For shippers, be transparent so that the 3PL fully understands your business.
And there are also some “non-negotiables” when it comes to managing the relationship:
3PLs must demonstrate their commitment to engaging with the shipper’s personnel.
3PLs must also demonstrate their commitment to process discipline, continuous improvement, and innovation.
Shippers should ensure that they understand the 3PL’s demonstrated implementation capabilities—ask to visit established clients.
Trust—which takes longer to establish than both sides may expect.
EDGE 2024 is sponsored by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) and runs through Wednesday, October 2, at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville.