Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

E-commerce 3PLs brace for twin peaks of winter shopping season

Biggest shopping days of the year are Singles' Day on November 11 for China and Black Friday on November 24 for the western hemisphere, DB Schenker says.

DB Schenker Screen Shot 2023-11-06 at 11.23.15 AM.jpg

Logistics service providers are bracing for two of the year’s largest e-commerce peaks in coming weeks, as Singles' Day on November 11 marks China’s biggest shopping day and Black Friday on November 24 is the western hemisphere’s peak.

Those dates will keep logistics companies busy fulfilling the surge of e-commerce and online orders, according to Andre Lehnen, global business development manager e-commerce at DB Schenker, the German third party logistics provider (3PL). 


DB Schenker runs over 30 e-commerce warehouses worldwide, handling logistics for manufacturers that produce goods ranging from clothing and sports goods to technical household appliances, computers, tablets, and cell phones. During Black Friday and Singles' Day, the increase in sales varies significantly from customer to customer, but can be 40 to 50% higher than in other months. 

"For us and our customers, it is very important to be prepared in advance. We will be planning for these events probably three or four months ahead of time. We make sure that we have enough stock and inventory, as well as enough people to fulfill all the orders that come in. It is not unusual for us to work day and night during these events,” Lehnen said in a release. 

One way that DB Schenker plans to handle the increased load is through technology. "As we become a product-led organization, we are constantly innovating our products. This means that we have highly automated e-commerce warehouses with robots, for example, but also digital and data-driven supply chain solutions to respond to both our customers' demands and market trends,” Lehnen said.

For example, the company says it has implemented AutoStore, an automated goods-to-person system, to improve logistics for MQ Marqet, a premium fashion retailer in Sweden. The automated online order fulfillment and returns handling solution operates at a facility in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Another strategy the company uses is to control climbing costs through sustainable returns. “With circular economy products, we encourage our customers to refurbish and resell instead of disposing of them. Given the rising costs and production bottlenecks we are currently experiencing, it is even more important to find ways to reuse products. We see customers becoming more willing to buy second-hand products these days,” said Lehnen.
 

 

 

 

Recent

More Stories

team collaborating on data with laptops

Gartner: data governance strategy is key to making AI pay off

Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.

"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”

Keep ReadingShow less

Featured

manufacturing job growth in US factories

Savills “cautiously optimistic” on future of U.S. manufacturing boom

The U.S. manufacturing sector has become an engine of new job creation over the past four years, thanks to a combination of federal incentives and mega-trends like nearshoring and the clean energy boom, according to the industrial real estate firm Savills.

While those manufacturing announcements have softened slightly from their 2022 high point, they remain historically elevated. And the sector’s growth outlook remains strong, regardless of the results of the November U.S. presidential election, the company said in its September “Savills Manufacturing Report.”

Keep ReadingShow less
container ships at dock port of savannah

54 container ships now wait in waters off East and Gulf coast ports

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.

Keep ReadingShow less
EDGE 2024 diversity educational session

Diversifying your supply chain beyond China to minimize risk

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.

Keep ReadingShow less
warehouse problem medical triage strategy

Medical triage inspires warehouse process fixes

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.”

Keep ReadingShow less