home delivery Archives

The State of Home Delivery: Plenty of Room for Improvement

Omni-channel logistics | By Chris Jones • 04/21/2022

Ecommerce has been on a roll for the last two years. This level of consumer activity has translated into record volumes of home deliveries. But, let’s face it: since the pandemic started, home delivery performance has not been great.

Earlier in 2022, we conducted a survey of 8,000 consumers across North America and Europe to get a better sense of their ecommerce experience and how they were reacting to retailer performance. The results of the research are a good news, bad news story. On one hand, consumers expect to increase their online purchases post-pandemic. On the other hand, consumers are regularly experiencing delivery failures and ready to punish poor performing retailers and delivery services companies. Retailers and delivery services companies that can break through today’s cycle of mediocre home delivery performance stand an excellent chance of improving customer loyalty and growing market share. Here are three charts that paint the whole picture.

Consumers are planning to buy more, but only a fraction cite improved home delivery performance.

In the study on home delivery consumer sentiment, consumers stated that, during the pandemic, the portion of all purchases made online that required home delivery went from 35% to 46%. They also mentioned that post-pandemic this would increase by 2%; however, the top reason for increasing online purchases was “convenience” (54%). Improved delivery processes was the fifth choice (34%). Given that the question allowed every respondent to select all the choices that applied, 66% of consumers indicated that they did not see any improvement (see Figure 1). Regular delivery driver reliably (20%) was even lower as it was only mentioned by 1 in 5 consumer respondents.

Figure 1: Top Reasons for Increased Online Purchase and Home Delivery

Source: Descartes & SAPIO Research

The frequency of home delivery failure is alarming.

As consumers, most of us have had delivery challenges, but we wanted to get a better appreciation for how often consumer experienced a delivery failure. Over the 2021 holiday period, almost three-fourths (73%) of respondents had a home delivery issue (see Figure 2). Delivery reliability was noted in the top two responses: arrived much later than expected (26%) and came at a different time than was expected (22%). In fact, a wide range of delivery performance-related issues were cited, with some of them starting during the buying process and going beyond the delivery. The breadth of the failures indicate that poor delivery performance can result from a lack of consideration given to its role in the entire purchase- to post-delivery- process that defines the customer experience.

Figure 2: Consumer Delivery Experience for the Last 3 Months of 2021

Source: Descartes & SAPIO Research

Consumers are looking elsewhere based upon delivery performance.

There is a saying in home delivery that “the last mile is the last word”. Consumers are fatigued and frustrated with today’s home delivery performance and a large number are making future buying decisions based upon it (see Figure 3). Almost one-quarter (23%) of respondents said that, based upon their recent delivery issues, they did not order from the retailer again. Consumers are making retailer choices based on the delivery experience/company. This appears to more of a European issue, but it’s also a clear warning for North American delivery services companies. The most potentially damaging response was told friends/family to avoid the retailer (17%). If we consider this from a social media perspective, the ability to negatively influence hundreds of potential buyers with one failed delivery is absolutely possible.

Figure 3: Consumer action associated with home delivery failures

Source: Descartes & SAPIO Research

With high delivery demand, chronic driver shortages, ongoing COVID-related disruptions and escalating costs, consistent, high quality home delivery service is a challenge; however, ignoring current market woes could result in grave consequences at the consumer level. The three charts from the research report on home delivery consumer sentiment underscore why delivery service is so important and point to the opportunity that exists for those retailers and delivery services companies that achieve home delivery performance excellence. In addition, home delivery performance is dictated by many factors that go beyond the actual delivery. Establishing an integrated purchase- to post-delivery process is critical to ensuring the customer experience enhances the brand, not detracts from it. What’s your home delivery excellence strategy? Let me know.

As Executive Vice President, Marketing and Services, Chris Jones (CJones@descartes.com) is primarily responsible for Descartes marketing activities and implementation of Descartes’ solutions. Chris has over 30 years of experience in the supply chain market, including the last 10 years as a part of the Descartes leadership team. Prior to Descartes, he has held a variety of senior management positions in other organizations including: Senior Vice President at The Aberdeen Group’s Value Chain Research division, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Development for SynQuest and Vice President and Research Director for Enterprise Resource Planning Solutions at The Gartner Group and Associate Director Operations & Technology for Kraft Foods.

Editor’s Choice: Big and Bulky Delivery Challenges in 2022

Omni-channel logistics | By Chris Cunnane • 01/20/2022

Note: Today’s post is part of our “Editor’s Choice” series where we highlight recent posts published by our sponsors that provide supply chain insights and advice. This article is from FarEye and examines the challenges around big and bulky deliveries in 2022.

As online retail continues its impressive growth, consumers and retailers alike are realizing the importance of delivery and its impact on purchase decisions. Retailers with faster, cheaper, more flexible and more sustainable shipping have a competitive advantage.

Getting this competitive advantage is a challenge for retailers of both small and large items. With larger items like furniture and appliances, however, things get a bit trickier. Special equipment like larger trucks, lift gates and dollies may be required. Two-man delivery crews may be needed and oftentimes may need to enter the home to deliver and install purchased items. Because of these additional resources required, providing fast, cheap, flexible and sustainable delivery of Big & Bulky items can be difficult but crucial, as over 35% of furniture sales worldwide are expected to be made online by 2025.

At the risk of losing delivery competitive advantages and a consumer or two, here are a few of the top challenges retailers of Big & Bulky items must overcome in 2022:

Long Delivery Windows

Delivery windows for larger, heavier items are typically longer than delivery windows for smaller items. Upon checkout, consumers may be faced with estimated delivery dates ranging from days to weeks in length. Many furniture and appliance retailers do not show consumers a delivery window before checking out, giving them only a deliver-by date. Making matters worse, if the delivery requires delivery personnel to enter a consumer’s home, long delivery windows can be tremendously inconvenient as consumers may need to spend an entire day at home waiting for the delivery to arrive. With top retailers such as Amazon offering 2-hour delivery on smaller items from the point of sale, consumer expectations for deliveries (regardless of size) have been reset. Recent supply chain bottlenecks have only compounded this issue, putting pressure on available inventory levels and creating further difficulties for retailers’ abilities to accurately estimate delivery windows and give consumers confidence in when their orders will arrive. Retailers can solve this dilemma and provide shorter, more accurate delivery windows through greater adoption of end-to-end visibility solutions that can allow them to be predictive and proactive in their supply chain operations, and communicate status updates with consumers. This is important for consumer satisfaction as 93% of consumers want to stay informed throughout the delivery process and 47% will not order again from a brand with poor delivery visibility. Automated, accurate and transparent communications between retailers and consumers isn’t just beneficial to consumers, it can reduce retailer headaches by alleviating pressures on customer service call centers from consumers wondering where their orders are, saving time and money – a win-win.

Delivery Visibility

Once a delivery window is set, estimating the exact time within that window that the order will arrive can be as equally challenging as setting the delivery window. Estimating delivery times for Big & Bulky items can be tricky. When consumers place an order, retailers may not have the large item in stock at a nearby store due to the high inventory costs of large items. Delivery orders may originate from retailer warehouses or even manufacturer factories, far away from the consumer.

To read the full article, click HERE.

Home Delivery: What Can We Learn from Europe?

Retail | By Chris Jones • 10/14/2021

Home delivery strategy, tactics and performance is one of the most hotly-debated areas of logistics. The pandemic has increased the importance of home delivery, but also decreased the quality of home delivery performance. As logistics professionals, we can dive into the data to understand how we are performing operationally and rationalize the results against all of the last-mile challenges every retailer has been facing, but what do consumers actually think? We decided to survey over 5,000 consumers across Europe to gauge their sentiments around home delivery. If you think that being better than most when it comes to delivery performance is an “OK” strategy, the survey results are clear: consumers don’t agree. These two charts paint a picture of how consumers are thinking and acting.

There are a lot more delivery failures than may have been anticipated, as 72% of the respondents had issues with 1 or more deliveries over three months this past summer. If we extrapolate that, over a year, there is a less than 1% chance that a consumer will have had an event free delivery year. It is easy to see why consumers are feeling fatigued when it comes to home delivery performance.

Figure 1: Consumer Delivery Experiences in the Last 3 Months

Consumers are pretty patient but, at some point in time, they just say “never again.” Of the 78% surveyed that had a delivery issue, 22% did not order from the same retailer again and 18% told their friends to do the same. Given how hard it is to gain a customer, these numbers can be catastrophic for retailers with middle-of-the-pack home delivery performance. If we view this from the perspective of how often delivery issues occur and consumer fatigue, a retailer’s next miss could easily be the last one from that hard won or even formerly loyal customer.

Figure 2: Consumer Reaction as a Result of a Delivery Issue

The research demonstrates why it is so important to treat home delivery with the same level of importance as getting the consumer to buy in the first place. Retailers need to take a proactive approach to managing the home delivery process. Visibility and measurement are important to understand what is happening, but they are not enough. Delivery promise dates need to be based upon an accurate understanding of delivery capacity or service levels with proven delivery performance track records. This applies to fleets as well as to common and parcel carriers.

There is, however, a silver lining to this story in that retailers can grow market share through superior home delivery performance. We’re seeing leading retailers gain better control of home delivery performance by simultaneously using a number of delivery methods to create more effective and reliable delivery capacity. This approach determines what combination of fleet, common carrier, parcel carriers and gig economy workers should serve what kinds of customers in selected geographies. In essence, these retailers are “cherry picking” delivery modes to better serve their customers. Key to this strategy is the ability to orchestrate deliveries across different modes, actively manage delivery execution and, when there are issues, immediately communicate with the customer.

After the holidays, we will be conducting home delivery consumer sentiment research in North America. It will be interesting to see consumer sentiment here; however, other than “Blamed Brexit,” I suspect that we will see similar results. What is your organization doing to deliver superior home delivery performance? Let me know.

This Week in Logistics News (August 1 – 7)

logistics news | By Chris Cunnane • 08/07/2020

According to the National Hole-in-One Registry, the odds of the average golfer making a hole-in-one are 12,000 to 1. I was actually a little surprised by the odds, as I would have assumed that they were much lower. Last Friday afternoon I received a text message from my mom letting me know that she had just sunk her first hole in one after 30-plus years of golfing. To say that I was excited for her would be an understatement. From the picture she sent, which you can see to the left, her tee shot landed about a yard from the pin, took a small hop, and rolled in. It sounded like a textbook hole-in-one to me. Congrats mom! And now on to this week’s logistics news.

Although a vaccine for COVID-19 is still in the early stages of development, with multiple manufacturers starting larger trials around the world, companies are preparing for the day they will need to deliver the medicine. UPS is building two freezer farms in Louisville, KY and the Netherlands near the company’s air hubs. The two locations should help to ensure global distribution of a vaccine once it is available. Each facility will house 600 deep freezers which can hold 48,000 vials of the vaccine at temperatures as low as -112 Fahrenheit. Between the two facilities, UPS will be able to store over 57 million doses of the vaccine. Most experts believe that in order to stop the spread of the virus, at least 70 percent of the population must be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. That equates to nearly 5.5 billion people worldwide.

In May of 2019, Deliveroo announced it had raised a $575 million funding round led by Amazon. Just two months later the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) put the deal on hold and launched a formal probe to explore anti-competition implications. Since then, two provisional findings indicated the deal should be approved, but it was still on hold. Finally, more than a year after the initial funding round, the CMA has officially announced that Amazon has been given approval to buy a minority 16 percent stake in Deliveroo. The provisional findings were based on concerns that Deliveroo would faulter without the influx of cash. Once the food delivery market recovered, however, the CMA switched their focus back to whether the deal would hamper competition in restaurant and online grocery delivery. As the deal moves forward, the CMA has warned Amazon that increasing its control of Deliveroo could trigger further investigation.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has led to a dramatic shift in shopping behavior with e-commerce sales booming while brick and mortar sales are declining. Now, retailers are busy trying to secure additional warehouse space in preparation for the holiday season. While many retailers will be scrambling to import the items they will need, they will also be scrambling to secure more warehouse space in locations closer to population centers. With warehouse demand soaring it will not be surprising to see more interest from on-demand warehouse companies such as Ware2Go, Flex, Flowspace, and Stord.

Truck platooning has gained steam in recent years as more tests have been run across the country. In platooning, trucks are connected using direct vehicle to vehicle communication. This allows the rear truck to react nearly simultaneously to the actions of the front truck. They do this in order to create drafting, which creates fuel savings. California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology (PATH), a research and development program of the University of California, Berkeley, was selected from among three research organizations that participated in Phase 1 of the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Truck Platooning Early Deployment Assessment. California PATH partners in the project include Volvo Group, I-10 Corridor Coalition, California Highway Patrol, Cambridge Systematics, and Westat. The proposed platooning location is in California and Arizona, according to FHWA.

More and more e-commerce companies are pushing for faster, more convenient delivery timeframes for customers. Bangalore, India-based e-commerce company Flipkart has announced the launch of a new hyper-local delivery service dubbed Flipkart Quick. The service will build on the infrastructure in place to make more than 2,000 products available for delivery in just 90 minutes. Consumers can choose to order in the next 90 minutes or book a 2-hour slot as per their convenience. Customers can place orders anytime of the day, and get their orders delivered between 6am to midnight. Consumers will, however, have to pay a minimum delivery fee of ₹29.

As the COVID-19 pandemic stretched beyond its first month, many products were becoming increasingly difficult to come by. Some of the most sought-after products included toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and disinfectant wipes. And while some of these products have become easier to find, disinfectant wipes remain elusive. Clorox, the world’s largest manufacturer of disinfectant cleaning products does not see the shortage ending soon. According to the company, with cold and flu season coming in the middle of the year, and the coronavirus pandemic expected to be here for the long haul, it will take a full year to get supply levels back to normal. This means that the disinfectant wipe shortage will run some time in to 2021, with no end really in sight.

Walmart has been aggressive in its quest to catch up to e-commerce rival Amazon. One of the big advantages for Amazon has been its Prime program. Walmart unveiled its answer to the program: Walmart+. The program will cost $98 a year and will include perks such as same-day delivery of groceries and general merchandise, discounts on fuel at Walmart gas stations, and early access to product deals. The service was initially planned to launch in the March / April timeframe, but was pushed off until July due to the coronavirus pandemic. And now, the program is getting pushed back again. As of now, there is no timeframe set for the program to launch, nor is it known if it will roll out nationally or regionally. Even without the program, the pandemic has given Walmart a surge in e-commerce order volumes.

Want to learn more about inventory optimization and omni-channel fulfillment? On Wednesday, August 19, Steve Banker and I will join Scott Fenwick, Sr. Director, Product Management for Inventory at Manhattan Associates to explore the impact of omni-channel fulfillment on supply chain planning. Register now.

That’s all for this week. Enjoy the weekend and the song of the week, One by the U2.

This Week in Logistics News (July 25 – 31)

logistics news | By Chris Cunnane • 07/31/2020

As my colleague Clint Reiser pointed out in last week’s news round-up, baseball is back. And while the season will look a lot different than in years past, it is back. At least until it isn’t. Unlike the NHL and NBA which chose to use bubble cities to contain the teams, baseball teams are still traveling for games. And while the league is somewhat limiting travel by only having teams play in their geographic division, this still means a lot of travel for players. And within the first week of the season, we had our first COVID-19 outbreak. The Miami Marlins have had 19 players test positive for the virus and their season is on hold. This has resulted in a number of other canceled games, with players wondering how this will all play out. Meanwhile, the other major sports league in the US, the NFL, has not chosen to operate in a bubble city either and training camps kicked off this week. This has resulted in players across the league opting out of the season due to coronavirus concerns. Obviously, we have no way of knowing how the bubble locations will work out for the NBA and NHL, but it will be interesting to see if it makes an impact on whether a season can finish. I’m not holding out much hope for baseball or football, or really sports in general this year. And now on to this week’s logistics news.

The US Postal Service has faced an uphill battle as it continues to lose money. Now, the USPS has reached an agreement in principle to receive a $10 billion loan from the US Department of the Treasury under the CARES act, which the agency projects will keep it solvent at least until May 2021. The USPS said its board of governors unanimously approved the loan agreement Tuesday, which will be finalized in the coming weeks. In an effort to retain regular shippers the agency has rolled out its first loyalty program. Under the program, business customers can earn $40 in credits for every $500 spent on Priority Mail and Priority Mail Express postage through its Click-N-Ship program. They can apply the credits to subsequent purchases of those products at checkout. Credits expire one year from the date of issuance.

Members of the local Yaqui indigenous community who are demonstrating for better land rights, have blocked railways used to move auto parts, as well as grains and steel, from Sonora to the United States. As a result, Ford’s Mexico unit has said that operations at its Hermosillo plant in the same state have been affected. Additionally, Ford said that the blockades is hitting imports and exports to and from the US. The blockade has hit both the Mexicali-California and the Nogales-Arizona border crossings, and so far has prevented the passage of 15 trains carrying about 150,000 tons of cargo, according to the Mexican railways association AMF. AMF President Jose Zozaya said the association has been in talks with the government and protesters, and that he is confident the situation will be resolved soon.

Post-Brexit trade plans for the UK and European Union have hit all sorts of snags. Now, there is another hurdle that will need to be navigated: pallets. Pallets have been the unsung hero of global trade for nearly a century, but new regulations are threatening a pallet shortage. Starting January 1, 2021, wooden pallets moving goods between the UK and EU will need to comply with ISPM-15, an international rule that requires them to be baked to 56 degrees Celsius for at least 30 minutes to prevent the spread of pests and diseases. The head of the UK’s Timber Packaging and Pallet Confederation has warned that Britain won’t have enough that comply with the rule, and that the coronavirus pandemic has impacted its efforts to plug the shortfall. This will be a serious obstacle to overcome considering that as many as 100 million pallets move between the UK and EU each year.

One result of the coronavirus pandemic has been a surge in consumer purchases of items such as baking mixes and soups. While this has been beneficial to manufacturers of these items, it has also caused a lot of stress on their supply chains. General Mills now plans to boost the number of outsourcing manufacturing partners and suppliers by as much as 20 percent from pre-pandemic levels. The company has 24 manufacturing plants in the US and generally uses third party manufacturers to produce about 30 percent of its products. General Mills’ factories are running at full capacity but are not equipped to handle the surge; the company said US meals and baking sales rose 75 percent, while cereal sales rose 26 percent. While bringing on new partners will help capacity restraints, it is not a simple process. The company has said that it takes about six to eight weeks to vet a new manufacturing partner.

The US possibly has the most COVID-19 testing capacity in the world but is falling short in getting results quickly. The main issue here is a supply chain bottleneck when it comes to testing facilities and labs getting their hands on the appropriate chemical kits and tools. There are a few companies that dominate the market and their machines run on chemical kits and disposable plastic parts that only they sell. The result is that with so many requests coming in for their equipment, they do not have the capacity to handle all the requests. US labs now run about 800,000 diagnostic tests daily, according to the COVID Tracking Project. But the United States needs 6-10 million tests per day, by various estimates.

More and more cities and countries around the world are looking at ways to reduce carbon emissions in congested city centers. Dublin is the latest to look at ways to combat air pollution and congestion. The city is piloting mini urban distribution centers and powered walkers and quad cycles to enable city center deliveries that don’t contribute to local emissions or congestion. The pilot is funded by Dublin City Council, Enterprise Ireland, and Belfast City Council. The system was developed as part of a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) challenge, which sought new approaches to optimizing deliveries. Through this, design and manufacturing consultancy Fernhay developed the containers, bikes, and walkers for global logistics carrier UPS to trial. The vehicles will enable workers to deliver goods such as groceries, medicine and parcels.

The coronavirus lockdown has seen a spike in online grocery shopping worldwide. In the UK, stores such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Ocado have seen incredible growth. As a result, Amazon is now offering free grocery deliveries to Prime members in London and the surrounding area to compete with traditional grocers. Amazon Fresh, the company’s grocery delivery service, will offer same-day delivery in most areas on orders over £40 ($51.51) placed before 9 p.m. The minimum order value has also been lowered to £15 ($19.32). Prime members in Greater London and parts of the southeast of England can get free delivery in two-hour windows on all orders over £40 ($51.51), or pay £3.99 ($5) for delivery in a one-hour slot.

Online grocer FreshDirect is making a move from its traditional next-day delivery model to launch same-day delivery. The company is partnering with technology firm Fabric to open a micro-fulfillment center at one of the grocer’s Washington, D.C.-area distribution facilities later this year. FreshDirect relaunched same-day delivery in New York City last month, rebranding it as FreshDirect Express. The Washington, D.C. on-demand service will be the first time the grocer will be using a micro-fulfillment center.

That’s all for this week. Enjoy the weekend and the song of the week, Paul Simon’s The Boy in the Bubble.

This Week in Logistics News (June 13 – 19)

logistics news | By Chris Cunnane • 06/19/2020

If this was a normal year, I would be writing that today is the last day of school for my kids (and my song of the week would clearly be School’s Out by Alice Cooper). However, this is not a normal year. In fact, I would refer to these days as strange days. Massachusetts schools shuttered for two weeks in mid-March, which was then extended for another month, before finally being closed for the remainder of the year. So, in reality, my kids have been out of school for 15 weeks. And for the most part, they have loved it. We have done our best to continue with the remote curriculum, but unlike in school, when they have finished their work, they have been able to grab their bikes and head out for hours of biking and playing. The transition to summer this year will likely be a little bit anticlimactic, but I’m sure they will relish the lack of assignments and Zoom meetings. And now on to this week’s logistics news.

Amazon is now advertising itself as a shipping carrier in the UK. On its UK website, the company is letting shippers know that Amazon Shipping will “pick up your parcels 7 days a week and deliver them to your customers.” This appears to be the same service that Amazon was testing in the US earlier this year but suspended due a surge in its own customers orders. The service does not only apply to Amazon orders, stating that sellers can ship orders from their own website or other channels to their customers. In making an entry into the market, it appears that Amazon is doing its best to gain some market share, especially with the promise of not charging extra fees for residential delivery, peak times, or weekend delivery. This could certainly make other carriers rethink some of their strategies.

COVID-19 has certainly changed the way we do everything, and new regulations and guidelines will continue to impact businesses around the world. One of the most important aspects, and sometimes most difficult, is to adhere to proper social distancing guidelines. This is especially difficult in the warehouse environment. Well, Amazon has rolled out new technology to help its warehouse workers remain socially distanced while performing their jobs. The new software, called Distance Assistant, displays camera footage on a television monitor, and notes which employees are following social distancing guidelines. Those keeping a safe distance are marked in green, while those who are not are marked in red. This gives workers immediate visual feedback and they can take steps (literally) to move to a safe distance from other workers. The company intends to make its new software freely available to other businesses

Kinaxis, a supply chain management software company focused on sales and operations planning, capacity planning, demand planning, inventory planning, and supply planning, has agreed to acquire Rubikloud, a provider of AI solutions that automate supply chain prescriptive analytics and decision-making in the retail and CPG industries. For Kinaxis, this acquisition enhances its AI-based demand forecasting, promotion, pricing, and assortment optimization while extending its capabilities for the CPG industry. The deal, which should close in the next 60 days, is for $60 million in cash.

During the coronavirus pandemic gyms have closed, fears have risen regarding public transportation, and kids have been home from school looking for something to do. As a result, there is now a global shortage of bicycles. In fact, during the last two months, bicycle sales in the US have surged to levels unseen since the oil crisis in the late 1970s. Big box retailers and small independent bike shops alike have seen their stocks dwindle, especially in regard to kids bikes and more affordable models. Cities around the world are making changes to infrastructure such as installing bike lanes to accommodate the surge in ridership. Now, with store shelves empty, bike orders are taking weeks or sometimes even months to be fulfilled. Bicycle repair shops are also seeing backlogs of two to three weeks for routine maintenance. This certainly makes me happy we got our kids bikes as early birthday presents in early March.

CVS has been in the news quite a bit lately for its pilots of autonomous vehicles and drones to make home deliveries. Now the company is partnering with DoorDash for same-day delivery of food, grocery, nonfood, and non-prescription products. CVS announced earlier this week that more than 3,000 items will be available for purchase via DoorDash’s website or mobile app. CVS already offers same-day delivery of nonprescription items via Instacart and Shipt. In support of the partnership, DoorDash is offering 20% off (up to $5) CVS items through the app on a customer’s first order of $15 or more.

Staples is also jumping on the crowd-sourced same-day home delivery bandwagon. The company announced that it is partnering with Instacart to roll out same-day delivery from over 1,000 US stores. According to an announcement from Staples, the partnership lets customers choose between an array of products such as back-to-school products and home office items as well as personal protective equipment (PPE) and cleaning supplies. Staples customers can shop through the Instacart website or mobile app and will be able to enter their Staples Rewards number to ensure loyalty points are accrued.

Mercari, the Japan-based peer-to-peer selling platform, is partnering with Postmates to pilot a pick-up and delivery program. Mercari’s biggest market is Japan but the company is looking to expand its US presence. Postmates has had a two-hour courier service in development for the last several months, which allows sellers to accept local orders without dropping off packages at a post office. The Postmates-fulfilled orders must weigh less than 50 pounds, and after an introductory rate of $4.99, the program will cost $10.99 per delivery. Mercari is the first re-seller to use the program.

In the final piece of same-day delivery news, Seattle is debating premium pay for grocery delivery workers. There have been many hazard pay programs developed during the COVID-19 outbreak, and as food retail and grocery delivery drivers have become front line workers, the city is seeking additional payments for them. A bill before Seattle’s City Council would require those delivery services to pay $5 per delivery or trip, a program that could last as long as March 3, 2023. According to the bill, “gig workers working for food delivery network companies and transportation network companies bear the brunt of the time and expenses necessary for cleaning and disinfecting equipment and engaging in other efforts to protect themselves, customers, and the public from illness.” Companies such as Instacart, Uber, and Lyft, not surprisingly, have expressed opposition.

In recent months there has been a lot of concern over the unstable meat supply in the US. As demand was rising, many meat processing plants were closing due to coronavirus outbreaks. This resulted in soaring prices for meat. However, according to the US Department of Agriculture, the increase in beef prices peaked, for now at least, in mid-to-late May. As businesses have re-opened, prices have dropped to near pre-quarantine levels. For example, choice cutout prices, representing the composite price of all choice beef cuts produced by a finished animal, soared to over $450, more than double the price of about $210 in the first two months of the year. It has since dropped to about $240, as of June 12. While the market remains uncertain, and further outbreaks are a distinct possibility, the leveling off of prices has helped to bring back a sense of normalcy.

US auto safety regulators will unveil a voluntary effort to collect and make available nationwide data on existing autonomous vehicle testing next week. Each state has its own set of guidelines and regulations regarding autonomous vehicles and data disclosure. As a result, there is not a centrally located repository of all autonomous vehicle testing. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is unveiling the Automated Vehicle Transparency and Engagement for Safe Testing, or AV TEST, Initiative, to provide “an online, public-facing platform for sharing automated driving system on-road testing activities.” This will allow one central resource for all types of autonomous vehicles and tests, including personal use, last mile deliveries, and long-haul trucking.

Want to learn more about driving success with your transportation management strategy? Join Blue Yonder, ARC Advisory Group, and E&Y as they discuss the future of transportation in an informative dialogue and what organizations can do to prepare for the next normal. Register HERE.

That’s all for this week. Enjoy the weekend and the song of the week, Strange Days by the Doors.

A complete analysis of logistics trends, technologies, and services

Consumers are planning to buy more, but only a fraction cite improved home delivery performance.

Figure 1: Top Reasons for Increased Online Purchase and Home Delivery

The frequency of home delivery failure is alarming.

Figure 2: Consumer Delivery Experience for the Last 3 Months of 2021

Consumers are looking elsewhere based upon delivery performance.

Figure 3: Consumer action associated with home delivery failures

Long Delivery Windows

Delivery Visibility

Figure 1: Consumer Delivery Experiences in the Last 3 Months

Figure 2: Consumer Reaction as a Result of a Delivery Issue

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