The proliferation in recent years of startups with robotics solutions for ecommerce fulfillment operations has proven timely in the midst of pandemic-driven ecommerce growth. Labor issues and throughput demands have caused more retailers to take the plunge and implement automated systems. The state of the art has also been rapidly advanced to meet modern fulfillment requirements. Hear from our panel of executives at leading robotics firms about the various technologies and their application, the response to the COVID effect and where capabilities and functions are headed.

You will learn:

• About the latest advances in robotic technology and solutions
• About the different approaches and modalities and how they’re used
• About case studies from operations/fulfillment implementations

As the relentless Amazon effect continues to send ripples throughout retail, manufacturers and brands going direct to consumer through ecommerce have to continually evolve and fine-tune their operations and fulfillment strategies in order to remain competitive. What market forces and trends are having the greatest impact? And what will the future look like? This panel of DTC operations executives, led by a supply chain and logistics expert, will discuss the current landscape and take a look at what comes next. The session will also provide practical tactics and tips to help you succeed as the market continues to evolve, and customer expectations and service levels ramp up higher.

You will learn:

• About macro trends impacting ecommerce fulfillment
• How these trends and market forces are shaping the future
• Tactics and strategies to help you up your operations game
• How to compete and win in a challenging DTC environment

Optimizing for speed is the ultimate way to manage a customer-focused supply chain. The old mantra of “stack it high and let it fly” doesn’t apply to a cost- and customer-centric approach. Lots of focus is given to the outbound side of delivery, which is critical, but inbound to warehouses, fulfillment centers and stores must also be redesigned around speed. Matthew Graham, vice president of supply chain for Chewy.com, will talk about how a faster supply chain provides better service at a lower cost while being more responsive to changes in customer demand and resilient against shocks. He’ll discuss how this approach requires re-engineering not just systems but also every link between each process, and critical integrations upstream with suppliers. This enables companies to transform their supply chains from relationship based to data driven, with data science at the center of each decision.

Parcel delivery is critical to ecommerce businesses, yet an existential conflict challenges many online sellers: Consumers continue to demand free delivery, yet parcel carriers keep raising rates out of control. It’s getting harder and harder to subsidize free shipping, especially now that your customers expect 1-2-day delivery. What can you do?

For starters, you need more competitive pricing from the delivery companies like FedEx, UPS and the USPS. Parcel contracts are highly negotiable, but pricing is complex and conditional, and most businesses lack benchmarking and sophisticated strategies to get the best deal. Attend this interactive presentation for a crash course on the tips, tricks and tactics of professional parcel negotiators to reduce your overall shipping costs by as much as 30%.

You will learn:

• How to gain leverage to negotiate the best upfront discounts and contract terms, while avoiding common negotiation mistakes
• How to mitigate the impact of annual rate increases and hidden surcharges
• How to leverage benchmarks to gain the upper hand at the negotiating table
• How to analyze parcel data for ongoing cost improvement and proactive carrier management

We all know the major carriers don’t willingly provide shippers with specific, customized information or offer very many data-friendly models. However, data is important for controlling and managing your shipping expenses. This session will review the top five areas of data analysis you can perform that have gotten results for many merchants, saving them millions of dollars. They include carrier general rate increase (GRI); minimum shipment charges; dimensional weight (DIM) charges; comparison of carrier proposals; and strategic sourcing and least cost routing.

You will learn:

• How to take control of your transportation spend management
• How to turn your data into dollars
• How to use data to make shipping a competitive advantage
• How to fully quantify your overall shipping costs

Forget the usual battle among retail and ecommerce heavyweights for delivery speed and service. We are operating in an altered reality that has brands promising an expanding array of service-level options, that go beyond two-day air to a variety of omnichannel same-day, BOPAC (Buy Online Pickup At Curb) and other modes. Unfortunately, it’s not enough simply to offer options. Learn how UrbanStems supply chain and customer teams work together to make and keep important delivery promises while providing consistent, timely communication and rapid issue mitigation in support of the customer experience. This session, which combines UrbanStems’ best practices and research from more than 200 supply chain leaders, will provide examples, tips and insights on how to drive consistent customer delight on the back end.

You will learn:

• What you need to know about the interplay between CX and delivery/fulfillment
• How real-time and predictive data helps identify bottlenecks and keep your delivery promises
• COVID-era best practices for proactive, empathetic after-the-order experience
• About how real-time data helps you keep your delivery promises

Consumer demand is driving an urgent need for innovation around the last mile, bringing with it a transformation in the way businesses interact with their customers in terms of both business models and technology. Retailers are struggling to meet market demand for fast, flexible and transparent deliveries that are offered at a reasonable price point. This presentation will dive into the disruptive technologies and business models around last-mile delivery that are helping companies succeed in this highly competitive market.

You will learn:

• About market forces and factors reshaping last-mile delivery
• About choosing the delivery model that is right for your organization
• About optimizing delivery flows to deliver ideal customer experiences
• About selecting the technology you need to ensure positive ROI

Keeping your fulfillment operations properly staffed up, during peak times especially but also throughout the year, is a perennial challenge made even harder by a low unemployment rate and increased competition from the ecommerce boom. What do you have in your recruiting/hiring/retention toolkit to ensure an adequate workforce to meet your needs on an ongoing basis? This session will tap the experience of three professionals with time in the trenches who will provide you with practical tips on what works and what doesn’t. It will equip you with tools to step up your game in attracting and retaining today’s workers.

You will learn:

• About employee incentive programs that work – and those that don’t
• About the demand for flexible scheduling, and how to address it
• Ways to counter the negative media narrative and instill a sense of purpose
• About training, onboarding and “ambassador” programs

Direct to consumer commerce is exploding as more brands and manufacturers realize the value and potential of getting their products and messages, well, directly in front of buyers. But a DTC approach brings with it its own set of challenges on the operational side of things. An in-house, DIY approach might work at launch, but can it scale? What if you sign a five-year lease on warehouse space, only to find you outgrow it in two or three? Can you find and keep an adequate workforce to handle distribution and fulfillment? What about shipping and logistics? This panel of DTC brands will talk about their experiences, growing pains and what has helped them power through to success on the back end.

You will learn:

• About operational challenges unique to a DTC approach
• About the different strategies taken by each brand
• About matching growth projections to capabilities and resources
• About when to go DIY, when to partner, and the decision process

Whether you’re someone who’s just starting out in direct-to-customer operations or you’ve been at it a while, this half-day workshop will go over the basics while also providing a review for experienced total operations management. Strategies and tactics in DTC and omnichannel operations will be covered in depth, giving you practical tools to help you deliver superior call center and fulfillment services as a competitive advantage. This workshop will place an emphasis on real-world examples as well as interaction and engagement with attendees.

The bottom line: You’ll come away with actionable ideas to maximize performance and operational efficiency throughout your front-end and back-end operations. This workshop is a must for anyone responsible for executing DTC or omnichannel fulfillment, from supervisors to executives.

You will learn:

• How to set up and execute your operations organizational plan
• What delivery service level/speed is right for you and your customers
• How to take advantage of transportation opportunities
• How to meet required metrics for marketplace selling
• How to make the returns process as clear and simple as possible
• How to set customer care expectations and measure the results
• How to establish levels of authority to handle customers more efficiently
• About different upselling approaches and finding ones that work
• Best practices in receiving, vendor management, QC, etc.
• How to turn your call center into a profit center
• About pay for performance to reward top performers AND reduce costs

With options up to and including “previous day delivery” and order visibility now major competitive weapons for ecommerce shippers, the last mile has truly become a battleground. Unfortunately, it’s often the most expensive and inefficient leg of the package journey, compounded by ever-increasing volumes and rising expectations. So, what does the future hold for the last mile – and final foot? Will we see consolidation among the growing throng of providers and solutions? Will robots and autonomous vehicles start rolling down your street and to your door, and how soon? This session will take a look at all the moving pieces, examine trends and look through the cloudy crystal ball at what’s next.

You will learn:

• About the growth of last-mile services and capabilities
• About the reshaping effect of “as a service” and the gig economy
• About the potential for consolidation and what it means
• About new technologies, models and innovations

The COVID-19 pandemic is almost like a new BC/AD line, demarcating what life was like before and after the WHO’s March 11 pronouncement. For Balsam Brands, a top seller of seasonal decorations, it meant a quick, opportunistic detour into grocery and other essential items, then out again. For Soapbox, a suddenly hot seller of bath and body care lines, it meant standing up massive production of hand sanitizer for its retail channel in a matter of weeks. Both of these endeavors required major supply chain and operational efforts behind the scenes to meet the immediate needs. And both companies have come out the other side with lessons learned and insights to share, including looking ahead to Q4 in a severely capacity constrained world. Hear from their COOs about their respective reset paths and overcoming obstacles to success.

As major carriers limit volumes in some cases and impose peak-like charges in the midst of the pandemic-driven ecommerce crush, shippers are exploring their options, and that includes regional carriers. Among them, the top regionals blanket the lower 48 states, including critical same-day service. They can help reduce costs and provide leverage in contract negotiations. This panel discussion will feature representatives from three regional parcel carriers, breaking down how they’re positioned to address the needs of ecommerce shippers and how companies are leveraging them to rationalize their shipping spend.

You will learn:

• About service levels and coverage offered by regional carriers
• About value-adds like enhanced visibility, tracking and communication
• About examples and use cases of ecommerce shippers
• About creating a carrier mix that makes sense for your company

As fast as robotic technology is advancing for use in fulfillment tasks, there are still many limitations. It’s hard to match the extraordinary range of human perception, cognition and tactile capabilities working in tandem that we take for granted. That’s where the “brains over brawn” equation comes in. Like in many other domains, machine learning and artificial intelligence are helping robots get smarter quickly, enabling them to handle more complex tasks while working in orchestrated sync with other systems. This session will look at what’s possible today while also considering future scenarios such as giving business users the ability to design AI-driven robotic process flows.

You will learn:

• About the current state of the art in robotic intelligence
• How robotic systems “think” and learn via AI, machine learning and predictive analytics
• How advances in tooling increase perception and cognition capabilities
• About sharing data for system input in a mutually beneficial way

Metrics and analytics are hot topics, but very few retail and ecommerce companies are effectively applying data in their own operational and strategic planning programs. This session is designed to help guide you on why you need to measure, what you need to measure and how to help your company achieve its continuous improvement goals. Armed with this information, you’ll be ready to calibrate your own metrics and set up a successful benchmarking program for success.

You will learn:

• How to identify KPIs that will help your facilities support overall company strategy
• About performance measures that are the most critical to manage
• About a simple five-step process you can take home for improving performance

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to affect how consumers shop, it’s more important than ever to be everywhere they are. This session will outline how retailers can create an omnichannel business with unified inventory. It will also explore ways to ensure your fulfillment operations are prepared to meet these new challenges, including how to set up allocated inventory that accommodates new purchase methods (BOPIS, delivery, curbside) and how to create consistent order flow across all channels.

You will learn:

• How and why unified inventory creates a better buyer experience in the COVID-19 era
• How an omnichannel approach puts you in front of customers, wherever they are
• The benefits of an inventory management system and how it helps you create a unified operation
• The power of automation to reduce manual inventory errors, like out of stocks or mis-ships

While retailers have realized for a while that earning the business and loyalty of millennial and Gen Z consumers is critical to future growth and profitability, COVID-19 has made it mission critical. The opportunity is clear, but how to do so is less obvious. Whether deserved or not, younger shoppers have a reputation for being hard to impress and even harder to keep loyal. You need to infuse the customer service process with new technologies providing hyper-personalization and modern communication to these digital natives. Richer relevance for millennials and Gen Z results, positioning you in the forefront of what the post-pandemic customer experience will look like.

You will learn:

• How millennials and Gen Z will help to shape CX post-pandemic
• About their growing purchasing power and key differences from previous generations
• How intelligent automation and conversational AI deliver the experience they’re craving
• About steps to providing them with efficient, effective customer service

Whether you’re someone who’s just starting out in direct-to-customer operations or you’ve been at it a while, this half-day workshop will go over the basics while also providing a review for experienced total operations management. Strategies and tactics in DTC and omnichannel operations will be covered in depth, giving you practical tools to help you deliver superior call center and fulfillment services as a competitive advantage. This workshop will place an emphasis on real-world examples as well as interaction and engagement with attendees.

The bottom line: You’ll come away with actionable ideas to maximize performance and operational efficiency throughout your front-end and back-end operations. This workshop is a must for anyone responsible for executing DTC or omnichannel fulfillment, from supervisors to executives.

You will learn:

• How to set up and execute your operations organizational plan
• What delivery service level/speed is right for you and your customers
• How to take advantage of transportation opportunities
• How to meet required metrics for marketplace selling
• How to make the returns process as clear and simple as possible
• How to set customer care expectations and measure the results
• How to establish levels of authority to handle customers more efficiently
• About different upselling approaches and finding ones that work
• Best practices in receiving, vendor management, QC, etc.
• How to turn your call center into a profit center
• About pay for performance to reward top performers AND reduce costs