Despite the improvements in US economic conditions experienced in 2014, this year has been beset with a series of unforeseen events that have highlighted the complexity of supply chain planning and forecasting. ... View More
According to eMarketer, ecommerce is continuing to grow at a rapid pace with more than a billion digital buyers spending about $1.5 trillion dollars online. This represents a huge growth opportunity... View More
The Legal Significance of a Bill of Lading The term bill of lading means “a list of the cargo.” While often thought of as a shipping document, it is also very much a legal document. One of... View More
This past Parcel Forum was an excellent opportunity to connect with peers experiencing the same challenges and to learn the latest trends, information and concepts. With the floor buzzing about “DIM... View More
The ecommerce B2C business is expected to reach $1.77 trillion in 2015…WOW! This market is growing at 20%+ per year and putting many challenges on the infrastructure that supports the selling... View More
How many of you just read that title and thought, “What do you mean ‘versus’? The fee isn’t the same?” Not only is it not the same, but also the Ground Residential fee carries... View More
Last summer, PARCEL published an article I penned called Space. Expansion of what could easily become the world’s biggest industry with brand new boundaries, apparently plenty of capital, vision... View More
Parcel volumes are on the rise as noted in recent earnings reports from the two largest U.S. based parcel carriers, FedEx and UPS. Ecommerce is driving much of this growth and both parcel carriers, along... View More
The 2013 holiday shipping nightmares stemmed from the perfect storm of record-breaking weather, combined with retailer over-promises and carriers taking on more last-minute parcels than they could handle.... View More
If you’re not convinced there are dangers posed by the lack of competition in the US small parcel market, please read the transcript from FedEx’s earnings call on March 19, 2014. Near the end... View More
As this issue of PARCEL goes out to the readers, PARCEL Forum 2014 is just a few days away. I will be making a presentation at the Forum entitled, “The Five Most Important Things to Know about the... View More
The world is ever-changing, and many times, people are unaware of the change until they are smacked on the side of their head with it. For instance, look at the newspaper industry; many newspapers didn’t... View More
For many US companies, manufacturing products in Asia is the most cost-effective method. Goods manufactured in China, Indonesia, Vietnam and elsewhere are imported in ocean containers. These goods are... View More
The recent announcement from FedEx and then UPS about charging dimensional weight for ground shipments is becoming a game changer in the parcel industry. It is interesting that both these announcements... View More
In early May, FedEx announced it was moving to dimensional weight pricing for all ground shipments in 2015. Signaling a possible shift in how carriers price shipments, the move left many shippers wondering... View More
Google X is Google’s R&D department that is heavily veiled and concentrating on “moonshots,” which it depicts as something that is totally innovative; potentially an enormous new revenue... View More
Accurately forecasting and maintaining adequate inventory levels is an extremely challenging priority for businesses. Any hint of a disruption within the supply chain can have a negative impact, affecting... View More
During the last decade, telecommunication companies had to invest billions of dollars in their network capacity to handle the onslaught of “free” broadband data over networks that were tuned... View More
In the last installment of PARCEL Counsel we focused on three categories of “damages.” As explained there, the term “damages” is applied to losses sustained by one party as the... View More
In today’s world, every distribution center is being asked to do more. Get more throughput, more accuracy, more productivity, more volumes, and more space just to name a few. How? Many times this... View More
