18 eCommerce Order Fulfillment Statistics That'll Change The Way You Think About Retail

eCommerce Order Fulfillment

For retailers and distribution centers of all sizes and maturity levels, making the shift to eCommerce has been—and continues to be—one of the most challenging hurdles to jump. And the reason is clear: Pursuing an eCommerce strategy will require many businesses to convert their supply chain from single-channel to omnichannel, which can further complicate an already complex set of processes.

Subscription Services Will Make Up 75% of DTC Brands by 2023

Subscription Box Fulfillment Services

By 2023, 75% of organizations selling DTC will offer subscription services, with global subscription commerce accounting for 18% of the market, according to a report by the Subscription Trade Association (SUBTA). The subscription commerce economy has a 17.33% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in a 5-year period. As a comparison, Amazon’s CAGR in a 5-year period is 20.8%, while Apple’s is 9.2% and Microsoft’s is 7.7%.

November 2019 Warehouse Safety Quiz #1

Workplace safety starts with employees being responsible, proactive and having keen awareness of the potential risks/dangers in the work environment. Employees' knowledge of hazards and risks minimizes their risk of harm and ill-health and increases their productivity. Use our November safety quiz to give your employees a to further reinforce the safety requirements. Use this quick quiz in conjunction with along with our safety calendar to test your employees' knowledge of the potential risks/dangers.

November 2019 Transportation Safety Calendar

Let's face it, drivers are the most important asset when it comes to logistics, and the well-being of your company's drivers will determine your profitability. The purpose of this calendar is to assist fleet managers in educating drivers about how to maintain safe behaviors both on and off the road. The other purpose of the transportation safety calendar is to avoid involvement in motor vehicle crashes while performing work or non-work related activities.

November 2019 Maintenance Safety Calendar

Regular maintenance is required to keep all equipment, machines and the work environment safe and reliable at all times in the warehouse. Dangerous situations, accidents and health problems can occur as a result of not conducting proper maintenance checks.

November 2019 Warehouse Safety Calendar

Warehouses are statistically one of the most dangerous places to work, and the added tasks of operating heavy machinery and transporting large objects do not make it safer. In 2017, there were approximately 209,000 non-fatal occupational injuries in the transportation and warehousing industry in the private sector according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor. The even bigger number is the days away from work that still costs company's money when the employee isn't present. In 2017 alone, there were over 20,000 days away from work related to injuries by warehouse workers.

August 2019 Transportation Safety Calendar

Transportation Safety covers all types of vehicles, and includes both occupational and non-occupational hazards associated with them. 

2019 August Warehouse Safety Calendar

Warehouses are statistically one of the most dangerous places to work, and the added tasks of operating heavy machinery and transporting large objects do not make it safer. In 2017, there were approximately 209,000 non-fatal occupational injuries in the transportation and warehousing industry in the private sector according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor. The even bigger number is the days away from work that still costs company's money when the employee isn't present. In 2017 alone, there were over 20,000 days away from work related to injuries by warehouse workers.

August 2019 Maintenance Safety Calendar

Regular maintenance is required to keep all equipment, machines and the work environment safe and reliable at all times in the warehouse. Dangerous situations, accidents and health problems can occur as a result of not conducting proper maintenance checks.

Third-Party Sellers Are Outselling Amazon on Amazon

Coincidence or not – just at a time when Amazon started facing increasing antitrust scrutiny over its dominant position in the e-commerce and retail landscape, the company, notoriously shy on disclosing details about its business, decided to share some interesting data with the public. In a bid to paint his company as a partner of small and medium-sized businesses rather than an all-consuming behemoth, Amazon’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos disclosed that third-party sellers accounted for 58 percent of total physical gross merchandise sales on Amazon last year, up from just 3 percent in 1999. 

“Third-party sellers are kicking our first party butt. Badly.”, Bezos self-deprecatingly wrote in his annual letter to shareholders, only to add the not-so-subtle humblebrag that third-party sales on Amazon, while beating the company’s first party sales, have also grown much faster than eBay’s gross merchandise volume between 1999 and 2018. According to Bezos, third-party sales on Amazon grew from $0.1 billion in 1999 to $160 billion in 2018, while the company itself sold $117 billion worth of physical merchandise last year. As a reaction to the disclosure, market research company eMarketer revised its U.S. market share estimate for Amazon downward from 47 to 38 percent in 2019, a message that Amazon’s leadership team will gladly approve of in light of a possible antitrust probe from the Federal Trade Commission. 

Ironically, Amazon’s role as a platform for independent third-party sellers is what got the company into trouble in Europe. Last week, the European Commission launched an investigation into whether “Amazon's use of sensitive data from independent retailers who sell on its marketplace is in breach of EU competition rules”. In recent years, the EU watchdog has proven not to shy away from going head to head with America’s tech giants, imposing billion-dollar fines on Google and Microsoft. If found guilty of anticompetitive behavior, Amazon could also face a multi-billion-dollar punishment.

See the whole Statista report here