As mentioned last week, Starbucks hopes to begin desk delivery in select urban markets as early as next year. Desk delivery in a crowded city environment sounds equally like a new complex innovation and a logistical nightmare. But what if a vastly successful delivery system already existed? What could we learn from it? On the other side of…
On April 1, 2011, via blog, Starbucks announced a new service called Starbucks Mobile Pour. Read the post here. Baristas on scooters stationed every square mile in seven of the largest cities around the country would rapidly fulfill any mobile smartphone order. You could be walking down the street, and a barista on a scooter would…
UPS expects to deliver more than 585 million packages this December, up 11% over last year. During the 2013 Holiday Season, bad weather and last-minute orders prevented UPS and FedEx from meeting Christmas delivery deadlines, resulting in many unhappy customers. This year, both FedEx and UPS have increased capacity and tightened last-minute order deadlines in order to not…
The USPS announced plans to expand its early-morning package delivery service pilot for 2 years in San Francisco. Currently, the USPS delivers Amazon Fresh totes to consumers’ homes during a 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. delivery window. The approved pilot would allow these operations to continue, and open up the pilot to additional retailers and…
Google Express has shortened its name, but broadened its services. Formerly known as Google Shopping Express, Google’s same-day delivery service announced expansion to Boston, Chicago, and Washington D.C., in addition to its previous service areas of the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and NYC. The service is now available for subscription, offering unlimited deliveries of orders…
In a lighthearted video, Whole Foods and Instacart extol the benefits of their new partnership. Want hard to find products or want to send groceries to your favorite college student? The service has you covered with rapid delivery. As detailed in our previous post, Whole Foods now offers online ordering and delivery via Instacart in…
Whole Foods announces a new partnership with grocery delivery start-up Instacart, to deliver groceries from their stores directly to their customers’ homes. The service will be immediately available in the 15 U.S. cities where Instacart already operates, and the two companies are also testing an in-store pickup service in select stores in Boston and Austin….
What percentage of your total shopping is online? This past holiday season, almost 40% of seasonal shopping was through online channels. Late order cutoffs, and the ensuing last minute rush resulted in logistical nightmares for online retailers and logistics providers, who were overwhelmed with demand and paralyzed when bad weather struck. Expedient delivery is growing…
National Transportation Week provides an opportunity to thank the men and women of the transportation industry who make sure we have our products and food when we need them. The theme of this year’s week, “Transportation- Moving the World Into Tomorrow,” illustrates how advances in technology are making transportation more important than ever. Online shopping,…
When you see what has to be done to deliver products to the town of Guadelest, outside of Alicante, Spain, it puts your supply chain challenges in perspective. This ancient mountaintop village is only accessible by foot. All products consumed in homes, shops, and restaurants have to be pushed up the hill in carts provided…
