Reinventing The Supply Chain: The Future Of Fulfillment Vision Study

CONFRONTING LOGISTICS CHALLENGES IN AN OMNICHANNEL SHOPPING LANDSCAPE

A $2.3 trillion global e-commerce market reflects how profoundly shopper expectations have recalibrated worldwide. Today’s consumers have been rewired by digital disruption. That always-connected, tech-savvy shopper expects a seamless, faster purchasing journey, whether she’s buying online and picking up in store or wants her merchandise delivered in two hours to her door.

In turn, a digital transformation is rippling through the retail supply chain, dictated by the moment-to-moment wants and whims of consumers forever changed by the Internet’s endless — and instant — buying possibilities. The result is a retail ecosystem in flux and it is shaking the supply chain at its very core.

To succeed in the new normal, retailers, manufacturers and logistics companies are collaborating and swapping roles in uncharted ways to meet shoppers’ omnichannel product fulfillment and delivery expectations in a plot that is still unfolding. Companies are turning to digital technology and analytics to bring heightened automation, merchandise visibility and business intelligence to the supply chain to compete in the on-demand consumer economy. Although an estimated 73% of consumers are omnichannel shoppers today (and they spend more than single-channel consumers), only 39% of supply chain respondents believe they’re operating at an omnichannel level, the Zebra Technologies study revealed.