In an effort to help close a $3 billion budget deficit, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has asked the state legislature to extend the state’s 6% sales and use tax to commercial storage services, drawing strong criticism from business groups, especially warehouse owners.  

Watch out Walmart, Target, Blue Apron, Grub Hub and any grocery chain entering the food delivery business.  The great white shark of delivery services will soon be in the water.  Amazon.com's $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods instantly makes it a major player in the U.S. grocery industry and that leaves a lot for shoppers, retailers and other companies involved in the industry to take notice. This deal marks the beginning of an era where the e-commerce giant pushes to enter the brick-and-mortar world, marking its next grocery-related milestone after it announced plans to launch Amazon Go, a checkout-free grocery store. 

A blockchain facilitates secure online transactions and is a decentralized and distributed digital ledger that records transactions across many computers in such a way that the registered transactions cannot be altered retroactively. So how can this technology benefit your supply chain? 

 It Is no secret, nor a surprise that shopping malls are struggling to keep tenants. Online shopping and ease of delivery are clearly the contributing factors altering our shopping habits. So, what might the next generation shopping mall look like? One thing is certain- it will have to be a dramatic transformation of today's version.  One architecture firm has bold plans to salvage brick-and-mortar shopping centers by turning them into warehouses with drone ports.

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Amazon has been reshaping Logistics for many years.  They are now poised to leverage today's technology to redefine the supply chain process.  Logistics providers everywhere would be well advised to pay attention.

The E-commerce market has provided a boom to the transportation industry. By some estimates, the B2C e-commerce is expected to generate $3.2 trillion in revenue by 2020, while the B2B e-commerce market is expected to be twice that size. In terms of transport revenue, global B2C e-commerce produced $85 billion in 2015, and is expected to grow by a 15% compound annual rate by 2019. That level of demand is going to ad pressure to the already stretched equipment supply. It may be the best time to seek the expertise of a qualified 3PL to help navigate what are sure to be rough waters in terms of equipment availability and supply chain readiness. A 3 PL has multiple resource options to address the myriad of delivery demands that the future of e-commerce is absolutely going to generate.

How Can a 3PL Help with My E-Commerce Fulfillment

Robotics have been in use in the manufacturing industries for decades now. The idea of Intelligent Automation will be like robots on steroids.  Robotics is often considered the driving force behind 21st century innovation. If that is an accurate assessment, we can consider Intelligent Automation to be the fuel that will propel this innovation forward.   

The evolution of Third Party Logistics Services has experienced marked advancements in the decades since the inception of outsourcing supply chain operations.

The final leg of any shipment tends to be the most expensive. The impact associated with the delivery process affects margins, customer relationships, repeat business, and cash flow for any carrier.As everyone understands costs flow downhill; detention, driver unloading and re-delivery charges are just some of the perils associated with the final mile delivery. Even during a flawless delivery, the paper-laden delivery confirmation process often involves capturing key data and customer signatures, and then handing the paperwork to an admin for processing once the drivers are back at the office.

Traditional Warehouse Management Systems were a basic transactional processing engine supported by software to manage inventory and delivery functions. Today, the seeming insatiable consumer demands and online realtors like Amazon have created the need for the next generation WMS.  Vendors are stepping up to the plate and developing functionalities and solutions that meet the complex needs of today’s companies.