Conference Session to Address How Operations Professionals Can Turn Retail Peak Shipping Season Pain into Long-Term Gain
Norwalk, CT (PRWEB) December 18, 2015 -- Operations and fulfillment professionals - now in the midst of the frenzied peak shipping season —are always looking for ways to take what they learn in this crucible and apply it to performance improvement going forward, according to the industry’s leading publication, Multichannel Merchant magazine.
Given the rise of online ordering and multichannel distribution, even the run-up to smaller holiday events like Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day can lead to operational stress and pressure.
“The December holidays, however, always bring major pain points for direct-to-customer and ecommerce companies,” said Mike O’Brien, Senior Editor of Multichannel Merchant. “That’s why it’s so critical to not only have an effective peak season battle plan in place, but to leverage insights from your post-mortem sessions to ensure a performance boost the next year.”
To ease the pain and shed light on operational challenges throughout the year, Multichannel Merchant is presenting the Fifth Annual Operations Summit April 12-14 in Cincinnati http://www.operationssummit.com/. The Operations Summit is the only event exclusively about direct-to-customer and ecommerce operations, distribution and fulfillment. It is one of the most important conferences in the industry and a popular networking opportunity, attracting 800 managers and executives.
To address issues related to the five-week frenzy from Thanksgiving through Christmas, one of the 50+ sessions at Operations Summit 2016 is Preparing Your DC for Holiday Peak: A Continuous Improvement Process. It will not only provide best practices on peak preparation, but also focus on the concept of continuous improvement and how it can be baked into your processes.
For many companies, the planning process for peak begins shortly after the New Year after the dust settles from gift cards and returns. O’Brien said it is important to leverage the “before, during and after” of peak to up your game year-round in terms of performance and efficiency gains.
Some of the session’s main ideas which will apply to any company’s pain points include effective use of postmortem, dealing with staffing and labor management issues, maximizing the use of DC space, handling demand forecasting, and working with vendors and carriers in the supply chain.
The six conference tracks which attendees can choose to follow include Omnichannel/Distributed Inventory/Inventory Management; Executive/Management; Warehouse/Fulfillment/Returns/Packaging; Shipping/Delivery/Logistics; Customer Experience/Contact Center; and a newly added Global track.
Speakers are from such major companies as Limited Stores, BirchBox, QVC, iHerb, Uncommon Goods, The Bon-Ton Stores, Crutchfield Corp., Stage Stores, Nasty Gal, Vermont Country Store, Brooks Brothers, Dr. Leonard’s, Stella & Dot, Shepler’s Western Store, Cabelas, Newegg.com, JackThreads and Tory Burch.
Companies offering tours of their DTC processes include iHerb, UPS Supply Chain Solutions, Intelligrated, Shorr Packaging, TradeGlobal, and Donna Salyers Fabulous Furs.
ABOUT THE OPERATIONS SUMMIT
Multichannel Merchant’s Operations Summit is the only conference exclusively about direct-to-customer and omnichannel operations & fulfillment. Attending the Operations Summit will help executives ensure that their entire operations organization – warehousing, order management, shipping, inventory management, systems and contact center team – are they best they can be. It will help managers become more efficient, make customers happy, cut costs, develop the best people, ship faster, and find the right technologies and vendors.
ABOUT MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT
MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT reaches key decision makers responsible for ecommerce, management, marketing and operations at companies that sell merchandise through multiple channels—including ecommerce, mobile, social, and catalog. Multichannel Merchant delivers original research, as well as in-depth analysis of trends and best practices, news, tactical/how-to, executive summaries, technology and supplier comparisons, tip sheets & resource information to help companies sell & deliver products wherever and whenever the customer wants them – at home, work, store or other locations.
John Gibb, Access Intelligence, +1 (203) 899-8435, [email protected]
Share this article