What is a week at Argon & Co Supply Chain and Logistics Recap without a note about Amazon and what they’re doing?

  • Certainly you heard that Amazon was buying Whole Foods for $14 billion and the first for Amazon of its kind. The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson reports that, “In the last few years, Amazon has expanded its online grocery business, AmazonFresh, but it hasn’t quite mastered online groceries the same way it’s mastered books and media. With Whole Foods, which will continue to operate under its own name, an Amazon Prime subscription might operate just like Costco membership. Maybe Prime members would get deals on Whole Foods produce, and they could elect to have the fresh veggies and organic dips delivered to their homes and apartments.” He says it also provides the real estate to double its warehouse space immediately.
  • We’re always interested in what is happening with peak-season forecasting because as you might imagine, peak season planning is important to Crimson & Co. United Parcel Service (UPS) is hiking up pricing for Black Friday and Holiday Season. The Wall Street Journal’s Paul Ziobro reports, “The fees will force retailers to decide over the next few months whether to raise shipping prices—something that is difficult to do when online shoppers are reluctant to pay shipping fees—increase the prices of goods or eat the extra costs themselves. Some may seek to avoid the surcharges by spreading holiday deals to other weeks during the season.”
  • Industry Week’s Top 25 Supply Chains of 2017 is live on their site (as a photo gallery), and you’ll note companies like Starbuck’s to Intel are represented.
  • The Cloud is being discussed on Forbes under How 3 Industry Leaders Embrace Cloud Optimization. Transportation, automotive and retail industries are represented as the impact is discussed. Using the cloud in business is used throughout the business process processes covering internal and external uses. Forbes reports, “What is driving this expansion? The insatiable appetite for business innovation of course, and the foundation it sets for true digital transformation. Businesses need to adopt and scale high value use case scenarios involving artificial intelligence, machine learning and a wealth of other advanced technologies. These are now considered competitive necessities to simultaneously meet Industry 4.0 standards and maintain a customer-centric focus. Agility and innovation must span the entire value chain and across the entire enterprise.”

Thinking about scaling your eCommerce business? If so, we hope you saw our post over a month ago about Scaling or Failing in eCommerce. You’ll simply fill out the contact form and let us know you want a copy and it’ll automatically be sent over.

As of September 8, 2020, Crimson & Co (formerly The Progress Group/TPG) has rebranded as Argon & Co following the successful merger with Argon Consulting in April 2018. 

Bruce Strahan

[email protected]

More Articles