E-commerce has completely transformed the traditional chain of supply, boosting take-up figures in these last years while raising the list of challenges the main logistic operators must face if they want to be more efficient delivering orders to their clients and competing with the rest of the actors of the market, who are increasingly more professionalized with wider and more complex distribution networks. According to a research study published by BBVA Research, e-commerce is gaining more relevance, resulting in close to 20% of all credit card sales in 2018.
This remarkable growth in e-commerce sales has raised the need in the industrial-logistics market to have a more complex distribution chain to attend deliveries which need to be immediate. Therefore, logistic companies are setting up distribution processes spread into several sections that consist of warehouses located in the 2nd and 3rd Rings, and other crossdock type warehouses located at proximities of urban centers. In this way they reduce storage costs improving the services of providing companies, since customers are showing a predisposition to pay a higher cost for receiving orders in a short period of time
Today’s client is used to receiving, in any service, updated information 24/7. In the logistic sector, the client demands, besides reduced timing and great flexibility, a visible supply chain. Being able to inform when the order is received by the logistic company, transported into the receiving city and the precise delivery schedule have gone from being added values of logistics companies to essential services.
Investment in technology is also one of the main priorities of logistic companies: robotization of logistics processes not only helps to reduce costs but also facilitates greater control of stocks and orders, increasing the immediacy of the distribution chain and facilitating the allocation of resources and efforts to other strategies or needs of the core business.
As an added value, more and more stores are offering their clients an easy way to return to their products if they are not satisfied. The considerable increase in the volume of returns is requiring companies to attend the logistics chain in reverse: a fact that requires an improvement in the process of managing the merchandise that leaves the warehouse and from where it arrives. In fact, a report published by the Observatorio Nacional de las Telecomunicaciones (ONTS) estimates that 1 out of 4 buyers will make returns in on-line commerce, a figure that has accumulated increases since 2017 and that is expected to continue to increasing considerably.
Previous