Blog

This week, Ox welcomes our newest team member and Chief Revenue Officer, Brian Clark.

If the rapid deployment of vaccines across the country is any indication, life will soon return to normal. This means that mall-based retail stores and other businesses are going to begin to open up and operate at full or near-full capacity.   

Shoppers are no longer frequenting the grocery store for their weekly stock-up like they did pre-COVID. Instead, they’re using grocery delivery or curbside pickup, causing retailers to rethink their space, customer experience, and last-mile delivery.

With more retailers embracing eCommerce and the omnichannel experience, warehouse sizes are becoming more dynamic. There are massive warehouses like Walmart’s latest 630,000 square foot distribution center, and smaller modular warehouses called micro-fulfillment centers, built for the sole purpose of fulfilling in-store deliveries and curbside pickups. 

In 2015, Target’s foray into the international market came to an abrupt end. Target Canada laid off 17,000 workers, closed hundreds of stores, and shut down its business operations in Canada. 

In 2020, eCommerce sales grew a whopping 44%, but not all retailers saw equal revenue gains. The businesses that boomed were the ones that identified and adapted to the change with effective eCommerce and BOPIS strategies.

Wondering how they did it?

Whether you’re new to the space and trying to institute new processes and software or you’re an established business trying to pivot or optimize, we’ve got the tech, tools, and tactics you need. In this webinar, we discussed how to:

Buy online pick up in-store (BOPIS) was an optional feature offered by retailers before the covid19 pandemic. Fast forward to 2021, BOPIS has basically become one of the most important retail services for survival. 

From the start, Ox’s mission has been to level the playing field for retailers by making technology that’s accessible, scalable, and good for business. When we set out to build the best end-to-end solution for retailers, we had no idea what was on the horizon.

The rise of buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS), microfulfillment centers, and eCommerce has many companies rethinking their fulfillment strategies to ensure they remain competitive. Speed, accuracy, and efficiency issues compound as order increase, making it more essential than ever for companies wanting to increase business to adapt.

Order picking accounts for 55% of the annual $60 billion spent on warehouse operations in the United States. Reducing human-induced errors in the order fulfillment process can save warehouses and distributors significant costs. We investigate a radio-frequency identification (RFID)-based verification method wherein wearable RFID scanners, worn on the wrists, scan passive RFID tags mounted on an item’s bin as the item is picked.

This method is used in conjunction with a heads-up display (HUD) smart glasses to guide the user to the correct item. We compare this RFID verification method to pick-to-light with button verification, pick-to-paper with barcode verification, and pick-to-paper with no verification. We find that pick-to-HUD with RFID verification enables significantly faster picking, provides the lowest error rate, and provides the lowest task workload.