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Step Up to eFulfillment with a WMS

Advice from true warehouse experts

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Step Up to e-Fulfillment with a WMS UNDER PRESSURE Amazon is now the fourth company in the United States worth more than half a trillion dollars, putting it in rarified territory with the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet (Google). According to a research note by Kerry Rice, managing director of equity research at Needham & Co, the e- retailing giant now accounts for approximately 34 percent of all U.S. online sales. That number is expected to grow to about 50 percent by 2021. Clearly, competing with Amazon is a difficult proposition, but there is a lot of money to be made by adopting e-fulfillment as a way to spur new business opportunities and revamp warehouse and distribution center operations. While consumers' insatiable appetite for online shopping and rapid delivery put enormous pressure on small retailers and their logistics partners, companies willing to invest in robust Warehouse Management System (WMS) solutions can reap huge dividends. KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES In very simplistic terms, the shift to e-fulfillment requires a broad- sweeping integration of warehouse distribution, package tracking and route management into a single, customizable platform. It is becoming easier to identify companies that are being left behind in this push to modernization. They often cling to rudimentary or even paper-based processes that require a lot of manual coordination of multiple shipping and inventory systems. The need for manual data entry often leads to costly errors, higher manpower expenses and wasted time. Manual shipping systems also make it difficult to implement multi-carrier selection processes that could automatically find the lowest available shipping rate (or fastest option for those rush orders). These are precisely the areas where a modern WMS solution can have the biggest impact. Do you deal with irregular shipments? Check. Do you handle fragile or potentially dangerous goods? Check and check. " Tom Lorenz, Vice President Lorenz & Jones Marine Distributors " "

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