Regardless of the geographies in which a retailer operates, peaks in demand are an inevitable yet very welcome fact of life in operations. Where once retailers spent many days in the run-up to a big sale event or promotion readying their physical retail outlets, today most stores also have to make ready their online retail operations: the virtual storefront, warehouses, distribution network, payment platforms, online marketing activities and a dozen more elements besides.

Whether it’s Singles’ Day, Cyber Monday, Christmas, or Eid al-Fitr, surges in demand for retail stores, both online and offline, contribute significantly to many businesses’ revenues. The ability to preserve excellent customer service and fulfil every order seamlessly depends on many of those moving parts functioning as themselves, but more critically, as cogs in the machinery of a larger retail machine.

At the consumer’s end, a late delivery or two may go largely unnoticed, but failing systems that underpin the retail experience at a significant scale can unleash a deluge of bad press that is difficult to recover from. Attempts to repair the damage after the fact and extraordinary measures taken during peak demand periods can be so costly that increased sales revenue is lost in additional costs.

Complex Stack

The potential for problems stems from the complexity of operations rather than an inability to plan and anticipate periods of peak demand. Like fashion, retail preferences and markets change very quickly, and in this vertical, the definition of legacy technology is less forgiving than elsewhere.

For example, a decision to make large investments in online retail made just a few years ago may now be eclipsed by the recent trend in consumers wishing to try before they buy in a physical retail store. Warehouse networks and associated technology platforms like DOMs (distributed order management systems) may be optimised for a channel that’s less favoured this year. And next year…who can say?

While XaaS solutions for retailers offer answers to some of the issues around the speed and cost of IT deployments, in some ways, cloud-based solutions exhibit the same underlying problem that so-called legacy platforms present. The issue of interoperability remains to a significant degree, regardless of whether core systems are in-house, cloud-based, monolithic or container-based and cloud-native.

Given that an agile approach to the software used to run a retail operation is optimal (to handle peaks and to change to reflect changes in the market), it’s the interconnection of operational technology that is critical to get right.

API Answers

In an ideal world, every piece of software in the stack would be built using open standards and an API-first approach. However, with many proprietary systems, that’s not entirely the case, and it often isn’t with bespoke, black box software that forms a basis in some enterprises.

Even with every part of the core infrastructure presenting API layers, there remains the significant overhead of developing the data layer that GETs and POSTs to APIs, parses EDI, negotiates FTP, and maintains robust connections.

Setting a development goal of stringing together a unified system that does all that is a fine concept, but it does not account for the moving target of the retail operator’s IT stack: finish an API-based data layer in 12-18 months, and it’s likely that at least one of the connected platforms will change significantly in that timeframe.

Self-made Solutions

A team dedicated to maintaining multi-system interoperability will always find itself reacting to events out of its control, like an API update or application upgrade. In fact, such a team may only be made aware of changes somewhere in a complex topology when production systems break. It’s Sod’s Law, of course, that breaking changes will occur under the real-life stress tests of Black Friday, Cyber Monday or similar.

The number of moving parts in a modern retailer’s technology includes backbone ERPs, point-of-sale, warehousing and distribution, e-commerce platforms and a host of ancillary systems like CRM and Martech. It’s difficult to simulate peak demand stresses to determine where failures or bottlenecks might occur in such a multi-faceted whole and, therefore, develop coherent plans that ensure high levels of performance throughout a retailer’s sales cycle with its inevitable highs and lows.

However, specialist providers exist whose sole purpose is to provide robust connectivity between all the technology elements in modern retail.

Patching for Perfection

Patchworks is a vendor-agnostic cloud platform that addresses the challenge of integration complexity faced by retailers and partners. It creates the data layer concept discussed above and lets users see information flowing in real time from system to system. Via its intuitive interface, it gives up-to-the-minute metrics on orders, stock, distribution system status, and so on – the details are determined, of course, by the platforms used throughout the chain.

Patchworks deployment can be achieved in-house or via one of their certified partners, with a no-code/low-code interface that helps visualise and simplify connectivity between data sources: e-commerce platforms, WMS, DOM, common ERPs, CRMs, databases and business analytics platforms. Essentially anything with an API. Retailers can synchronise inventory, orders, and customer data across various platforms with no specific vendor lock-in or dependent system. That means IT teams can change the elements of the IT stack in production and still retain the rich source of meta-operational data and know that systems will continue to update one another.

It allows a high degree of flexibility and scale and lets companies test their systems under load to better plan and provision for periods of peak demand. The cohesive operational structure means that as the retailer’s business model evolves, new and changing elements can plug-and-play with the rest of the stack. There are also pre-built connectors and applications designed solely for the retail industry, so many operators will find that their production systems can be integrated quickly and reliably.

You can learn more about one of their customers Triumph Motorcycles here, who needed help integrating John Lewis’ The Edge marketplace, as well as Commercetools, VirtualStock and Torque ahead of last year’s peak trading season.

Jim Herbert, CEO at Patchworks emphasised the importance and value of staying connected in a recent interview where he said, “As retailers prepare for peak season, staying connected and agile is crucial. As a proud member of the MACH Alliance and a leader in composable commerce, Patchworks empowers businesses to seamlessly integrate their systems, ensuring a smooth, efficient operation that can adapt to demand surges. This connectivity not only enhances customer experiences but also drives cost effectiveness and revenue growth by optimising every aspect of the retail process all year round.”

You can learn more about Patchworks and the ways it’s unifying retail platforms online and in-store by heading to its website and speaking to a retail sector advisor.

The post Interoperability the Key to Managing Peak Retail Demands appeared first on TechHQ.

Before the impact of the current economic downturn began to taper off the demand for goods delivered to the door, retailers and carriers experienced something of a boom in turnover.

However, since the world’s purse strings tightened in the last six months, shoppers are more considered in their choices and are significantly more price-sensitive. They also spend more time researching purchases and exhibit less brand loyalty than they used to be able to.

Retailers are seeing a rise in cart abandonment, with around one in three potential sales online not completed. Given that competition is fierce on ticket price as a natural consequence of poor economic circumstances, the reasons for cart abandonment are often found in those final options at the checkout: delivery and returns options.

“Of course, retailers understand that, because they’re consumers themselves,” says Bobbie Ttooulis, Group Marketing Director of GFS, speaking to Tech HQ exclusively. “Everybody needs convenience, needs breadth of options for delivery. But what prevents retailers from offering […] more options and bringing on board a new service, a new carrier, is that it means an IT integration, and a relationship to manage, another invoice, another contract…and the complexity and cost of all that is just not scalable. That’s why retailers need to think differently about how they offer multi-carrier services – it doesn’t have to mean working with multiple carriers.”

Bobbie Ttooulis, Group Marketing Director of GFS. Source: Global Freight Solutions

Understanding the changing attitudes of customers and prospects is at the heart of understanding how to bring those cart abandonment rates down. And while offering free delivery helps address cost concerns, Bobbie said it’s by no means the only factor. “It’s down to breadth of choice because you can’t second guess what [a customer’s] priority is at that moment in time, or what their circumstances are. All you can do is offer as broad enough a selection of delivery options so that whether their key driver is cost or speed or convenience, provided you try to cover those bases, then you’ve got a good chance of being able to satisfy whatever their requirements are going to be at that point in time.”

The number of preferred delivery options may come as a surprise to many. A survey of over 2,000 UK consumers conducted by Retail Economics puts the benchmark between five and six. That ideal number would give shoppers access to services from same/next day to low-cost, long-wait deliveries for items that are low priority. Returns options, too, are important. Customers often consider ease of returns as insurance; the simplicity offers reassurance that purchases are low-risk.

The technology behind offering multiple shipping options at the point of sale is relatively simple with GFS Checkout, part of GFS’ multi-carrier platform – it’s a single integration within the retailer’s existing e-commerce platform, like Magento or BigCommerce. The technology is pre-configured with 1000+ delivery options for domestic and international, and gives retailers the control to add or remove services in real-time without the need for expensive IT involvement.

Source: Global Freight Solutions

Of course, retailers could manually ‘plumb in’ other carriers’ options. But it’s not necessarily the best approach. GFS acts as a single aggregator for telemetry from multiple carriers and becomes the single point of contact between the retailer and multiple logistics providers.

A multi-carrier approach helps mitigate risk and protect service performance and customer experience by ensuring that deliveries get made, no matter what. Bobbie told us, “Having contingency in your final mile delivery process is vital. We saw many retailers get caught out when Royal Mail went on strike during Peak last year. Whether it’s a strike, bad weather, or missed collection from the warehouse – whatever the reason, you have to be confident that your parcels can get to where they need to be. Having a multi-carrier partner in the background who can switch your parcels seamlessly from one carrier to another mitigates risk and gives you peace of mind that your delivery is safe.”

Early on, we discussed price sensitivity as a large factor in cart abandonment rates. Having a bulk carrier buyer in the form of GFS means retailers can benefit from its buying power and volume pricing that probably wouldn’t be available to even some of the larger retailers in the UK. Conversely, high-ticket brands might want to offer choices that focus on convenience, delivery timing, insurance and (sometimes) discretion. Again, retailers working with a single multi-carrier partner like GFS, can access those services and more, giving them all the advantages of multi-carrier delivery without the overhead of doing it with multiple carriers.

Customer queries are also routed through a single point, with GFS representatives handling all contacts with contracted carriers. That removes the human complexity traditionally associated with multi-carrier options: who to contact, in which time zone, using which language.

The same homogeneity of systems extends to logistics operations, too, if required. “Our technology will also integrate with the standard warehouse management systems that retailers use to pick, pack and fulfil an order. It will integrate to produce the labelling. Once that parcel has been shipped, then the next leg in our technology enables track-and-trace of that parcel […] and [data] flows into customer service teams,” Bobbie told us.

Source: Global Freight Solutions

The high standards in customer care and CX established by global multinationals with comprehensive in-house logistics are now available to companies looking to differentiate themselves from competitors in these austere times.

UK-based GFS is a leading provider of managed multi-carrier delivery and returns services. They offer over 1,000 carrier services in more than 220 destinations in the UK, Europe and worldwide. GFS also offers access to 320,000 returns drop-off points and 75,000 Click & Collect locations.

Those are significant statistics for companies looking to compete with household name retailers with the funds to offer customers every convenience and broad choice of delivery and returns services.

To find out how easy it is to complement your existing logistics with multi-carrier services, speak to a representative from GFS.

The post Can you have your cake and eat it with multi-carrier shipping? appeared first on TechHQ.

• Know Your Customer is a mandatory part of online transactions.
• Prohibitive costs form barrier to entry.
• Linux Foundation backs open source alternative.

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The ABCs of KYC: What is “Know Your Customer”?

While the possibilities of taking payments online offers both parties in a transaction massive convenience, the threat of online fraud is ever-present. The Global Anti-Scam Alliance reports that close to $1 trillion was lost to online fraud in 2023, a cost that increases secondary business costs paid in insurance premiums, payment gateway fees, and a host of other quiet additions to everyday bills that land each month on the desks of CFOs worldwide.

An integral part of digital payment processes is the myriad routines that run background checks on every transaction, like identity lookup, heuristic pattern recognition for anomalous behavior, and payment detail verification.

“World Trade Center, Bahrain” by Ahmed Rabea is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

These often furiously complex algorithms run quietly in the background, providing services like KYC (know your customer) and AML (anti-money laundering). They’re provided by reputable payment gateways and identity verification systems as a matter of course. Naturally, they come at a cost, one that’s pretty much mandatory whan running a lawful business and one that’s usually sold at a price that can be dictated by providers – as such, it’s rarely cheap.

However, that situation seems set to change in the near future, as the Linux Foundation Charities (with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) has launched Tazama, an open source alternative to proprietary anti-fraud measures whose cost is often prohibitive, especially for organizations in the developing world. According to a press release from Linux Foundation Charities (LF Charities), it includes capabilities for fraud detection, AML compliance, and monitoring of online financial transactions. That means it should be able to provide as much know your customer data as traditional closed systems.

The service will be hosted by LF Charities (although its open source nature will enable independent hosting) and so act as a showcase for the efficacy of open source as a secure, independent, low-cost replacement for closed and costly systems.

“Cr48: Disabling boot verification” by jamalfanaian is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, said, “We are excited to see an open source solution that not only enhances financial security but also provides a platform for our community to actively contribute to a project with broad societal impacts.”

“The launch of Tazama signifies another stride towards securing and democratizing digital financial services,” said Kosta Peric, Deputy Director, Payment Systems at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Greg McCormick, the Executive Director of Tazama, claims the platform has achieved 2,300 full payment transactions per second (TPS), which supports the type of throughput considered vital for a smooth and reassuring customer experience. The presence of delays, glitches, and timeouts is an anathema to payment processes (in B2C transactions, especially), as they suggest an unstable platform and worry users that they might be subject to fraud.

Several organizations are already working with Tazama to assess the platform’s effectiveness, including African organizations BCEAO and BankservAfrica, IPSL in the UK, and Jordan’s JoPACC. While emerging markets may be interested because of the lower potential cost of entry to a reliable payment platform, the overriding benefit of the open source Tazama will be the many thousands of eyes-on that will be able to attest to the veracity of the system and improve it overall.

The reputation of proprietary software in security-sensitive areas makes the case for Tazama. The experiences of Okta, SolarWinds, Lastpass and a half-dozen other companies suggests that in the area of highly-sensitive data, a limited number of developers and the tendency to place shareholder dividends before quality of product tends to create less secure software.

The post Tazama offers Know Your Customer options for all appeared first on TechHQ.

• Repurposed content – more, but shorter – is the rationale behind TikTok mrketing.
• TikTok marketing has proven to be successful, and so is rewriting the rules for all marketing.
• Attention spans are going – wait, what were we saying?

In an era increasingly defined by how we interact with emerging social media trends, most prominently TikTok, marketing has had to adapt to fit our short-form attention spans.

Wendy’s combines memes with an oh so relatable voice.

Be it company Tweets that take on a startlingly relatable voice or your local pub promoting drinks deals via Instagram Reels, brand marketing has shifted out of print. That’s all well and good for companies with huge departments dedicated to TikTok marketing clips and keeping up with viral hashtags, but for small business owners, keeping up can be tough.

Adobe Express surveyed 517 small business owners to see how they’re engaging with an emerging technique for content production: repurposing content. That just means taking already published content and re-jigging it for reuse.

The results show how small businesses repurpose content to boost brand visibility, engagement, and sales.

Repurposed content is increasingly prolific, with 70% of small business owners using the technique in their marketing. On average, content is repurposed seven and a half months after the original post.

Gone are the days of running a magazine ad for months at a time; the trendcycle spins almost too fast to keep up with, and we’ve become conditioned to expect New Stuff almost daily.

“Wait, I think I’ve seen the long version of this…”

The root of the issue but also, apparently, the answer to it, is TikTok, which 83% of small business owners found most effective for engaging target audiences with repurposed content. Instagram followed with 78% and websites or blogs close behind at 75%.

Small business owners reported that the biggest challenges they face are not enough time (46%), lack of technical skills (27%), strategic direction (26%) and resources (21%).

“We got it rehashed, We got it half-assed, We’re digging up all the graves and we’re spitting on the past…” Credit: Ani DiFranco.

One way to level the playing field is by using AI to help: one in six small business owners reported that they use AI to repurpose content. Nearly two-thirds of those who use AI report increased marketing effectiveness and productivity, while 56% of small business owners who use AI to repurpose content save 1-5 hours/week.

Over half of those using AI say it increases sales and that it also funnels buyers into the sales route more quickly.

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The dangers of AI: are they mainly fear-marketing?

Success was measured by small business owners through increased website traffic (62%) and engagement metrics (50%) – one-third also looked at conversion rates and revenue increase.

All of this shines a light on the fact that TikTok marketing has become the style guide for all advertising. In and of itself, that isn’t necessarily damning – but the effect it has on all media forms is.

TikTok marketing strategy – more, shorter, next!

The top strategy for repurposing content was taking existing videos and making shorter clips. Taking content and repurposing video content for Instagram Reels was also popular.

Indicative of the way we all engage with content online was the success small business owners had in creating video from written content, transforming blog posts into infographics, and making increasingly short clips for TikTok.

Apparently, we are all averse to reading, waiting for any kind of story arc to develop, stopping scrolling for more than thirty seconds.

For small business owners, this is a trend that has to be bought into for survival. Creative tools like Adobe Express can help turn old videos and images into fresh and engaging content.

Still, at some point we’ll need to examine why such a fast turnaround is necessary – is it possible to get back to a place where content lasts long enough that small business owners and content creators have time to create something new every time they post?

Welcome to the age of “TikTok Brain.”

The post Small business owners regenerate old content to keep up appeared first on TechHQ.

• The drive towards carbon neutrality is a key business goal in 2024.
• Many carbon calculators though are vague and of limited value.
• Dynatrace is working to deliver actionable clarity on carbon neutrality.

On achieving carbon neutrality and giving GenAI the right information: we spoke with Stefan Greifeneder, VP of product management at Dynatrace, about the waves the company is making at Perform 2024.

Stefan Greifeneder, Dynatrace.

A major announcement was the addition of AI observability to the Dynatrace stack, while Davis, the existing AI solution at Dynatrace, got a GenAI upgrade.

Can you summarize what differentiates Davis AI from the static of the last year that was all about AI?

The core differentiation is that in our space of stability, one of the core challenges is the case of errors, pinpointing root causes, things that require precision. Before GenAI, we were using our solution Davis AI to do exactly that.

The differentiation here is that we’re combining parts of AI that we already used, which we call predictive and causal AI. The core of Davis AI is this causality thing, because when talking about customers facing problems in big cloud environments in IT and software, it’s massively complex, there are lots of data points, lots of different components.

If something goes wrong, if something breaks, then it’s not just one thing broken but a chain of events.

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What we have, due on the one hand to our causal AI and how we collect the data, is an understanding of the dependencies between components. So, we understand how things relate to each other. And we can follow that path; this is something that’s only possible if you understand those dependencies, if you have this information available.

It can’t be done, and not at that precision, with pure GenAI approaches. That’s why we use what we call hypermodal AI, meaning we mix three types [of AI]. That’s predictive AI for precise predictions based on available data, causal AI that’s following pathways and then generative AI, which we use going forward for, for example, remediation recommendations.

What’s your answer to the lack of trust in AI? Do you think observability can solve that?

Good question. What we’re doing right now in our solution to help our customers resolve issues, is not yet using generative AI.

What we’re doing with the predictive and causal parts of AI is following a white paper approach. We have precisely documented what we’re doing. We even show visually in the product how we came to each conclusion – you could think of it as explainable AI.

What we’re doing right now can be easily reconstructed or reproduced; it’s a kind of deterministic result. It’s the precise result, not just the correlation. This is why for those use cases in our customer base, we feel high trust. All of our customers have been using Davis AI since we’ve had it – the trust there is very high.

Now, if we talk about that, specifically, I think this is about building trust. But it’s also about having the right information available for the generative AI to come to good conclusions. Imagine asking generative AI “show me my revenue of application XYZ yesterday.” It would be hard to get a precise answer. But if you weave in the data we have combined with our causal AI then we can engineer the prompt and ask much more precise questions.

In the end, if you use it successfully a couple of times then the trust will be there. Generative AI is more blackbox than predictive and causal AI are, so by mixing it I think the trust is higher.

Dynatrace is a very technical company. Do you find you get better traction with systems engineers than the non-technical folk?

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Europe becomes data-interoperable – but do its open standards fall short of the mark?

We see the go-to market motion, the sales conversations, at different flight altitudes. It really depends who you’re talking to. For practitioners, for the engineers, for the tech guys, we of course have more technical stories about the immediate value of Dynatrace when they start using it for their specific use case.

When we go up the food chain in the company, the message changes. Our real strength is helping people who are responsible for many areas. It benefits the engineer, but the real strength is for the CIO who can resolve a lot of problems across the organization.

I think for value messages there’s no technical understanding necessary because ROI, TCO discussions or customer satisfaction all come without technical knowledge. Where technology comes into it is in understanding the differentiation we have.

Some of the messages we and some competitors have are pretty similar, to be honest: everybody’s talking about AI and so on. To really understand what the Dynatrace difference is requires some technical understanding.

The partnership with Lloyds banking group to help cut carbon emissions  – where do you see that going?

We all know ESG is a globally critical topic. Everyone’s looking at new regulations and it’s a very, very important issue. In our customer base, I think there are two angles. One is the ESG angle, carbon neutrality for example. The other one is cloud cost — those are tied tightly together, right?

What we’re doing with Lloyds is one example of what customers can choose to do; if they’re already using Dynatrace broadly, they get [the carbon impact data] on top – it’s not an additional priced item.

In comparison to other solutions, using Dynatrace means not only understanding carbon impact but optimizing it. You can see where you stand but also drill down and understand which applications, which parts of the infrastructure of your cloud are contributing in which way to your carbon footprint.

We see a great appetite in our customer base to apply it to their own companies.

If you head to the Dynatrace website, you can see the Carbon Impact demo for yourself.

The post Stefan Greifeneder tells us more about Dynatrace’s plans for the future appeared first on TechHQ.

January is an important month for UK businesses, which have just made it through the Black Friday, Christmas shopping and Boxing Day sales boom. In the final two months of 2023, British consumers spent approximately £24 billion online, a 3.7 per cent increase on the previous year.

In the relative downtime following the festive period, business leaders will reflect on how they can improve operations in the new year. The British Retail Consortium has predicted that 2024 will be “another challenging year” for retailers due to consumers still impacted by the cost-of-living crisis, the impending hike in business rates and disruption to shipments from the Far East via the Red Sea. Indeed, the IGD’s Shopper Confidence Index in December was -8, three points lower than the longer-term average.

As a result of this uncertain future, businesses must ensure they can cost-effectively scale up and down while still delivering excellent customer service, improving accuracy and efficiency. Many may have struggled to meet sales targets or dealt with incorrectly fulfilled orders during seasonal peaks, resulting in dispatch delays and a disproportionate strain on customer service. Businesses most affected by these kinds of issues are small or medium-sized because they operate with tighter margins and fewer resources than larger enterprises. A few negative reviews from poor customer experiences will also have a more significant relative impact on their reputation, and they may not have the financial capacity to offer free returns or replacements. Businesses tend to see a rise in those tricky-to-process returns in January and the first two days of this year saw a 42 per cent increase in returns over 2023.

Dionne Redpath at Europa Warehouse, Corby, Northants. Source: Europa Worldwide Group

Dionne Redpath, COO and Head of Warehouse for Europa Worldwide Group, said: “A third of their business volume might happen in the last six weeks of the year, for example, from Black Friday through to Christmas, and the labour requirements needed to be able to deliver that peak of magnitude has the capacity to come quite challenging.”

A potential solution to the difficulties felt over busier periods for businesses of all sizes is to make use of automation. Using automated picking and sorting in warehouses can help streamline both order fulfilment and returns processes, reducing errors. Automated systems can also handle inventory management, helping to minimise dispatch delays and alleviate the strain on customer services. Such systems can feel out of reach for businesses with a smaller budget, but Europa Warehouse – the award-winning, specialist third-party logistics (3PL) division of Europa Worldwide Group – has a ‘shared-user’ automated solution, housed at its 715,000 square-foot warehouse in Corby. This single facility provides state-of-the-art, £11 million automation technology to multiple businesses, making access more affordable. This shared-user approach to automation is very uncommon within the UK market.

“We were feeling those difficulties [during peak season] ourselves and, therefore, our thoughts really turned to how do we create a more stable operating environment?” Ms Redpath told TechHQ.

“Our customers come to us wanting to know how they can achieve seamless fulfilment during that time without having costly capital investments or a chaotic fulfilment process. While there isn’t always one straight answer, we have found that by adopting shared-user automation, peak season doesn’t need to feel like peak at all.

“It’s no secret that automation is going to revolutionise the future for warehousing in coming years.  In fact, many of the larger players in e-commerce and retail have been incorporating robots, cobots and artificial intelligence technologies within their warehouses for some time, though many would have had to sign up to a long-term contract and committed significant investment in the technology.  However, there are plenty of businesses who may not wish to do either of those things for a host of reasons yet the benefits of being able to do so are just as important.”

Source: Europa Worldwide Group

At the shared-user warehouse in Corby, which was the product of a £60m investment – the Group’s largest to date, products for multiple companies are kept in ‘totes’ within the high-density, secure storage environment.  When an order is received, the automated system calculates the most efficient fulfilment process, triggering the launch of the order carton and the totes containing the products needed to fulfil the order, to arrive at the picker at precisely the right time.  The system has two means of fulfilling orders at picking stations, both offering the opportunity to fulfil multiple orders at the same time with a specific picking station providing the opportunity to fulfil 48 orders simultaneously.  Added to that, the process boasts and impressive 100 per cent accuracy in pick rates.

“When considering very small products, such as cosmetics or components, the system is sophisticated enough to allow totes to be segmented across as many as 12 product types,” Ms Redpath explains.  “The physical construction and configuration of the set-up means that it’s extremely secure which is absolutely fantastic for very high-value products.”

The shared-user facility swiftly adjusts to varying demands, ensuring optimal inventory levels and bolstering confidence. Europa Warehouse efficiently managed 17.2 million units via its automated platform in 2022, effortlessly scaling from 40,000 to 100,000 picks within 24 hours. The system’s modular nature enables tailored operations for diverse businesses, regardless of size or budget limitations.

Ms Redpath told TechHQ: “It allows the 3PL to take their expertise and apply it to that business, meaning that the customer can just carry on carrying on and growing their business. All we have to do is mobilise a small number of additional pickers or pick stations in order to be able to unlock that value.”

Source: Europa Worldwide Group

Europa’s low-cost pallet storage options complement the shared-user automation advantages. For e-commerce businesses who want to maximise value for money, the £1.49 + VAT, the £1.49 + VAT per pallet per week offering allows companies to allocate more capital to expand their business operations, whether through marketing strategies, product diversification or enhancing customer service experiences.

With the cost-of-living crisis, geopolitical turbulence and impending high business rates, Europa Warehouse seeks to level the playing field for retailers. To learn more about how your business can benefit from shared-user warehousing during peak season, call one of Europa’s dedicated warehouse advisers on 01536 909 300 or email automation@europa-worldwide.com.

The post How shared-user automated warehousing is tackling the pressures of peak season. appeared first on TechHQ.

It is predicted that the e-commerce industry will produce 25 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by the end of 2023, a statistic that should not come as a surprise. Online retail has skyrocketed since the pandemic, bringing retailers over $1 trillion in 2022 alone. According to the International Trade Administration, online e-commerce sales share is projected to increase from 16 percent of the total global retail market in 2021 to 22 percent in 2025. The logistics and transport sector, which e-commerce directly connects to, contributes just over a third of global emissions and is the largest-emitting sector in developed countries.

As both the e-commerce and logistics industries’ growth shows no sign of slowing down, decision-makers must focus on implementing sustainable practices and solutions to mitigate the environmental impact.

Source: Route

Evan Walker, the founder of  Route, the industry leader in post-purchase experience and package protection with carbon neutral shipping, told TechHQ: “Making the industry more sustainable is not just a moral imperative—it’s a necessity. As e-commerce continues to thrive globally, it becomes increasingly crucial to reduce its environmental footprint. Sustainable practices not only align with our responsibility to the planet—and what consumers are starting to demand—but also contribute to the long-term viability of the e-commerce sector.”

Indeed, achieving sustainability in an industry that relies on transport is not simple. Logistics optimization, packaging waste, and energy consumption are all hurdles to environmentally friendly operations, according to Mr. Walker.

He said: “Striking a balance between sustainability and operational efficiency while considering cost-effectiveness poses a complex challenge for the industry. Overcoming these obstacles requires innovative solutions.”

These challenges are why Route developed a simple solution that allows e-commerce businesses to reduce their carbon footprint significantly. Brands can give their customers the option to offset the emissions associated with their orders with just one click at checkout.

When an order is placed, the app calculates its CO₂ emissions and can make an equivalent donation to one of its certified sustainability projects. As a result of supporting a project, the emissions associated with the order are neutralized.

Mr. Walker said: “Shipping is a significant contributor to e-commerce’s environmental impact, and direct efforts to reduce emissions are paramount. By integrating sustainability practices, the industry can mitigate its carbon footprint, contribute to environmental conservation, and address the urgent need for climate action—which also aligns with what consumers want to see brands do more.”

Sustainability projects that Route supports include the Freres Biochar Project in Oregon, where ‘biochar’ (a type of charcoal produced from biomass) is generated by its lumber operations and used in agriculture and environmental applications, such as soil improvement, carbon sequestration, and sustainable farming practices. The wood waste would otherwise be disposed of—typically by burning—and pollute the environment. The equivalent of approximately 2.64 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions is removed per tonne of biochar produced.

The initiative also supports the Indus Delta Mangrove Restoration, which aims to rehabilitate and restore the mangrove forests in the Indus River Delta region of Pakistan. The mangrove ecosystems in the Delta have degraded due to human activities in the last 50 years. Replanting these important trees is expected to sequestrate the equivalent of 142 million tonnes of emissions over the next 60 years.

“By choosing projects carefully, Route guarantees that our carbon offset contributions genuinely contribute to reducing carbon dioxide emissions and align with our commitment to sustainability,” said Mr. Walker.

For brands that sign up for Route’s Basic plan, carbon-neutral shipping is included on orders covered by Route Package Protection, where Route also refunds or replaces items that are lost, stolen, or damaged. Brands using Route’s Pro or Custom plans will have their emissions offset on all of their orders.

LoveShackFancy, Beis, and Solo Stove are among the thousands of Route’s 13,000 brand partners that offset their shipping emissions and are actively building a more sustainable e-commerce industry. As of December 2023, Carbon Neutral Shipping has neutralized the emissions from 35 million shipments and is projected to remove over 55,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. Route itself is on track to becoming fully carbon neutral by 2025.

Source: Route

The platform presents an unparalleled opportunity for merchants to revolutionize their post-purchase customer experiences, in addition to their sustainability commitment. Brands can retain revenue with premium package protection, reduce support tickets with immersive package tracking and with Route’s issue resolution, and boost sales with personalized product recommendations.

At its core, however, Route prioritizes its environmental  mission. Mr. Walker said: “Sustainability is a game-changer for the future of e-commerce. As consumers increasingly prioritize eco-friendly practices, the businesses that integrate sustainability will stand out.

“To put it in perspective, 87 percent of buyers will purchase a product because its company advocated for an issue they cared about, and 77 percent of companies surveyed found that sustainability leads to brand loyalty. Using Route, companies can ensure their brands are synonymous with sustainability initiatives that make an impact on the global community.

“We actively engage with partners in various industries, fostering collaboration for a greener e-commerce future. As Route grows, so will our ability to implement and expand initiatives that contribute positively to the planet.”

If you are interested in making carbon-neutral shipping part of your brand identity and contributing to a greener future for the e-commerce industry, book a Route demo today.

The post Why e-commerce businesses should offset their shipping emissions appeared first on TechHQ.

• The intimidation of the Steiners by eBay is the stuff of movie legend.
• A campaign of harrassment was intended to “take down that woman.”
• The parcels sent to the Steiners verge on the psychotic.

eBay has agreed to pay a $3m criminal penalty after being convicted of the harassment and stalking of a Massachusetts couple, Ina and David Steiner, who had been subjected to threats and intimidation in the form of unpleasant parcels.

The Justice Department charged eBay with stalking, witness tampering and obstruction of justice after employees, who have already been individually prosecuted, ran an extensive scheme to intimidate the Steiners.

The Steiners received packages containing live spiders, cockroaches, a funeral wreath and a bloody pig mask – vacuum-packed and no doubt terrifying after the Steiners had to reject delivery of a foetal pig. But why were they targeted?

Ina and David Steiner run EcommerceByte from their home. Photo via Boston Globe/Getty Images.

The birth of EcommerceBytes

When eBay launched in 1995, the Steiners were fascinated – they were keen second-hand shoppers already, so the online format was an intriguing change. The clunky website and not-so-savvy internet users of the time gave rise to an idea: the Steiners launched their website in 1999 and EcommerceBytes was born.

Today, the site has some 600,000 monthly users and most of its subscribers make a living selling items on eBay. In the world of ecommerce, EcommerceBytes is akin to The Times. But sellers aren’t the only readers.

Former US Attorney Andrew Lelling said the plan to target the couple, a “campaign of terror,” was formed in April 2019 at eBay. Devin Wenig, who was CEO of the company at the time, shared a link to a post Ina Steiner had written about his annual pay.

Chief communications officer Steve Wymer responded “We are going to crush this lady.”

About a month later, Ina wrote an article about a lawsuit brought by eBay accusing Amazon of poaching its sellers. Half an hour after it was published, Wenig sent a message saying “If you are ever going to take her down… now is the time.” Wymer later texted eBay security director Jim Baugh: “I want to see ashes. As long as it takes. Whatever it takes.”

According to investigators, Baugh then dispatched a security team to Boston, about 20 miles from where the Steiners live.

Jim Baugh was sentenced to five years in jail in for his harrasment of the Steiners on behalf of eBay in 2022. Image: the Boston Globe via AP.

“Senior executives at eBay were frustrated with the newsletter’s tone and content, and with the comments posted beneath the newsletter’s articles,” the Department of Justice wrote in its Thursday announcement.

Wenig, who was the company’s CEO at the time of the stalking campaign, resigned from eBay in September 2019 with a $57 million exit package. He previously told 60 Minutes that he was appalled at what happened and would have stopped it had he been aware of it.

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He hasn’t been criminally charged in the case and denies telling anyone to do anything illegal; his lawyer claims that “take her down” was taken out of context and referred to “lawful action” not the “series of bizarre criminal acts.”

Upon the announcement of eBay’s payment of the $3m fine, the Steiners wrote an article titled Victim Impact Statement in United States of America vs eBay Inc. and published it to EcommerceBytes, which is still active; Ina writes up to four articles for it daily.

“We were targeted because we gave eBay sellers a voice and because we reported facts that top executives didn’t like publicly laid bare,” Ina and David write.

“Since the government first arrested some of the perpetrators and filed charges in June 2020, we have heard from sellers who are fearful of communicating legitimate concerns to us (or to eBay and other marketplaces) because they fear retaliation.”

eBay vs the Steiners – an indicative case?

During 2023, we witnessed near enough every big-name tech company you can think of – be it social media giants Meta or good old Elon Musk’s Tesla – face allegations in court and pay out huge fines. Most recently, the Horizon scandal left the UK scandalized and only after decades has it been suggested that Fujitsu make pay some kind of reparation to the many sub-postmasters let down by its technological faults, and the subsequent horrifying practices of the UK Post Office.

To spell it out: just because giants like eBay and Meta need people to be successful, doesn’t mean they have anything but their own best interests at heart; in fact, because they rely on having a userbase, they’ll stop at nothing to ensure it continues to grow.

That means encouraging social media addiction among teens and silencing anyone who dares question the company’s practice. These huge corporations have the money to shoulder huge financial repercussions – as well as run terrorist-style intimidation campaigns, apparently – so is a fine really enough?

We’ve reached the point of holding tech companies accountable, but when will preventative bodies be formed? Who is ensuring more scandals like the ones being tried years after the fact aren’t currently happening in new forms?

Can we also address the insanity of someone like Jim Baugh being employed in eBay’s security division (while we’re at it, why does eBay have a security division?)? Known within the company as a loose cannon, Baugh claimed to be ex-CIA and had a reputation for demanding his team be on high alert at all times.

He offered to “neutralize Ina’s website in two weeks or less,” setting his team to work in Boston. The tactics used against the Steiners seem perfectly representative of a team, attuned to the possibility of constant attacks as if at war, finally being put to action.

So, perhaps the first step is not hiring sadists to uphold the security of a website made for reselling antiques.

The post eBay in the wrong after stalking and harrassing critics appeared first on TechHQ.

• FP&A software lets businesses plan for future growth.
• While spreadsheets have their place – and their time – FP&A software allows you to extract more value from your data.
• Generative AI is making its presence felt in FP&A software, bringing new capabilities.

If you are buried in spreadsheets, and the thought of running another quarterly forecast in Excel is making you wince, it could be time to consider financial planning and analysis (FP&A) software. It’s the 21st century, after all.

There’s plenty to celebrate about spreadsheets. Tools such as VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3 brought accounting entries made on large sheets of paper into the digital age. Electronic spreadsheets were one of the reasons why many businesses invested in personal computers and opened the door to ‘what if’ scenario planning.

But a lot has happened between then and now, including the growth of FP&A software – dedicated tools that overcome the issues that firms face when trying to chart future growth using Excel or Google Sheets.

Spreadsheet problems

It doesn’t take long to discover the pitfalls of using spreadsheets for business planning. “Excel is not a process-based tool,” Nelson Petracek – chief technology and product officer of Board International, a global provider of intelligent planning solutions – told TechHQ. “At a certain point, firms look for something better.”

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A big disadvantage of using software such as Excel or Google Sheets is that information can quickly become siloed and teams can become isolated in their thinking. Multiple spreadsheets can be in use at the same time, and that creates another problem.

If you’ve ever asked a colleague whether they have the most recent version of a spreadsheet, you’ll be aware of the perils of trying to manage version control manually. On top of that, companies put themselves at risk if sensitive business information is left unprotected.

General spreadsheet applications are not necessarily built with security front and center, and the business risks of using spreadsheets include unauthorized access, suffering a data breach, or losing data if standalone files are deleted by mistake and not backed up.

Last week, a portion of our @BlumbergCapital team met to strategize around fintech.

The most interesting subsectors we identified were:

– insurtech
– fp&a software
– b2b lending
– crypto
– regtech

What’s missing?

— Greg (@gregbrainard) January 30, 2023

It’s no accident that growth in FP&A software has coincided with companies generating more information than ever before. And solutions help not just in remedying the shortcomings of spreadsheets, but also combine other tools for visualization and data management into a single holistic platform.

Difference between business intelligence and FP&A software

Unlike business intelligence solutions – which answer questions such as “What can this data tell me?” – FP&A tools are designed fundamentally to help organizations address planning challenges.

“Companies are trying to expand and want to know what product goes where to meet demand,” said Petracek, referring to an everyday use case for Board’s intelligent planning solution.

Depending on their operating sector, firms may want to map that growth to e-commerce targets and run different scenarios to optimize pricing. Systems can incorporate various influencing factors, such as calendar events, weather forecasts, and many other business-relevant data sources.

List of FP&A software providers –

• Abacum
• Board
• Cube
• Finmark
• Kepion
• Planful
• Pry
• Syntellis
• Telemetry
• Vena
• Workday Adaptive Planning

To get started with FP&A software, users will typically focus on an initial use case, and go through an onboarding process with their provider. Petracek noted that there are often two types of response as users see the solution spring to life.

At the executive level, business leaders appreciate the amount of visibility that FP&A software gives them. Board’s solution includes a ‘Digital Boardroom’ with a built-in briefing book that includes geo, sales, EBITA overviews, and country details.

Annual or quarterly reports can be created within the platform as well as exported as so-called ‘live reporting books’ in MS Word and PowerPoint. What’s more, because those assets are integrated into the intelligent planning solution, charts and in-text references update in tandem with any changes or updates made within the main platform.

Having a single source of truth avoids any confusion between old and new data and means that users can make decisions based on a complete real-time view of business performance.

For staff who’ve been grappling to manually update spreadsheets and paste that information into reports, document automation is a huge time-saver and allows them to perform more value-added tasks.

Plus, as in almost every other enterprise software application available today, the benefits of generative AI and large language models hasn’t escaped business planning tools. The feature lets users have a conversation with their data and quiz the information using natural language, rather than having to learn any specialist commands.

It’s possible to assign access right down to the level of individual cells within the platform, and security around the system – in terms of who can do what – is fully controlled by the customer.

“The cloud environments are completely separate,” said Petracek. “Each customer has their own box.”

Board’s secret sauce includes a proprietary memory technology that it dubs Hybrid Bitwise Memory Pattern (HBMP), which – according to the firm – enables ten times faster query execution.

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As you would expect, Petracek was reluctant to go into too much detail, but he did reveal that the FP&A software can slice and dice data in different ways so that calculations are available in an instant. Also, the HBMP technology allows Board to scale its solution to match growing data demands.

In terms of deployments, finance teams are often some of the first experience what the software can do. However, as word spreads, organizations will scale up their activity and apply FP&A software across multiple domains – such as manufacturing and other business areas, to address different scenarios.

Having FP&A software is a boost in terms of making it easier for different business units to collaborate. And there are regulatory wins too, as firms can demonstrate that they are on top of their business information and have data to support their claims.

From a usability perspective, web-native FP&A software can be viewed on any device, from a laptop to a smartphone. “People want to consume information in different ways,” Petracek pointed out.

Today, there are thousands of companies that have made the leap from using spreadsheets to dedicated business planning tools. In the case of Board, customers include some very big names such as Coca-Cola, Puma, L’Oréal, KPMG, GSK, BASF, Toyota, KUKA, and Siemens.

Most recently, Euronext – a pan-European stock exchange group with around 1,900 listed issuers and EURO 62 trillion in market capitalization as of Q3 2023 – has chosen to use Board to optimize its financial planning, forecasting, and budgeting.

It speaks to the capability of FP&A software to deliver insights for use cases where spreadsheets would not only struggle, but perhaps fail completely.

The post FP&A software – swapping spreadsheets for SaaS appeared first on TechHQ.

• Contact center AI can make training contact center staff easier and more efficient.
• Using AI analytics, managers can more effectively guide agents.
• There is a thriving ecosystem of contact center AI providers to fit companies’ needs.

If you’ve hopped on a Zoom call lately, you’ll notice how these days, online meeting platforms offer much more than just video telephony. Features such as real-time transcription, sentiment analysis, content summarization, and presenter coaching are useful additions to business meetings. But the technology has much broader potential and is transforming other sectors too. In fact, it’s being used to deliver contact center AI, helping both customers and agents have a smoother, happier day.

Agent guidance and analytics

Providers report that contact center AI can dramatically speed up the resolution of customer queries. For example, Awaken Intelligence finds that having software to guide agents – helping to provide the right response to every call, email, and chat – can cut the time required by 50%.

It’s in everyone’s interest to find the right answers quickly, and having contact center AI tools keep track of events means that callers don’t have to repeat themselves when it’s necessary to bring another agent into the conversation.

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On-screen prompts are valuable in making suggestions to agents based on the information that’s been gathered so far. Real-time agent assist features have become a game-changer in terms of supporting staff and delivering better service to customers.

Other win-win opportunities include using voice biometrics to streamline security screening. Rather than relying on a handful of security questions, contact center AI tools can use a much wider range of signals to provide fraud detection automatically.

Staff are better protected, and genuine customers get the help that they need much more quickly with fewer interruptions.

Contact center AI – scalable and efficient

Contact center agent guidance and analytics have existed for decades. However, what’s different today – thanks to the performance boost given by large language models, which can be further fine-tuned using sandboxed industry-specific data – is how scalable and efficient the process has become.

Getting the right message to customers, faster, not only streamlines operations and allows firms to respond to more calls, emails, and chat messages – it improves customer satisfaction too. And the importance of having satisfied customers cannot be overstated.

Sentiment analysis gives insight into the tone of calls and whether agent emotion is positive, negative, improving, or worsening over time. Contact center managers can zoom out to see how operations are performing as a whole, as well as drill down to remedy individual issues.

Minerva CQ is empowering contact center agents with #AI powered by AWS and NVIDIA. In this new case study, learn how the collaborative AI startup achieved 40% reduction in average call time and scaled to multiregional needs. https://t.co/Ly6sWFFwMC

— Darrin Johnson (@darrinpjohnson) December 3, 2023

What’s more, the broad sentiment categories can be subdivided to pinpoint whether participants were angry, made broken promises, confused, or had to apologize – to just scratch the surface of what contact center AI is capable of.

Visualization tools such as word clouds – showing the most popular topics and phrases – give managers an instant view of conversations between an agent and customer, without having to read through long transcripts.

And when managers do need to look at what was said in more detail, green and red highlights can rapidly reveal positive and negative sections within the text and show influential words in bold.

Training opportunities

The data generated using contact center AI contains a wealth of information on customer likes and dislikes, and companies such as Twilio – which acquired Segment, a data platform a few years back – have shown how this helps firms to better engage with clients.

Analytics can also help staff develop their skills and become better contact center agents. For example, voice analysis tools can report on the time spent talking, listening, speech rate, and occasions when customers and staff were speaking at the same time.

Known as ‘overtalk,’ it’s no surprise to learn that having people speak at the same time is less than ideal. However, capturing these events and advising team members on how to reduce the amount of overtalk is a great strategy for improving the customer experience and making life much less frustrating for agents.

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Having contact center AI identify the most common issues lets operators optimize agent onboarding training and better prepare new staff. AI can be deployed for skills assessment, and to make sure that trainee agents are hitting script objectives.

Also, contact center AI systems make it easier for supervisors to know when to lend a helping hand. Systems can keep track of how active calls are progressing and alert senior team members if a customer is sounding frustrated or whether the tone of a conversation is deteriorating.

Systems give supervisors the option of listening in and messaging advice. Team leaders can also speak to their agents during a call, to offer in-ear coaching tips that help staff resolve issues for themselves.

Contact Center AI – the agent’s friend?

Advances in voice analysis and the capability of AI systems to identify customer intent are making it possible to fully automate common contact center tasks, leaving human agents free to resolve more complex issues.

Re-thinking the front desk

Tech firms such as PolyAI have shown how customer-led conversational platforms can handle restaurant bookings, arrange appointments, and respond to insurance queries, to give just a few examples.

The company’s interactive solutions, which feature realistic-sounding synthetic voices, have already taken more than $7.2 million in revenue through hotel bookings alone, and are a huge time-saver for firms.

Staff who were sat making confirmation calls for a big part of their day can contribute to the business in much more interesting and fulfilling ways.

“When I look at the future and how we are going to engage with customers and what it means for contact centers, I don’t think the role of humans is going to get less,” comments Peter Hinnson – founder of nexxworks and an expert in customer engagement. “I think it’s going to get more intense [and] tools are going to help us to figure out how to be more efficient.”

Contact center AI helps through real-time transcription, call summaries, agent metrics, and in many other ways, but ultimately, only humans can determine whether customer questions have been fully understood and resolved.

Hinnson’s take on the ‘new normal’ is what he dubs the ‘never normal’ – acknowledging how digital technology is enabling a world of constant change. And far from being something that firms should fear, it’s an era of opportunities.

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Smartphones put contact center features in the palm of an agent’s hand. Staff can work from anywhere. And AI can deepen the relationship that organizations have with their customers in ways that would never have been possible in the past.

For example, Jeff Lawson – Twilio’s CEO and co-founder – believes that AI paves the way for every customer to have, in effect, their own employee dedicated to finding them the best product or service, no matter how big the market grows.

Viewed through this lens, contact center AI is all about unlocking potential, and with a range of solutions providers to choose from, there’s plenty that companies can do to get ahead.

The post How contact center AI helps customers and agents appeared first on TechHQ.