Datex Blog 

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, it occurred at a precarious moment in time.  Cybersecurity threats were ramping up.  Tensions had mounted across the world due to trade policy uncertainty and the imposition of U.S. tariffs.  Truck driver and warehouse labor...

Walgreens Delivers in Two Hours or Less Aiming to capitalize on the e-commerce craze, Walgreens recently announced that it launched two-hour delivery service nationwide.  Walgreens consumers can now order from an inventory of 24,000 items for quick delivery without an...

Big Box Distribution Centers Booming Industrial real estate firm CBRE evaluated the current state of the warehouse industry, specifically “big box” distribution centers, 200k square feet or larger in size.  According to CBRE, 2020 was the strongest year on record for...

Are 24/7 Operations on the Horizon for the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach? With West Coast ports faced with congestion stalling operations at multiple points for incoming cargo, the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles are starting to consider moving to 24/7...

Is Vertical Farming a Potential Solution to Food Supply Chain Problems?  Perhaps last year’s global pandemic did humanity a favor by bringing to light problems in the global food supply chain.  From inefficiencies to unreliable methods of transporting food goods from...

Warehouse Rents Rising in Response to Supply Shortage The warehousing industry is roaring forward in 2021.  With the lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the growth of omnichannel e-commerce was tremendous.  This led to the need for more warehouses,...

Target Ups the Ante, Enhancing Inclusion of More Black-Owned Businesses As retailers and brands consider potential action to help advance the issue of racial equality and opportunity for Black-owned businesses, Target has announced new commitments to the cause....

3 Bad Brand Experiences?  Consumers Will Likely Abandon You Did you know that approximately 73% of consumers will abandon a brand after only three or fewer customer service experiences?  A recent Coveo report provided to Retail Dive regarding a survey of 1988...

1. The Need to Keep More Inventory on Hand Expanded the Use of Safety Stock.    For most manufacturers, the trend pre-pandemic was to adopt just-in-time manufacturing practices to keep inventory costs lower.  This also helped warehouses to better utilize space.  With...

DHL Pilots Drive-Up Mobile Pop-Up Retail Store in Response to Social Distancing Concerns  The global COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to numerous innovations.  Industry leader DHL announced recently that it had opened a 2,200 cubic foot drive up mobile pop-up retail...

CPG Relies on Favored Tool During COVID-19 Pandemic:  SKU Rationalization Consumer tastes have changed. During the COVID pandemic, when much of the population was locked down, snacking became common.  These increasing habits lead to issues in servicing the wide...

Need for E-Commerce Professionals Escalates In the LinkedIn’s Jobs on the Rise report, frontline e-commerce roles grew by approximately 73% between April and October 2020.  This is the highest year-over-year growth period on record.  As of January 15th, 2021, there...

GM Launches BrightDrop, Electric First-to-Last Mile Products, Software and Services An innovative concept for “electrifying” the delivery side of e-commerce D2C deliveries recently was announced by General Motors.  GM has debuted the announcement of its new...

Not sure if you heard, but frozen foods are at the height of their popularity these days.  At first, it seemed like a fluke.  Grocery chains were reporting that most of their frozen food products were cleared out when the lockdown was initially announced.  The trend...

American Trucking Industry Braces for Year of Transition With the global coronavirus pandemic continuing to rage on, experts anticipate that what may have started out as a temporary fix may now become established patterns.  Consumers have become comfortable ordering...

2020 Holiday Shipping Gridlock Armageddon Online shopping demand has finally caught up with the shipping carriers.  ShipMatrix, a software solutions company which provides shipping tracking, recently revealed the extent of holiday package shipping gridlock and it was...

Did you know that the U.S. is the largest importer of face masks, eye protective gear and medical gloves in the world?  Because of this, the United States is heavily dependent upon the global supply chain.  When the coronavirus outbreak first occurred in early 2020,...

Food and Bev Industry Groups Lobby for COVID-19 Vaccine Priority Out of concern for essential workers, representatives from fifteen food, beverage and CPG industry trade groups lobbied both President Trump and President-elect Joe Biden in mid-November to prioritize...

7-Eleven Sails Ahead with Small Basket Delivery Did you know that 7-Eleven offers delivery via seven different third-party services including Instacart, Uber Eats, Postmates, DoorDah and Grubhub?  7-Eleven is now able to offer delivery covering 90% of its service...

Why Test?  What is the COVID-19 Testing Strategy? Early in the pandemic, the scientific community advised that COVID-19 testing would be instrumental in getting the spread of the coronavirus under control.  The strategy of imposing lockdowns was designed to stall for...