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Getting your goods through that last mile of the journey to your customers is the hardest and most expensive part of the trip. And now there’s a growing customer demand that has made it even more troublesome to pull off: same-day delivery expectations.

The holiday shopping season is here, and now is the time when your customer service will show whether it deserves candy or coal in its stocking. Your reputation rides on how your company interacts with your customers, many of whom are probably under the seasonal duress that the holidays heap upon them. Those customers may be cranky, short on time, indecisive, confused — they put your customer service to the ultimate test. 

It used to be that Black Friday was the day of days for retail sales. Holiday revenue — and annual receipts for that matter — all hinged on luring huge crowds into stores on Black Friday. But the past few years haven’t been kind to Black Friday in-store sales, including this year. The number of people who went to stores to start their holiday shopping slid downward once again. 

What’s the biggest challenge your supply chain faces? If it’s keeping pace with your customers’ ever-changing demands for faster/cheaper/better delivery service, you are not alone. It’s an issue that’s been topping many of the supply chain surveys of 2016. 

There are a few key reasons delivery service can be challenging. We’ll focus on two big ones in this blog — the last-mile delivery challenge and the cost/convenience factor.  

Even if your pricing is competitive, you may be losing customers to the competition because they’re doing these things right.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about one of the most dynamic new trends in e-commerce: cross-channel sales. This is the trend toward consumers selecting and buying their items online and picking them up at a physical location, be it a retail store or distribution center.

The business of retail sales is changing fast. Study after study documents the meteoric rise of e-commerce, a sales phenomenon that is growing roughly four times faster than retail sales overall. By the end of this year, retail sales through online channels are expected to grow to $1.9 trillion worldwide, a 23% increase over last year’s figures.

It's the holiday sales season, and, for retail e-commerce sellers, that means the two most lucrative months of business are here.

E-commerce has been on the rise for years. And now, for the first time ever, research shows that shoppers prefer to purchase online rather than in stores.

But that hasn’t eliminated businesses’ need for a physical location entirely. In fact, along with the popularity of online shopping, another trend has emerged that is forcing companies to rethink their supply chain and inventory strategies: the cross-channel shopper.

Are you delivering when it comes to customer service? And not just as compared to your direct competitors. A recent Accenture study found that customers compare and contrast their digital shopping experiences — even those that offer totally different products or services.

That means the bar has been set by e-commerce giants like Amazon and Zappos, who are known for their customer service. These companies have grown customer expectations. Customers now expect, above all, two things: