Morning Brew - ☕️ Busy roads

Trucking woes ahead of the holidays.
Morning Brew October 15, 2021

Retail Brew

Route

Happy Friday. Talk of “supply chains” during earnings calls is hitting record highs. Same goes for our source calls.

In today’s edition:

  • Trucking woes ahead of the holidays
  • DTC athleisure brand Vuori wants more stores
  • Shopify pushes ahead as a one-stop shop

—Jeena Sharma, Julia Gray, Katishi Maake

LABOR

Calling shotgun

Truck platoon

Francis Scialabba

Retailers can’t catch a break ahead of the holidays. Not only is the US running out of just about everything, but even when goods come in, there aren’t enough drivers to get them where they need to go.

It’s a problem that was in the making prior to the pandemic. But supply-chain issues amid the busiest time of the retail year have put things into overdrive. In 2018, the trucking industry was short by 60,800 drivers, and the American Trucking Association predicts that number will go up to 100,000 by 2023.

What happened? Drivers are tired, logistics experts told us. Port closures across the US and China, for example, have created substantial backlogs at customs, forcing truckers to make multiple long-distance trips in a single day.

“They’ve all been asked to do so much during the last 18 months,” Piyush Golia, president of PCA Group, a global distribution company, told Retail Brew. “A sense of fatigue is stepping in between all the deliveries, whether it’s a small parcel or even long.”

Winding up

Health and safety concerns have emerged as another major factor as the Delta variant surges across the country, explained Dave Gilbertson, chief customer officer at UKG, a workforce management company.

“It will take a high degree of comfort in an employer’s healthcare and workplace safety practices among folks waiting on the sidelines before they are ready to re-enter the workforce,” he said. “They don’t want to get sick when they come to work.”

Training new drivers can take “at least 12 to 18 months,” per Gilbertson, so there’s no easy solution. “These are not folks you can just hire off the street.”

  • For companies that want to retain their existing driver workforce, he said they should prepare to offer perks like flexible schedules.

Final countdown: As for where things stand now, well...retailers are racing to fill both physical (and virtual) shelves ahead of the holidays.

One last-ditch effort to get stuff on time is a “shared truckload,” suggested Chris Pickett, chief strategy officer at Flock Freight—which essentially enables different companies to share trailer space in a single full truckload. That can help retailers “expedite transit times” and potentially “outmaneuver the competition,” he said, thus capitalizing on the spending that’s already happening.

The biggest takeaway, though: Whatever solutions retailers are thinking about now...they should have been done yesterday.

Click here to read more on the long road ahead this holiday season—and beyond.—JS

        

FUNDING

What’s in store

What’s in store

Vuori

The athleisure boom is giving way to some big winners. This week, DTC activewear company Vuori nabbed $400 million in funding from SoftBank Vision Fund 2, valuing it at $4 billion. And they’re taking that $$$ on the road and straight to the store. (Once a rare move for DTC brands, physical retail has become a clear value add.)

Vuori will use the fresh funding to take its biz international, expanding through Europe and Asia Pacific in 2022, as well as more brick-and-mortar in the US. The company plans on opening 100 additional stores over the next five years.

  • The success has been written in the stars for a while now. Vuori reached profitability in 2017, just two years after its inception.

Store story: “On top of being a place to see, feel, try on, and learn about our latest and greatest product, we like to think of all of our stores as community hubs,” Nikki Sakelliou, VP of marketing, told Retail Brew. Pre-pandemic, the brand would host in-store events like workout classes to engage consumers.

But Vuori doesn’t want its bold brick-and-mortar expansion to overshadow its bread and butter. “We are firm believers in the in-person shopping experience, but also know that e-commerce will always be a vital part of our business,” Sakelliou said. “We recognize a ton of value in making sure Vuori is a true, omnichannel business that customers can discover and enjoy in a variety of different ways.”—JG

        

TOGETHER WITH ROUTE

Holiday Season Without the Hassle

Route

What’s more satisfying than the first sip of eggnog (yes, we’re team eggnog) as you ring in the holiday season? 

Sippin’ some sweet eggnog while retaining customers and increasing profits with Route. It’s the customer experience platform that’s quick and easy to install on your online store and gives your customers a post-purchase experience that’s better than whatever they’ll get from the in-laws this season. 

Because the only thing more stressful than defending our love of eggnog is dealing with supply-chain issues, shipping issues, staffing issues, and code freezes as you gear up for the holidays.  

Route can help your business stand out and decrease customer support costs with their modern visual tracking and premium order protection. 

Start providing a better customer experience with Route. Book your demo today.

E-COMM

Seamless transition

Seamless transition

Francis Scialabba

Shopify is forging ahead on its quest to be a one-stop shop for its merchants.

Yesterday, the Canadian e-commerce giant introduced an enterprise resource planning (ERP) program to its app.

  • Shopify is teaming up with Microsoft and Oracle, among others, to consolidate merchants’ commerce operations into one database that tracks inventory, products, orders, and customer info.
  • Previously, merchants used third-party apps to connect Shopify to their ERP tools.

One of the main benefits? Saving time and money, of course.

“With [fewer] applications needed to run their businesses, merchants can introduce more automation, making their operations more efficient,” Shopify noted in a release.

All together now: The e-comm platform has been introducing new perks of late—including expanding one-click checkout to Facebook and Google, as well as rolling out a buy now, pay later option through Affirm.

In short: Shopify wants to be everything a merchant could ever need. President Harley Finkelstein reiterated as much during a July earnings call.

  • “We want to be the most important piece of software that our merchants use. We are that centralized operating system,” he said.—KM
        

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

  • Retail sales, in a surprise, rose 0.7% in September, per the Census Bureau.
  • Macy’s is being pushed to spin off its e-comm biz by Jana Partners, an activist investment firm that’s now taken a stake in the retailer.
  • Saks Off Fifth has increased its minimum wage to $15/hour for all its store workers in North America.
  • Lulu’s, a fast-fashion company, is the latest online retailer that’s filed to go public.
  • McDonald’s will finally test its McPlant burger, created with Beyond Meat, in the US.

SPONSORED BY MANYCHAT

ManyChat

What happens over Instagram DM...Goes into this diary. It was written by ManyChat—the automated tool today’s brands use to supercharge their Instagram marketing. You can get the juicy (and hilarious) deets of what goes on in the mind of an Instagram DM extraordinaire when you scroll through the full diary here

SWAPPING SKUS

Today’s top retail reads.

Trending: The manicure industry has to hand it to nail art. (Business of Fashion)

On the inside: An in-depth investigation into how Amazon pushed its own products in India. (Reuters)

Shape-shifters: Mannequins are increasingly reflecting the real world. That can be a loyalty play for brands. (Retail Dive)

In case you missed it: Shopify’s Commerce+ event is now on demand. Enjoy unfiltered convos from industry makers like Jimmy Butler, Mel Marsden, Jon Wexler, and more as they discuss the future of commerce. Btw, it’s free. Watch here.*

*This is sponsored advertising content.

FRIEND OR FAUX?

Three of the stories below are real...and one is most definitely not. Can you spot the fake?

  1. William Shatner took Star Trek toys that Jeff Bezos made himself to space.
  2. Heinz is selling a “Tomato Blood” costume kit that includes a bottle of its special-edition Halloween ketchup, makeup brushes, and vampire teeth.
  3. Bounty is rolling out a line of eggnog-scented paper towels for the holidays.
  4. Burger King Korea introduced a new menu—for dogs.

Keep reading for the answer.

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FRIEND OR FAUX? ANSWER

Nope, that eggnog smell is still relegated to the real thing (or a candle).

Written by Jeena Sharma, Julia Gray, and Katishi Maake

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