Emerging Trends In Handling And Fulfilment For 2024
As a retail business, are you on top of the emerging trends in handling and fulfilment for 2024? For customers, quality goes a lot further than your product alone. From start to finish, how you finesse the buyer journey will encourage brand loyalty and repeat custom. Here are some of the emerging trends in handling and fulfilment for 2024 that will improve your overall service and customer relationships.
1. Focus On Sustainability
Consumer focus is heavily geared toward sustainability, or so the Harvard Business Review tells us. On the surface, this relates to the products being produced. However, as environmental concerns rise, conscious consumers are now looking deeper into the sustainable practices of supply chains.
For that reason, more and more handling and fulfilment services are recognising their responsibility to be environmentally sustainable.
Eco-Friendly Logistics
Across the logistics industry, businesses are meeting the requirements of eco-friendly practices by switching to electric vehicles. Delivery services are also optimising their routes, in a bid to reduce their carbon emissions. Renewable energy resources are being implemented across warehousing facilities.
Showcasing a commitment toward achieving net zero is favourable for businesses when appealing to consumers. Handling and fulfilment services are partnering with their clients to meet their net-zero objectives.
Sustainable Packaging
Across numerous industries, there has been a significant shift away from single-use plastics. At the start of 2024, the UK government outlined new bans and restrictions on single-use plastics.
Handling and fulfilment companies are seen to be opting for biodegradable packaging, recycled materials, or reusable packaging solutions. For consumers, before they even access their goods, packaging provides an initial impression. Efforts to make packaging more sustainable speak volumes to a brand’s commitment to sustainability.
Where plastics are necessary for packaging purposes, plant-based plastics are the go-to choice over single-use. Plant-based plastics are derived from agricultural waste, are biodegradable, and reduce our co-dependency on damaging fossil fuels.
Optimising the size of packaging is also an emerging trend for handling and fulfilment services. With more compact, lightweight packaging solutions, transport and delivery services can fit more goods into their vehicles- again, reducing carbon emissions.
2. Warehouse Automation
There has been a significant surge in 2024, which has seen numerous handling and fulfilment services automating the movement of inventory in and out of warehouses. This comes off the back of the COVID-19 pandemic, wherein human contact needed to be limited for safety reasons.
Warehouse automation lessens the need for labour-intensive activities, human-input errors and manual analysis.
When picturing automation, many will envisage robots or physical automation. While this could be an example, there are other ways in which warehouses are being automated, using software, robots, and AI.
AS/RS Systems
Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS) are an automated technology that allows handling and fulfilment services to buffer, store, and retrieve inventory on demand.
AS/RS systems can now be seen across many warehousing facilities, as they advance the efficiency of operations. Once deployed, this autonomous system will improve the use of warehouse space, ergonomics, product visibility and security, as well as increase inventory storage density and throughput.
AI-Driven Demand Forecasting
AI-driven demand forecasting uses the same technology behind AI and machine learning to analyse extensive amounts of historical data, trends, and consumer buying behaviours. For handling and fulfilment services, this predetermines what stock must be readily available, as well as the locations and times it will be required.
3. Omnichannel Fulfilment Strategies
As the needs and demands of consumers evolve, so does the way we align retail fulfilment. Omnichannel fulfilment strategies is one approach businesses are adopting to guarantee customer satisfaction and continued brand loyalty.
Thanks to the digitalisation of transactions, and most things in modern society, consumer anticipate their purchasing journey to be seamless. From their initial product search to the aftercare and returns process. The simpler and more convenient for them, the better.
Omnichannel fulfilment involves the picking, packing and shipping of orders from various retail facilities for a singular brand. This allows a brand to scatter its revenue avenues, forging a stronger brand image, while maintaining order accuracy and efficiency.
An omnichannel fulfilment strategy must allocate inventory for various stores, sales channels, and online marketplaces, and ensure accurate reporting to prevent overselling and overstocking.
In 2024, the e-commerce market has only gone from strength to strength and is projected to total $6.3 trillion at the year’s close. Omnichannel fulfilment is no longer a strategic route for brands to adopt, as it is now considered vital for growth and profitability.
With a successful omnichannel fulfilment offloaded to a third-party logistics provider, brands can expand into new sales channels, while still easily managing their current inventory and orders from one fulfilment dashboard.
Keep On Top Of The Emerging Trends In Handling And Fulfillment For 2024 With Granby
We hope this blog has got you up to date with the emerging trends in handling and fulfilment for 2024.
Granby offers B2B and B2C order fulfilment solutions that are highly customisable and scalable to a number of recognisable brands. We recognise that keeping on top of trends and customer demands can be challenging, so we ensure our services are flexible. We promise to develop solutions that work best for your business.
Whether you need assistance with POS kitting & collation, order fulfilment & returns handling, pick & pack services, sampling solutions, or brochure fulfilment & membership packs, our dedicated and highly skilled are on hand to help.
If you’re concerned about falling behind on emerging trends in handling and fulfilment for 2024 or would like to partner with Granby, don’t hesitate to contact us today.