Abstract
Consumers have a growing appetite for the convenience, selection and cost of online retail. E-commerce sales grew 44% in 2020 and a Forrester report projects more than 25% of all retail sales to be online by 2024. With demand continuing to rise, logistics operations are under pressure to support expectations for broad selection and fast delivery, while tightly controlling costs.
The warehouse is ground zero for e-commerce logistics, rife with opportunity to boost efficiency and support greater speed and selection, while keeping costs in check. Capitalizing on that opportunity may mean making more efficient use of space to house more inventory or upgrading to more efficient equipment and reconfiguring workflows to boost labor productivity.
The hypothetical scenario presented in this piece is meant to illustrate how changing the power source on electric lift trucks can equip e-commerce warehouses to meet benchmarks for productivity and inventory selection, while keeping costs in check.
