mostly for cross-docking activities.
In an effort to widen its recruiting channels, Gilt, for the first time in its seven-year
history, will perform in-house hiring to augment the work of its outside agencies, Ball
said. It has yet to see the need to offer higher
wages as a mechanism to attract or retain DC
labor, she said.
Gilt employs 400 folks full time in Louisville
year-round. During most of the year, the
ratio of temporary workers to full-timers is
about 35 percent; the ratio will swell to 50 to
60 percent as the company nears the height
of the peak season. Last year, Gilt’s peak fell
on the day after Thanksgiving, which has
become known as “Black Friday” for the
shopping frenzy that occurs on that day. Ball
estimates that 700 full- and part-time workers will be on the job in Louisville at the peak
of its holiday period.
UPS Inc., which plans to hire 95,000 seasonal workers—many at its main global air
hub in Louisville known as “Worldport”—is
so far having no problems attracting applicants, according to Susan L. Rosenberg, a
company spokeswoman. “The application
flow has actually been quite good,” she said
in October. UPS has seasonal workers that
return year after year just for the holiday
period, Rosenberg said. The company has
been successful in hiring returning veterans
for seasonal work, according to Rosenberg. A
portion of those workers transition into full-time jobs with the company, she added. UPS
has also formalized a long-held practice of
reaching out for retirees who might be interested in serving as driver coordinators and
trainers during the peak period, she said.
—Mark Solomon
go figure …
$300 billion
The projected value of international e-commerce by 2018.
SOURCE: PAYPAL
Cautious retailers building in
more cushion for holiday deliveries,
survey finds
Once burned, twice learned.
That could sum up this year’s preholiday attitude of online
retailers. Remembering last year’s season when an avalanche
of late-ordered merchandise gummed up the delivery process,
retailers are building in what they hope to be a sufficient
time cushion this year, according to a survey released in late
October by the National Retail Federation (NRF).
According to research conducted for NRF by Prosper Insights
& Analytics, a consultancy, 78.8 percent of retailers said they
would set their standard shipping deadlines for guaranteed
Christmas delivery to expire at least a week before Dec. 25.
Last year, 73.7 percent set similar deadlines, the survey said.
By contrast, 21. 2 percent said they would set those deadlines to expire on Dec. 19 or later. Last year, that figure was
26. 3 percent. Standard shipping is generally defined as delivery within three to seven days.
Of the 92.3 percent of retailers polled who planned to offer
free standard shipping, 69.1 percent said their guarantee for
Christmas deliveries would expire on or before Dec. 19. A little more than 74 percent had a similar deadline last holiday
season, according to the survey.
About 56 percent of retailers that plan to offer two-day
shipping said their deadlines will expire on Dec. 21. The rest
said their deadlines would expire on Dec. 22. About one out
of five retailers polled will offer a free or upgraded expedited
shipping promotion that will expire on Dec. 23. Half of those
polled said they were comfortable offering next-day deliveries for orders placed as late as Dec. 23.
In a statement, Pam Goodfellow, Prosper’s principal analyst,
said the tighter cut-off dates being set by retailers should con-
vince consumers prone to procrastinating to start exploring
“shipping offers sooner rather than later.”
The survey was divided into two parts, with 55 merchants
participating in the first segment in July, and 42 more in the
September–October segment. About 36 percent of respon-
dents generated annualized online revenue of $250 million
or more. Nearly 53 percent were store-based retailers with
multichannel fulfillment operations.
The 2014 holiday fulfillment and delivery period will come
under heavy scrutiny, with much of the focus on whether
retailers and parcel carriers can avoid the snafus that led
to the late deliveries of thousands of 2013 holiday packages.
FedEx Corp. and UPS Inc. are projecting record holiday traffic.
Retail behemoth Target Corp. is, for the first time, offering
free shipping through Dec. 20 on all items ordered from
its website. And Target’s archrival, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.,
has doubled from last year the number of brick-and-mortar
locations that will be used to ship online merchandise to
consumers.
