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Shipium is proving to be an idea that ecommerce companies want. Due to the explosion of ecommerce over the last year, it's proving to be an idea they need, too.

Ecommerce operators have a bad habit of falling into "supply-side" thinking. Forecasting demand has been figured out by someone else, they think, with merchandise ordered and ready to be placed into fulfillment centers. Their job then becomes a linear planning exercise going from start to finish in increasingly smaller units. The merchandise goes from container to truck to pallet to box to door step. This is push-based thinking. It's the idea that the job is efficiently and effectively pushing the flow of goods from beginning to end. One of the most powerful ideas both Amazon and Zulily adopted was the idea of pull-based supply chain thinking. Start from the end goal, and work backwards. Efficient and effective planning in reverse order is where actual stepwise optimizations can be found.

Ecommerce fulfillment is ultimately a collection of decisions being made. Some are made simultaneously while others are made sequentially. Almost all are logical decisions. If you want to improve your ecommerce fulfillment process, you need to make better decisions. But what constitutes a "better" decision?

Sometimes it seems like the behemoths of Amazon and Walmart are using black magic to promote free and fast shipping. But it's not magic. It's mostly sophisticated software combined with learned principles.

Over the last 12 months, we've had the chance to speak with hundreds of smart people working hard in the ecommerce industry (514, to be exact). We spoke to industry veterans like Arthur Valdez, Jr. Target's Chief Supply Chain Officer and jammed with founders of rising DTC brands who are thinking about fulfillment in a modern way like Woody Hambrecht of Haus. The full spectrum, each as engaging and hard working as the other. Patterns emerged that we could see with increasing clarity. I want to share these observations with you.

DTC and ecommerce companies can dramatically improve their businesses by understanding how their supply chains impact customer experiences in a way that determines winners and losers.

A little over a week ago we ran a study in conjunction with SurveyMonkey across US residents to understand how the pandemic has impacted online shopping behavior.

While not the primary concern relative to the health and safety of family and colleagues, one perspective all professionals should take soon is an evaluation of how to adjust to future realities. The world will return to normal at some point soon and we will all get back to thinking about our customers, partners and businesses. Major moments of uncertainty and volatility are often the best of times to think about your business and develop plans for when normalcy returns. Focus on stepwise improvements while the going is tough, so when things turn around, the tough can get going stronger than before.

Traditional ecommerce customer experience priorities, like browsing products or talking to customer service, don’t include the idea of delivery experience. The notion of delivery being a part of the buying experience was conceptual but never real because it was hard to measure, which meant it was hard to improve, which meant it was hard to market to customers. So why care about it?