Material Handling Product News and MaterialHandling247.com names AutoStore’s Black Line as a winner of its Reader’s Choice Product of the Year award in the Automated Storage category.

This award honors the achievements of companies for advances in materials handling systems and equipment within manufacturing, distribution centers and warehouses. Readers decided the winners with over 3,750 votes cast.

Best Buy’s Holiday Game Plan - Investing in Shipping and Logistics w/ AutoStore Robotic Technology

"For the handling of small parts AutoStore is in our opinion the best solution available on the market"

—Helmut Lindinger, managing partner of the H. Gautzsch group of companies in Bavaria

The company behind the eMax, Centrepoint, Home Centre and Babyshop brands is currently commissioning a 43 metre, high-bay warehouse capable of handling 300 million items a year. It has the capacity to house up to 2.2 million cartons and 250,000 garments on hangars, and will handle them using 1,300 'robotic multi-shuttles' 94 lifts and 28 workstations.

Ocado could soon launch a rapid response delivery service in the US to take on fast-growing rivals such as Uber Eats and American technology start-up Takeoff. It would be similar to the company’s fledgling Zoom service, currently being tested in West London, which delivers to the door in less than an hour.

Countdown is planing a new grocery store concept. Inside, the store would look similar to a regular supermarket, but bigger and without the normal shop-fit out. It would have a produce area, a bakery and deli, grocery aisles and a chilled food section. But there would be no customers.

We've seen massive demand for our online shopping services over the last few years. In the last quarter alone we've had 38 per cent growth - Sally Copland - Countdown digital general manager

E-commerce has triggered a fundamental shift in the retail industry, leading to the near collapse of traditional bricks and mortar retailing which is having a marked impact on traditional shopping malls.

Industry experts are reporting the following:

• 2019 global online retail sales to reach US$3.5 trillion, representing an 18% increase over 2018.

• Online retail sales will penetrate what were thought to be relatively impenetrable market segments, including groceries, fresh food, beverages and discount dollar items.

• Online grocery sales to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 13% annually between now and the end of 2024.

• U.S. online fresh food, beverage and grocery sales will expand by 18% for 2019.

• Groceries and fresh food represent an untapped marker for e-commerce retailers, with approximately 8% of all fresh food and grocery sales being completed online.

Oxford Properties Group unveiled plans to develop Canada’s first large bay multi-level industrial property in British Columbia. Comprising 707,000 square feet over two levels, the project will be built at Oxford’s Riverbend Business Park located in Burnaby, a suburb 13 miles east of downtown Vancouver.

Many store deliveries are picked in singles, adding cost and complexity to all parts of the supply chain. As a result, its supply chain program in clothing will look to improve understanding and its use of demand and fulfillment replenishment systems and better track stock from source to shelf.

An unearthed video from 1997 shows a young Jeff Bezos explaining why he built Amazon's empire on books. In the video, Bezos explains why he picked books as the first product to be sold on Amazon. He made a list of 20 products he could sell online and landed on books because there was greater choice than in any of the other categories.

Amazon is wading further into the physical retail world as it confirmed plans to open a different type of grocery store in 2020. Reports earlier this year suggested Amazon was working on a low-cost grocery format as an alternative to Whole Foods and Amazon Go

According to Alibaba, more than 50.7 billion parcels were distributed by e-commerce companies in the nation last year.