Shopify COO Harley Finkelstein discussed the latest tools the company has developed to help businesses set up online storefronts.

The Spanish retailer gives a rare look inside its new logistics centre that will speed up deliveries and fulfilment.

A fire early Friday destroyed a Southern California distribution facility that was used to ship items to Amazon customers. Authorities said employees got out and there were no reports of injuries.

A half-dozen fire departments were unable to stop flames from destroying the sprawling structure in Redlands, about 60 miles (96 kilometers) east of Los Angeles. The nearby Interstate 10 freeway was shut down temporarily as flames shot high into the air.

The facility operated by the global logistics and supply chain company Kuehne & Nagel was dedicated to servicing Amazon. Business and customer orders will be fulfilled from other sites, spokesman Dominique Nadelhofer said in an email.

The new facility in the West will measure 300,000 square feet, the new facility in the Pacific Northwest will measure 200,000 square feet, and the facility in the Great Lakes region will measure 150,000 square feet. The varying sizes demonstrate the flexibility of the Ocado fulfillment ecosystem to best serve the respective markets. When operational, the facilities will collectively create more than 1,000 new jobs, with the potential for hundreds of additional career opportunities. The exact locations of the new facilities will soon be announced.

“Consumers will retain their interest in curbside pickup,” said Elankumaran. “They will also be trying out delivery. Adding capacity to existing stores is challenging, so grocery retailers should consider moving to dark stores that combine two to three stores of online demand, or moving to a warehouse altogether. To maximize their ability to fulfill online orders from stores, grocers should offer longer delivery windows, larger delivery radiuses, and better prediction on inventory.”

Tesla has quietly made a previously unreported acquisition of a firm specialized in automated manufacturing to support the design of new.

In recent years, Ocado has pivoted away from being an online grocery retailer to a provider of e-commerce and fulfilment technology for other grocery retailers. Ocado describes itself as a ‘technology-led, global, software and robotics platform business, with a strong retail heritage’.

North Carolina-based Coca-Cola Consolidated Inc. announced Monday that it will start construction on a 400,000-square-foot distribution center and automated warehouse in Whitestown’s Fishback Creek Business Park later this month.

Public health officials in Clark County, Washington, have identified 106 cases of Covid-19 connected to an outbreak at the Firestone Pacific Foods facility in Vancouver.

Delivery robotic startup, Nuro Partners, has announced a partnership with CVS Pharmacy to test prescription deliveries in the Houston market. As part of the pilot, customers in three different zip codes in Houston can order prescriptions and other items via the CVS Pharmacy app or website, select the autonomous delivery option and confirm their identity to retrieve their order.

Perhaps, it is time for retailers to consider moving away from a centralized fulfillment model that often comes with high distribution costs and longer delivery times. Right now, this isn’t ideal for customers accustomed to receiving their orders within hours, not days — particularly when those orders include perishable foods. A centralized model is also more difficult to scale when peaks occur.

AWG is the nation’s largest cooperative food wholesaler to independently-owned supermarkets, serving more than 1,100 member companies and more than 3,000 locations throughout 28 states from eight full-line wholesale divisions. AWG is relocating operations from Southaven and Memphis to Hernando, where the company is constructing a 918,000-square-foot automated distribution facility. The Hernando facility will have a total of 590 employees.

Shoppers in Milton Keynes, about 50 miles north west of London, have been sending back thank-you notes in the robots. A small army of 80 or so delivery robots, operated by Estonian company Starship, kept steadfastly trundling through the streets, taking groceries to homes without human contact needed.

In the detailed description section of the patent, its author explains that the system at large aims to improve “trust through an enterprise services platform that allows parties to map their global supply chains.” The tracking solution would render the position of the items moving along the supply chain from production to the end user visible. The system described in the document may also allow participants such as manufacturers, couriers, distributors, end users, and even secondary users to add events to the ledger after registering with a certification authority. The certification authority could also apply rules for testing and certification such as ensuring item quality through the supply chain or requiring certain certification steps before the item can continue moving forward.

Transportation and logistics company Toll Group operates a network of 1,200 sites across 50 countries, covering road, rail, sea, air, and warehousing.

Following a number of acquisitions, Toll found itself in a position where it had multiple IT systems that didn't talk to one another and no business directive to stop anyone from purchasing anything IT-related.

The 3.2 billion AED ($870 million) development, adjacent to Dubai International Airport, is billed as the first of its kind in the region. The site is a joint venture between two state-owned enterprises -- the Dubai Airport Freezone Authority (DAFZA) and property firm Wasl -- and the developers say the coronavirus pandemic has spurred rather than stalled their progress.