Consumer behavior drives change — Midday Market Update (with video)

How warehouses and final-mile logistics are changing to suit the consumer

https://vimeo.com/489541160
Andrew Cox joins Michael Vincent to talk the state of today’s freight market

Headlines

Drivers who haul hemp may see new protections from wrongful arrest. Blockchain technology may provide law enforcement with shared data to quickly identify the legality of the hemp being carried.  

On-time delivery of holiday packages has slipped this season, with FedEx reporting 75% on-time delivery during Cyber Week and UPS reporting 80% on-time delivery. Both companies have seen over a 10% reduction in on-time percentages from this time last year. 

Truck safety groups are lobbying for COVID-19 vaccine distribution to be both safe and efficient, saying lawmakers should not reduce restrictions in order to boost efficiency.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has nominated the first African American chair of the California Air Resources Board to mitigate pollution regulations across the state. 

The Canadian government has awarded FedEx and Innomar Strategies a $70 million contract for delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Warehouses utilize tech to flex 

Karl Siebrecht, co-founder and CEO of FLEXE, joins the show to discuss how warehouses have a changing role in making logistics work. 

FLEXE services large corporations with a software platform to control workers in the warehouse, product being stored and how it’s being moved around the warehouse space. 

Siebrecht says FLEXE services the biggest shippers and Fortune 500 companies across the country, but there is space for all warehouses to use their technology. 

“We think there is demand from the head of the market to the tail of the market,” he says. 

Final-mile logistics also must be flexible

Consumer behaviors have forced final-mile logistics to change as well. That’s something Bill Catania, founder and CEO of OneRail, realized and capitalized on. He started OneRail after an experience as a disgruntled customer at a home improvement store.

He says consumers have high expectations and OneRail capitalizes on the need for dependability in last-mile logistics.

“It’s more about can we be dependable and can we hang our brand on it,” Catania says.

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Kaylee Nix

Kaylee Nix is a meteorologist and reporter for FreightWaves. She joined the company in November of 2020 after spending two years as a broadcast meteorologist for a local television channel in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Kaylee graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 2018 and immediately made the Tennessee Valley her home. Kaylee creates written summaries of FreightWaves live podcasts and cultivates the social media for FreightWaves TV.