Category: News

You can’t get through a workday without hearing the word “disruption.” While business is ever-changing, we’ve all seen how the rate of change since early 2020 has disrupted and accelerated the evolution of business. Let’s explore three of the most prevalent disruptions that all companies throughout the supply chain must face and overcome.

The Need to Improve All Human and Automated Labor

People will always be the core of every company’s success. The past two years have taught us the importance of labor retention. For long-term success with your company’s talent, you must offer competitive wages and enhanced benefits, as well as a strong culture and work environment to take care of your permanent employees and ensure high retention rates.

And the continued growth of robotics and automation will provide a key supplement to your labor to help boost overall productivity and efficiency. No longer solely for the domain of large companies, the price of robots for distribution centers and warehouses of all sizes can start under $10,000 for some models. Advancing artificial intelligence, lowering replacement part costs, and other factors have contributed to making robotics a near-term cost-effective option.

The prevalence of more lower-cost robotic options has caused the recent surge in sales. The Association for Advancing Automation reported that the North American industrial robotics market had a 37% increase in units sold during the third quarter of 2021, with the food and consumer goods segment seeing a 43% increase. In addition, warehousing is one of the segments that A3 President Jeff Burnstein noted is an “emerging” market for robotics.

Retail operations also have high robotic adoption rates, taking advantage of benefits such as better cube utilization and improved facility redundancy.

Automation also saves time. In non-automated warehouses that approach one million square feet, up to 30% of employees’ time is spent simply traveling between work areas within the facility to do their job. Retail, health care, and high-tech and other industries that have incorporated robots for picking and taking items to packing locations use what’s called a “goods-to-person” application, where people finish the process. This approach streamlines the overall logistics process.

And those investments in robots and automation are paying off for many. For example, in Brazil, Dafiti Group’s LEAP 581,250 square-foot (54,000 square-meter) fashion and lifestyle warehouse for e-commerce operations has seen great process improvement by adding automation and the software to run it. For the automotive portion and its 500,000 SKUs, approximately 300 robots are incorporated into its automation system, which has made process picking time three times faster while increasing throughput per hour by 400%.

Sustainability Will Be Key

Consumers’ awareness of and concern about social issues, driven in large part by Generation Z, is spurring a focus on sustainability in every business; it’s no longer just a “nice to have” aspect.

An Oxford Economics survey found that 73% of consumer products executives have sustainability as a “major concern or top-of-mind at all stages of the supply chain process from planning, design, and R&D, through manufacturing, logistics/delivery, and product maintenance – far more than the total from all industries,” according to a Forbes contributor.

For a consumer focus, sustainable packaging is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 10.3% in the US through 2027 to top $305.31 billion, says Market Research Future. The industries driving this growth are expected to be in food & beverage packaging, personal care, and medicines.

Warehouse design is another area where companies can be sustainable, as energy costs often account for 15% of the operating budget. Renewable energy can help minimize those costs and boost building efficiency, such as by installing solar panels on roofs and using renewables for heating and even powering forklift trucks. Upgrading lighting to more efficient LED bulbs also is recommended.

Adding Virtual to Your Digital Transformation

While digital transformation is not new to the supply chain, many are still struggling to integrate their warehouse management and other legacy systems with current technologies to offer true end-to-end visibility for real-time decision-making.

Today’s digital supply systems need to focus on customers and be flexible to anticipate – let alone react to – changing consumer habits, government regulations, and other ongoing disruptions. A lot of this flexibility will come from having a WMS that integrates with cloud technology.

Your digital supply chain system must also be adaptable to the coming virtual realm: the metaverse. Many may simply view the metaverse as nothing more than an immersive, 3D gaming opportunity. However, metaverse technologies – transforming physical worlds into digital, virtual ones – will offer 3D representations of how products are produced, maintained and, distributed, sold, and delivered.

Rather than traveling for meetings or waiting your turn for quotes and input into a manufacturer’s new product, you will meet virtually directly with your upstream and downstream supply chain collaborators.

The metaverse will ensure trust and transparency among all stakeholders as they will be able to collaborate and be aware of need-to-know details such as lead times, transit times, any shipping delays, and even real-time shipping costs.

And, for that next warehouse distribution center you need to build to accommodate growth, the 3D metaverse will enable more efficient design, with collaboration from internal employees, sustainability, logistics, and other key groups. The metaverse will enable you to “build” your new center in an immersive 3D model before ever breaking real dirt.

If recent years have taught us anything, it is that change is constant. But change is also exciting and offers fertile ground for innovation and the reminder that each of our own successes is dependent upon the need for teamwork up and down the supply chain. After all, a well-oiled supply chain will ensure your long-term success. And that is the only way we can disrupt the forthcoming disruptions.

Article written by Brendan Heegan

Brendan Heegan is the Founder of Boxzooka Fulfillment. He has over 20 years of experience in transportation and 3PL distribution. Brendan started his career in logistics with Airborne Express, rising through the ranks from sales in New York City’s Fashion District to directing international trade lanes for DHL Express between the US, Europe, Mexico, and Canada. In 2014, he founded Boxzooka, a technology-focused 3PL specializing in online apparel and wholesale consumer product distribution, with a top-tier warehouse management system it also licenses. Brendan started Boxzooka because he saw a need for better solutions to solve the complex problems faced by online and retail sellers. 

This article originally appeared in the May/June, 2022 issue of PARCEL.

DHL is adding over 10,000 permanent and temporary jobs

(Maxim)

DHL mirrored moves by rivals FedEx and UPS in upping its holiday workforce and expanding operations in preparation for an onslaught of online holiday orders that could tax shipping networks and postpone deliveries.

With the coronavirus pandemic keeping droves of Americans out of stores, online shopping is projected to surpass $189 billion over the next two months, up 33% from 2019. That equals two years’ worth of holiday e-commerce sales growth shoved into one season.

One way DHL is trying to handle this unprecedented demand is by adding over 10,000 permanent and temporary jobs to its workforce, the company said. The $65-billion logistics company is also adding six new facilities nationwide dedicated to filling e-commerce orders as well as deploying additional planes and delivery vehicles.

The move mimics efforts by FedEx and UPS, which have invested heavily into their workforces to prep for the holiday season.

In early September, FedEx confirmed to FOX Business that it was planning to hire as many as 70,000 seasonal workers as it braces for a tsunami of a shipping season. That’s a 27% increase from the 55,000 hired last year.

Raj Subramaniam, president and chief operating officer of FedEx, projected that the upcoming season will be “unprecedented.” Aside from hiring, he told FOX Business that the company would also accelerate “FedEx Ground’s seven-day-a-week residential delivery” to meet the “unprecedented” demand.

Likewise, UPS also announced the company would be upping its workforce by more than 100,000 seasonal employees in gearing up for what it claimed will be a “record peak holiday season.”

“We’re preparing for a record peak holiday season,” UPS chief human resource officer Charlene Thomas said in an earlier statement. The company projected the “annual increase in package volume” would last through January 2021.

Unfortunately, experts fear their efforts – which traditionally help alleviate the strain on supply chains – won’t be enough this year.

“Upping the workforce this year will likely not be as helpful in years past due to the extreme surge in volume expected this year that will bottleneck their facilities, trucks, and aircraft capacity,” Brendan Heegan, founder of logistics and fulfillment warehouse Boxzooka.com, told FOX Business.

Heegan noted that companies were also facing a challenge of recruiting due to the “extended supplemental unemployment benefits keeping folks out of the workforce” longer.

This year, between Black Friday and all of Cyber Week, Heegan predicts that companies such as FedEx and UPS will face more than two times the typical daily volumes.

“This volume will compound over those days and create a severe backlog,” he said. “Both UPS and FedEx were heard to be capping the volume they would agree to handle for their larger customers, but as a whole across their total demand, this will not alleviate the problem … especially when there’s essentially nowhere else to go to ship your packages.”

Satish Jindel, the president of ShipMatrix, which analyzes shipping package data, says the biggest hurdle will be between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Jindel predicts 7 million packages a day could face delays between the two holidays. That’s because he’s expecting a total shipping capacity for the industry to be 79.1 million parcels a day during the 34-day period, with 86.3 million packages looking for space. Last year, total capacity was 65.3 million packages, with demand at 67.9 million packages a day.

Article Written By: Daniella Genovese for Fox Business.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

At Boxzooka, CEO Brendan Heegan has grown his company by 3,097% over the last three years, fitting into a space where he’s going up against the Fulfillment by Amazon service that the giant online retailer offers to third-party merchants selling on its site.

The company was 119th on this year’s list. In 2019, it wasn’t on the list at all.

“The beauty of what we do is that none of our clients sell on Amazon and most of them would never think of it,” believing that using their own websites and acting as a third-party seller is “beneath them.” But they need a company to outsource the fulfillment activities for their sales, and that’s where Boxzooka comes in.

The roughly $20 million business began in 2014 just providing software for retailers bringing in imported goods. But once in place, it became a natural progression to provide other fulfillment services, eventually leading Boxzooka to brick-and-mortar space in New Jersey, where the company is based, as well as the West Coast and Pennsylvania.

Boxzooka has about 60 employees but Heegan said temporary employees can add another 100 to the workforce at any given time.

Boxzooka’s list of customers does contain what Heegan said were “a lot of fashion clients,” with fashion overall not performing well during the pandemic. “Some of them have gone up and some have gone down, but we’ve just been pretty stable and even-keeled through the pandemic.”

The company got into fashion early in its tenure because “not every 3PL is good at it, and we’re excellent at it.” But he added Boxzooka doesn’t want to be “pigeonholed” in that field and has been diversifying.

Article written by John Kingston of Freight Waves.

Read the full article here.

Entrepreneurship is a key ingredient for transforming our lives, disrupting entire industries, and reinventing economies. We couldn’t be happier for Brendan Heegan, CEO of Boxzooka, to be recognized as a finalist for the Entrepreneur Of The Year® 2020 New Jersey Award. As the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs, Entrepreneur Of The Year has been at the forefront of identifying game-changing business leaders for more than three decades. The program has honored the inspirational leadership of such entrepreneurs as Howard Schultz of Starbucks Corporation; Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner of LinkedIn Corporation; and Kendra Scott of Kendra Scott LLC.

Read more about the program here.

“Inc.’s annual ranking of the top American companies is back, and 132 from New Jersey made it onto the list.

The New York City-based business magazine released Wednesday the Inc. 5000, an annual ranking of the 5,000 fastest-growing private businesses in the United States. Companies were ranked by their percentage growth in revenue over three years (2016-2019).

Of the 132 businesses in the Garden State, two made it into the Top 100, and five made it into the Top 200. They span industries including advertising, marketing, engineering, logistics, IT, and more. There were also four more companies on the list when compared to last year.”

“Boxzooka came in third, ranking No. 119 overall. The Secaucus-based international e-commerce and fulfillment company had a three-year growth rate of 3,097%.”

Click here to read the full article.

Article written by: Emily Bader

Aug 12, 2020, at 12:14 pm

Boxzooka Fulfillment & Global Ecommerce made the 2020 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America! Our official rank is 119 with an impressive growth rate of 3097.06%.

Read the full article here.

Inc. Magazine Unveils Its Annual List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies—the Inc. 5000

Boxzooka Ranks No. 119 on the 2020 Inc. 5000 For the First Year With Three-Year Revenue Growth of 3097 Percent

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NEW YORK, August 12, 2020 – Inc. magazine today revealed that Boxzooka is No. 119 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economy’s most dynamic segment—its independent small businesses. Intuit, Zappos, Under Armour, Microsoft, Patagonia, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

“We are thrilled to be recognized by Inc.,” explains CEO Brendan Heegan.  “As we strive to do the best for our clients, especially in the current unprecedented times, we know that our growth is owed to the continued success of our clients.  We aim to continue to work alongside some of the best brands, and we appreciate Inc.’s stamp of approval.”n

Not only have the companies on the 2020 Inc. 5000 been very competitive within their markets, but the list as a whole shows staggering growth compared with prior lists as well. The 2020 Inc. 5000 achieved an incredible three-year average growth of over 500 percent and a median rate of 165 percent. The Inc. 5000’s aggregate revenue was $209 billion in 2019, accounting for over 1 million jobs over the past three years.n

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at www.inc.com/inc5000. The top 500 companies are also being featured in the September issue of Inc., available on newsstands on August 12.

“The companies on this year’s Inc. 5000 come from nearly every realm of business,” says Inc. editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk. “From health and software to media and hospitality, the 2020 list proves that no matter the sector, incredible growth is based on the foundations of tenacity and opportunism.”n

The annual Inc. 5000 event honoring the companies on the list will be held virtually from October 23 to 27, 2020. As always, speakers will include some of the greatest innovators and business leaders of our generation.n

Excellence in e-commerce fulfillment is Boxzooka’s passion. Their commitment to clients is demonstrated daily, always going the extra mile in helping to solve clients’ daily operational challenges and exceeding service level expectations.  This is the core of what has expanded Boxzooka’s business and continues to be the key to its success.  They are more than just a fulfillment warehouse: from deciding on the best practices for shipping and returns policies to the procurement of the best shipping carriers, supplies, packaging, and printing services providers, they advise every step of the way to make clients feel that they are a true partner.n

Headquartered in New Jersey with satellite operations around the country, Boxzooka is a fulfillment center with international landed-cost technology and proprietary warehouse management systems it also licenses, focusing on servicing the logistics needs of online retailers. Brendan Heegan is the Founder of Boxzooka Fulfillment & Global E-commerce. Brendan has nearly 20 years of experience in transportation, fulfillment, and distribution, both domestically and Internationally. He started Boxzooka because he saw consolidation happening in the marketplace, creating a need for more competition and more customizable solutions for best-in-class fulfillment management and technology solutions.

For more information on Boxzooka and its services: Boxzooka.com

More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000n

Methodology

The 2020 Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2016 and 2019. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2016. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for profit, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies—as of December 31, 2019. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2016 is $100,000; the minimum for 2019 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Companies on the Inc. 500 are featured in Inc.’s September issue. They represent the top tier of the Inc. 5000, which can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000.

About Inc. Media

The world’s most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc.

For more information, visit www.inc.com.

Article written by Insider NJ

Read the article here.

Being a CEO sounds impressive, but it’s not for everyone. You need a diverse skill set, an optimistic soul and a pessimistic wallet… and leadership is a daunting role to play.

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I had the pleasure of interviewing Brendan Heegan the Founder of Boxzooka Fulfillment & Global eCommerce. Headquartered in New Jersey with satellite operations around the country, Boxzooka is a fulfillment center with international landed-cost technology and proprietary warehouse management systems it also licenses, focusing on servicing the logistics needs of online retailers. Brendan has nearly 20 years of experience in transportation, fulfillment and distribution, both domestically and Internationally. He started Boxzooka because he saw consolidation happening in the marketplace, creating a need for more competition and more customizable solutions for best-in-class fulfillment management and technology solutions.

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Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us the story about what brought you to this specific career path?

My background in logistics and business development has taken me to over 75 countries in ten years, and opened my eyes to countless possibilities for my career. These journeys have included tours of hundreds of transportation and fulfillment operations, and the business has always fascinated me. When working for other companies, I never felt truly in control of being able to provide my clients with the level of service and support that I wanted them to receive. At some point, I realized that if I truly wanted to be able to take my clients to the destination I was promising, I’d have to find my own ship.

Can you share one of the major challenges you encountered when first leading the company? What lesson did you learn from that?

There is no shortage of challenges. We initially launched with a technology product, the road was rocky and lined with brilliant technology savvy personalities lacking business experience. I loved the passion of the team, but I knew the business plan needed to evolve to include a real infrastructure behind our business. After winning our first technology client from a laptop in my basement, we quickly moved into a strategy to offer more comprehensive services, like transportation and fulfillment. Once we started bringing on the right people, not only in technology, but also operations, sales, and finance to foster scalable growth.

What are some of the factors that you believe led to your eventual success?

Never give up. Over the first couple of years, I had figuratively fallen down on numerous occasions and had to pick myself up, dust off, and continued to move forward. At first, it was hard to consider not giving up, or taking more risks, after a few times of coming out ahead, it became second nature that failure was not an option.

Finding good people that were willing to take a risk with me. Our technology provided the foundation for great service, but our people deliver every day for our clients… I personally have great satisfaction in creating jobs for people and doing good work for our clients.

The company eventually began to grow. Winning some key clients helped us further scale operations, open new facilities and expand our amazing team.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became CEO”? Please share a story or example for each.

Consumer expectations are high. There are disruptors in the marketplace that set expectations for free fulfillment services, free transportation, and one hour delivery is the standard. Those “standards” are unrealistic.

Most e-commerce companies do not make money… We always hear the success stories… but the real track record of most online businesses is a struggle to grow and thrive, we continue to work with our clients to obtain success for them.

There are so many good resources available today including podcasts, TV Shows and YouTube. Listen to Ted Talks and shows like “how I built this”, even popular TV shows like Shark Tank and The Profit… all of these tools can provide insight to running a business. Even the simplest of ideas can turn your business for you.

Being a CEO sounds impressive, but it’s not for everyone. You need a diverse skill set, an optimistic soul, and a pessimistic wallet… and leadership is a daunting role to play.

Building teams that know how to collaborate and work through issues is key. You can’t do it all yourself. You need to be able to delegate well and you shouldn’t do things that you are not capable of doing well.

What advice would you give to your colleagues to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

Entrepreneurs are wired to work hard and usually get a charge out of the challenges. It is not surprising to endure peaks and valleys and you need to be prepared for the hardships that can take you away from a “normal life” (trying not to say work/life balance). That said, getting your vision into a business plan is critical at the start and surrounding yourself with great people is mandatory. Everyone needs to nurture their own existence with some fuel to avoid the burn… my dogs help me stay grounded — unconditional love and they make me get outside everyday. Maybe consider a dog friendly work environment, I’ve seen how they brighten the mood and it’s also great to have company on those late nights at the office.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

I had several great mentors in my sales career who emphasized building solid relationships internally and externally. I was always impressed by the business owner/founder who seemed to know everyone in the company by name and was in tune with all aspects of the operation.

Before starting Boxzooka, I witnessed an acquisition of a company with an entrepreneurial leader that impressed me, both with the business model and the straightforward approach dealing with people. It inspired me to say to myself “I can do that.”

What are some of the goals you still have and are working to accomplish, both personally and professionally?

Scaling a business this rapidly has interrupted some of my personal goals around travel, beaches, ski runs, national parks, and family. I’m working on molding the next generation Boxzooka leaders and hope to shift to a more “balanced life” in the not too distant future.

What do you hope to leave as your lasting legacy?

A quality business that gave a lot of people great careers and provided them with opportunities. Happy clients are a part of a lasting legacy.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would enhance people’s lives in some way, what would it be? You never know what your idea can trigger!

I don’t feel like a person of great influence. If I could start a movement that helped people have more fun in their lives it would be hugely satisfying… I’ll get to work on that tonight!

How can our readers follow you on social media?

We are @Boxzooka on Instagram and Facebook

Written by Fotis Georgiadis

Read the full article here.

In a transaction arranged by CBRE, Boxzooka Fulfillment & Global Ecommerce, a global fulfillment warehouse company, has inked a 133,464 sq.ft. industrial lease at 300 Capital Lane in Middletown, Pennsylvania. The newly constructed Class A industrial property, which was a new construction warehouse, is part of a 1.5-million sq. ft. logistics center owned and operated by Colony Industrial. The property is ideally located in close proximity to both the entire Northeastern United States and Canada, within a one-day truck drive.

The CBRE team of William Waxman, Kevin Dudley and Nicholas D. Klacik represented Boxzooka in the lease negotiations.

“Boxzooka had very specific space requirements to expand its warehouse fulfillment and distribution operations, including a geographic location in close proximity to its U.S. and Canadian client base,” said Klacik. “The recently developed facility in Middletown fit the bill perfectly as it allows our client to reach its clients quicker and more efficiently.”

Brendan Heegan of Boxzooka continued, “Pennsylvania is the perfect geographic location for our expansion plans. Its close proximity to major FedEx and UPS truck hubs and to a large part of the U.S. and Canadian populations, where 30 percent and 50 percent of the respective countries’ residents can be reached within just a one-day truck drive, made the property ideal for our requirements.”

Boxzooka took occupancy of the building in May and is now fully operational. In addition to Boxzooka’s long-term commitment for 133,464 sq. ft. of space, the New Jersey-based company will have access to additional warehousing space within Colony Industrial’s complex in Middletown and around the country for the company’s planned further expansions.

Boxzooka’s forward-thinking and technologically advanced warehouse fulfillment platform has enabled the company to quickly expand its client base, which include many of the world’s top brands.

“We are very excited to be working with Boxzooka as they continue to successfully grow their operations,”noted Aaron Reynolds, Vice President, Colony Industrial. “The space at 300 Capital Lane will not only increase Boxzooka’s distribution network capacity,but also bring more jobs to the region.Boxzooka is another example of the strong demand by our customers for high quality, well-positioned distribution properties located close to major transportation hubs, to satisfy their delivery requirements.”

About CBRE Group, Inc.

CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE:CBRE), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Los Angeles, is the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2018 revenue). The company has more than 90,000 employees (excluding affiliates) and serves real estate investors and occupiers through more than 480 offices (excluding affiliates) worldwide. CBRE offers a broad range of integrated services, including facilities, transaction and project management; property management; investment management; appraisal and valuation; property leasing; strategic consulting; property sales; mortgage services and development services. Please visit our website at www.cbre.com.

About Boxzooka

Boxzooka is an expert in ecommerce order fulfillment, retail b2b distribution and cross-border ecommerce solutions, providing opportunities for retailers of any size to grow their business, domestically and internationally. Whether you’re shipping 10 orders per day, or 10,000 daily, we can accommodate your needs and further scale with you as your business grows. We pride ourselves on being flexible and nimble with a white glove customer experience. We are the most reliable and technologically advanced order fulfillment warehousing and global selling partner for ecommerce retailers, wholesalers and subscription boxes. Learn more here: www.boxzooka.com.

About Colony Industrial

Headquartered in Dallas, TX, Colony Industrial is the industrial platform of Colony Capital, Inc. As of June 30, 2019, the platform owned and operated approximately 56 million square feet of warehouse buildings in 26 major markets across the United States. Its diversified tenant base includes major national B2B, B2C, wholesale and consumer businesses.

Article written by Philadelphia City Biz List.