Shipping Options Driving Consumer Purchases

Super Power Pusher at work

Shipping costs are increasingly a factor in holiday shopping. With the holidays almost upon us, how much are you considering shipping in your preparation? Does it involve more personnel, or technology upgrades? The excerpt from the Material Handling & Logistics article below examines the impact of shipping costs.

Consumers consider shipping options—including free shipping—to be an important factor in their overall shopping experience, according to 80 percent of those responding to a recent survey commissioned by Pitney Bowes Inc. The survey polled consumers on attitudes toward shipping through all channels, including in store, online, catalog, and phone.

“Shipping has become a considerable factor in consumers’ buying choices,” said Jim Hendrickson, vice president and general manager of shipping solutions, Pitney Bowes. “In fact, there’s now a blurred line between the decision on a shipping method and the selection of a product when it comes to the overall buying decision.”

The survey found free shipping is by far more important to Americans surveyed over fast shipping (77 percent vs. 19 percent). That number spikes further among those who’ve shipped a purchase in the last year (82 percent vs. 16 percent, respectively).

Read the rest of the article on MHLnews.com.

RIF – Breaking Through Safety Performance Plateaus

This is an excerpt from an ISHN blog post.

RIF, Recordable Injury Frequency, the worldwide standard for judging safety performance, is often talked about as inadequate, but in actuality is seldom, if ever, replaced. Why use this concept?

• RIF is reactionary, not proactive 
• RIF doesn’t give a hint as to what you should do differently to improve safety 
• Why incent RIF performance when all it does is lead to hiding injuries and thus impede progress in resolving the recurring issues that should be addressed 
• RIF means nothing to the front line worker where the risks are lived with every day
• We have all heard these arguments and more. Yet we keep slogging down this same old road expecting a different result, the classic definition of insanity.

A group of safety professionals recently met with the executive safety leadership of a Fortune 50 company that was struggling with the RIF plateau. A number of years back when their injury numbers were higher they attacked the RIF culture that existed, solved many conditional and regulatory issues and took a steep drop in RIF and its associated costs.

The full article is available at ISHN.com.

EHS Today Releases its National Safety Survey Results

Below is an excerpt from the EHS Today 2013 National Safety Survey article. 

The respondents to the 2013 National Safety Survey generally are well-paid (approximately 80 percent earn more than $55,000 and 15 percent earn more than $105,000 per year); most have responsibility for safety (96 percent) followed closely by emergency preparedness (74 percent), occupational health (73 percent), ergonomics (66 percent) and industrial hygiene (65 percent); 94 percent attended college; and three-quarters are certified safety professionals (CSP). 

Most rate their organization's EHS performance as "good" (31.8 percent), "very good" (34.2 percent) or world-class (4.9 percent). Companies that offer a "one-size-fits-all" approach to EHS were criticized and the "production versus safety" argument appears to be ongoing. 

Here is a sample of what some respondents said when asked: "What is the most frequent complaint you hear from employees about your organization's safety and health program?":

    • Our managers care more about product than safety.

    • The foremen of the company still push and drive with disregard to safety. The foremen are not held accountable [for poor safety performance].

    • Management does not follow safety programs.

    • That our side (construction) has to follow the regulations but the facilities and maintenance sides do not have to follow safety policies, training or OSHA requirements.

The full article and the full survey results are available at ehstoday.com.

Cycle Counting Exposes Inventory Ills

This is an excerpt from a Material Handling and Logistics article.

Cycle counting is a process designed to replace comprehensive annual inventories with smaller counts conducted on a continuous basis throughout the year. It can be conducted while normal business operations continue, eliminating the need for an annual shutdown.

While you do need a certain level of product/process complexity or volume to make cycle counting worthwhile, companies need not be large to benefit.

5 Top Benefits

1. Improved ability to fill orders: Cycle counting allows smaller batches of goods to be counted and allows counts of the same batches multiple times a year. Companies can decide, for example, to schedule six counts a year of their highest turnover items, reducing inventory variances in the ordering system and, in turn, reducing the number of purchase requests that must be placed on back-order.

2. Current information to manage the business: When inventory records are inaccurate, orders for extra supply often are placed to provide “padding” that insures goods will be there when needed. This excess inventory increases carrying costs and potentially increases the amount of obsolete stock on hand.

3. Faster recognition of breakdowns in shipping, receiving and inventory transfer transactions: This can reduce extra costs associated with expedited freight that is incurred to make up for time lost dealing with inaccurate inventory records.

4. Reduced disruption: Since only small batches are being counted at a time, there is no need to shut down operations for counting inventory. And since counting is done continuously, the process can be integrated into the regular workflow. Last, there is no need to hire and train temporary workers to do an annual inventory. Existing staff can cycle count.

5. Increased ability to reduce errors and theft: More frequent counting allows discrepancies to be discovered closer to the time they were caused. That in turn makes identification of those causes – and correcting them – easier and quicker, reducing the impact of errors.  More frequent counting also helps detect theft more quickly so that countermeasures can be taken.

The full article is available on Material Handling and Logistics' website.