In North America, buy online pickup in store (BOPIS) represents about 10% of all fulfillment—but it’s an option offered by more than 85% of retailers. In Australia, the percentage of retail sales that are fulfilled via store pickup is now over 50%. Obviously, you can’t really make an apples to apples comparison between the two markets, but if you’re a North American retailer you might be looking at that number and wondering how much room for growth there could be in fulfillment via pickup.
The stakes are high when it comes to job site compliance. Even products that arrive on time can wind up in the wrong place, incorrectly installed, or with the wrong signatures—resulting in lost time and long callbacks. If you’re delivering to a busy construction site with multiple teams operating, and the delivery of roofing shingles makes its way into the wrong place or gets received by the wrong person, there’s every chance that you and your drivers won’t get paid on time.
One of the things that we hear most frequently from building supplies distributors is that they spend all day on the phone trying to coordinate delivery schedules. It’s not a shocking complaint—after all, you’ve got to find a way to match up your equipment and driver availability with a job site schedule that may be in a state of constant flux, and you’ve got to keep some question of efficiency in the back of your mind while you do so. It’s a recipe for confusion and high costs.
We’ve been talking about the driver shortage for years now—but according to a recent CNN article, there is some debate in academic circles “over whether there [is] a driver shortage, or simply a retention issue.” Whatever the exact nature of the problem is, its manifestation is the same: delivery organization and stretched, and it often feels like there’s not enough drivers to meet demand.
Among building supplies leaders, the general feeling is that—barring anything truly unexpected—material costs shouldn’t spike particularly dramatically in the coming year. What does that mean for logistics leaders in building supplies and construction? It means that you’ve got a real opportunity to take control of costs across your logistics operations without the rug getting pulled out from under you.
Most folks in the construction and building supplies sphere think that 2026 will have a relatively low interest rate environment, but that “the impact will unfold with a lag.” In other words, building supplies distributors may be experiencing something like the calm before the storm (or at least the squall) in the coming months, which makes it a great time to reflect on what may be coming down the pike and find ways to prepare for delivery success in the near to medium term.
Picture a normal day of delivery orders. How many exceptions do you typically have over the course of that day? If you can’t answer that question easily, we can say with some confidence that you don’t have real visibility into your delivery and transportation network—but the really telling information won’t be how many exceptions there are, but what happens when they crop up.
If you’re a decision maker in the delivery and logistics space, we’re willing to bet that questions about delivery costs are one of the most common things that keep you up at night. Are you getting the most out of your fleet and assets? Are you going to be stuck handling a host of unplanned returns tomorrow? Are your deliveries profitable, or are they ultimately costing your money?
The growth in the cold chain logistics market for food and beverage distribution is real, and it’s here to stay. Trends in consumer behavior, packaging, and logistics technology are powering rapid expansion, and the winners and losers in the food distribution space will be determined by who’s in the best position to capitalize on that growth. More than ever, that means that digitization is non-negotiable.
When it comes to customer support online, nearly half of people still explicitly prefer talking to a human (compared to 12% who explicitly prefer an AI chat agent), but needs and expectations are changing fast. Some folks say that they like a mix of human and AI support, others say that it depends on the complexity of their problem, but by and large people are open to receiving satisfying customer support powered by AI.