The Friday Five: Go Big or Go Home Depot — Walmart does both with first GoLocal customer

Walmart's GoLocal service lands its first customer, tips to improve your ocean booking processes, California oil spill linked to possible anchored ship and the Michelin Man rides again. All this and more in this week’s Friday Five — let's dive in!
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New delivery-as-a-service from Walmart lands Home Depot as first customer [SupplyChainDive]

The Home Depot became the first retail customer for Walmart’s new delivery-as-a-service, GoLocal, bringing with it an already existing billion-dollar online sales presence. The new GoLocal service will initially be in select stores in Northwest Arkansas, Texas, and New Mexico.

Before you plan on having GoLocal hand-deliver your new refrigerator or a pallet full of mulch, the new delivery service Walmart will focus on smaller supplies that can easily fit in a car. Celia Van Wickel, former senior manager of direct-to-consumer and e-commerce shopper insights at Coca-Cola commented on LinkedIn, “Is Walmart entering DoorDash and Instacart territory?” With some of the service fees I’ve paid for those services, it’s possible.

The impact Amazon has had on buyer expectations for rapid, even same-day delivery, has forced the hand of the rest of the retail industry to come up with creative ways to get product to the consumers as soon as possible. Walmart’s delivery network can currently reach about 70% of the U.S. population making GoLocal’s range a big selling point.

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Three ways you can improve your ocean shipping with better booking processes [Slync.io]

It’s all about the paperwork. And for once, we aren’t talking about more toilet paper shortages. In a world where a typical operator for a busy ocean LSP receives 400-700 emails a day, much of the day is spent sorting through emails and pulling out important shipment details and updates. The likelihood something critical will sometimes be missed is high when you are dealing with such a huge volume of unstructured data. But, there is hope.  

Matt Gunn, VP of Product and Solution Marketing at Slync.io, discusses how LSPs can improve their ocean shipping by making three changes in their booking processes. Find out how LSPs can streamline their booking and allocation processes.

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Commercial ship anchored off California coast waiting to berth may have caused oil spill [FreightWaves]

The estimated 144,000 gallon oil spill from a damaged pipeline off Huntington Beach, California has telltale signs it was caused by one of the many anchored commercial ships that are stuck waiting to berth at the Port of Los Angeles.

At a recent press conference, the operator of the pipeline and platform, Martyn WIllsher, CEO of Amplify Energy, was asked if the damage was consistent with an anchor strike, to which he replied: “I’m not here to speculate about the cause, but the pipeline that has been displaced is a 16-inch steel pipeline, half an inch thick, covered with an inch of concrete. For it to be moved 105 feet is…not common.”

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Michelin-designed sails could be the answer to greener, more sustainable commercial shipping [CNN]

Everything old is new again. Five thousand years ago, sails were a necessity if you wanted to participate in commerce. The ancient Egyptians used wooden boats, oars and relied on the wind to power their sails to get to different trading partners.  

Now tire manufacturer Michelin is bringing sexy back with tall, white inflatable sails reminiscent of the Michelin man in an effort to help decarbonize the shipping industry. Michelin estimates fuel savings could be as high as 20% for existing vessels who opt to be retrofitted to include the sails that can be inflated or deflated with a push of a button.

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Shipping container shortage is a $14 trillion problem [Fast Company]

It is now estimated that 90% of global economy goods are transported by ocean shipping — of which 60% arrive in large, steel shipping containers and include nearly all imported fruits, gadgets, and appliances. This $14 trillion portion of the global economy spends at least some time inside a metal box that has to traverse the ocean. (The rest are largely commodities which are poured directly into the hull of the vessel like oil or grains.) The shortage of containers getting back to port is not only driving up costs for these goods, but also adding to the continued congestion in the supply chain.  

Stay safe out there, folks!  And don’t forget to check out last week’s news and come back next Friday for the next installment of our weekly logistics news roundup!