Published May 27, 2020
Big grocery retailers need coherent e-commerce strategies sooner rather than later. But those strategies aren’t easy to come by, Mike Futch, CEO of Tompkins Robotics, said.
Tompkins Robotics is a subsidiary of supply chain firm Tompkins International. Its product is t-Sort, an army of independent, wheeled robots that – you guessed it – sort things. For grocers, automated sorting reduces labor costs and makes online order fulfillment easier.
Futch said that even before the pandemic, nonstop prognosticating about e-commerce and the future of brick and mortar left many of his clients disoriented.
“They’ve been bombarded with a lot of pundits and people who are forecasting where the market’s going and what they need to do,” he said. “And I’ll be honest with you: There’s a fair number of people out there who aren’t really sure how to go forward.”
That could also be due to the sheer number of options.
