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“Polybags are the worst thing in the world. Everyone hates them but they are a necessary evil,” says Steve McCann, marketing director at Toad and Co.

Polybags are the clear plastic bags the nearly all apparel items are shipped in. But brands can’t just get rid of them without a replacement. Retailers need something to shield a garment from the elements as it makes its way through a warehouse on a belt, being picked, packed and shipped and making its way on a ship, truck or van or all three to a store or to a shopper’s doorstep, where it may encounter rain, snow and sleet. If the product gets damaged at any point, it will be thrown out.

“The lifecycle of ruining a garment versus the lifecycle of a polybag is much worse,” McCann says.

Since Toad and Co. started selling online in 2014, the brand went from using one traditional polybag, to optimizing the design to be more sustainable in five different sizes. It aims to eliminate polybags completely by 2024.

Shipping a ‘better’ polybag

The brand’s first iteration of making its polybags more sustainable was shrinking the standard width of each polybag to better fit its garments. What’s more, instead of using one larger polybag that would hold any of its products, it invested in polybags of different sizes so that each bag fits the garment, reducing the plastic required. It also thinned out the plastic to further minimize the amount of plastic used.

Steve McCann, marketing director at Toad and Co.

In addition, Toad and Co. changed the location of the airholes on its polybags. It moved them from the bottom of the bag to the top and alerted shoppers these polybags could be reused to pick up dog waste, McCann says.

And even after all these efforts, the retailer is working to eliminate all these polybags.

One alternative packaging retailers use is a compostable polybag made out of plant-based materials. These bags, however, have mixed reviews from vendors and merchants. While compostable materials could be better environmentally than single-use plastic, it’s challenging for consumers to get the bag to the proper facility. A consumer would have to drop them off at a collection point that takes this specific material. If a consumer throws out this material it could emit more methane in a landfill than other types of trash, according to several vendors, analysts and retailers. And if a consumer puts the bag in the normal recycling bin, it could clog and contaminate the normal recycling process, causing the entire batch of recycling to end up in a landfill.

Toad and Co. switches to paper polybags

Because of these issues, in 2020 Toad & Co. started working with packaging vendor Vela to pilot its paper polybags. They are made of  Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper and can be recycled with mixed paper. This makes them much more likely to actually get recycled than a compostable bag. FSC is a nonprofit organization that ensures the paper is from a forest that is responsibly managed for environmental, economic and social benefits.

After piloting the paper polybags with a few products, the retailer confirmed they were sturdy enough to protect its garments and of the same quality as a traditional polybag, and began rolling them out across all of its products. Once the brand hits a certain minimum order volume of products at each of its factories, it makes the switch to using this product. As of Q2 2023, about 82% of its products use the alternative polybag and by spring 2024, 100% of them will, McCann says.

Toad and Co.’s shoppers have not commented on the switch in materials, but its wholesale accounts have reacted positively, McCann says. When brands ship items to stores, just like to a shopper’s home, each garment is encased in a polybag. Store employees open each bag and hang the garments up.

“They see it more so than anyone else, this is so much waste and so much plastic,” McCann says.

About 50% of Toad and Co.’s sales are direct-to-consumer online and the other half are wholesale to retailers, he says.

A more dramatic alternative: reusable packaging

To further lower its carbon footprint, Toad and Co. also gives shoppers the option to have their orders shipped in a reusable package. With vendor LimeLoop, Toad and Co. rents weatherproof bags. The bag are made of recycled polyester, mostly old billboards, on the outside. They have a zipper closure instead of tape and are recycled cotton on the inside.

For each LimeLoop medium bag, a retailer reduces 92% of carbon dioxide emissions and 99% of water use compared with shipping that order in a medium size cardboard box, according to LimeLoop. Similarly, for each LimeLoop small bag, a retailer reduces 42% of its carbon dioxide emissions and 9% of its water use compared with a polymailer plastic bag, according to the vendor.

The retailer piloted LimeLoop in 2018 and was one of its first clients. Its relationship ebbed and flowed throughout the years, as Toad and Co. has paused and resumed the service as it replatformed its ecommerce site and moved warehouses.

Here’s how it works: On the checkout page, shoppers can choose four shipping options, free standard, free standard with a LimeLoop mailer bag, paid second day or paid next day. If a shopper selects the LimeLoop option, her order will arrive in a reusable bag with instructions on how to return the bag. Once the shopper decides if she is keeping her entire order or is returning items, she visits ToadandCo.com to print a free return label. She puts the label it in the front sleeve of the bag and can drop it off in any U.S. postal service mailbox.

Toad and Co. commits to less packaging by sending orders in reusable bags.

Toad and Co. shoppers use LimeLoop

About 12-15% of Toad and Co.’s online shoppers select the LimeLoop package option, and 20% of those who chose LimeLoop as their fulfillment method, choose it again, McCann says. These are healthy numbers, McCann says, especially when considering how many new customers Toad and Co. has, he says without revealing more. For non-LimeLoop orders, Toad and Co. ships products in a 100% recycled paper mailer with water-based inks to ensure shoppers can recycled the bag.

Unlike thinning its polybags and increasing the number of polybag sizes it uses, the LimeLoop sustainable packaging is highly visible to the customer and something Toad and Co. receives a lot of positive feedback on, McCann says.

“It’s something that people when they look out their window, they get it. They get how many boxes they get from Amazon that you can’t even fit it all in your recycling bin anymore,” McCann says. “[Shoppers] understand it’s an issue, but they don’t see anyone doing anything about it. But they also love the convenience of [online shopping] and are not willing to change the convenience aspects. I think when brands have an option and it’s different and it’s addressing the issue, they love it and grab on to it.”

Printing the return label is a barrier for shoppers to using the service, McCann says. It is still working on the logistics of getting its systems to talk to each other to include the label with the package and how that would work if a shopper decides to return any number of items. LimeLoop says most of its clients include the return label with a package. LimeLoop has 45 online retail clients, mostly small businesses with annual revenue less than $5 million.

Challenges in getting the LimeLoop bags back

It takes about two weeks from when Toad and Co. ships an order to when it receives the bag back, a speed the retailer is continually trying to get faster, McCann says. The more it can reuse the bags, the better.

If Toad and Co. can use a LimeLoop package twice in one month, it breaks even in cost compared with traditional packaging. Otherwise, this shipping method is more expensive, McCann says without revealing more. LimeLoop rents the bags to retailers for about $1 per bag per month, and they can be used at least 200 times, the vendor says. So far in 2023, Toadandco.com has hit the twice-a-month frequency for each bag.

“Our benchmark KPI is that turnaround time,” McCann says.

When Toad and Co. first started using LimeLoop bags, it had trouble getting shoppers to return the bags, as some thought they were theirs to keep.

“The biggest part of the pilot learning was about the returns and how to communicate with customers,” McCann says.

In surveys, Toad and Co. learned that shoppers may take a few days to open their package once it arrives and then a few days to try on items and then decide what they want to keep. Then they have to print a label, which they may have to leave their house to do, and then put the bag in the mail. This all takes time.

About 12-15% of Toad and Co.’s online shoppers select the LimeLoop package option.

Toad and Co. learned that it needed to communicate urgency about returning the bags and educate shoppers in its emails about the importance of sending the bag back quickly in order for the process to be a sustainable option.

Communication with customers

In the five years since piloting the feature, industry standards have changed around communication with shoppers, McCann says. Previously, Toad and Co. hesitated to email customers more than three times a week, but now it has no issue contacting shoppers every day, McCann says. It can automatically send reminder emails via LimeLoop, as its systems know which customers haven’t returned their bags yet.

The vendor says some of its clients charge a few dollars as a deposit to customers to use the LimeLoop bag that retailers refund once they receive the bag back in the mail.

“This helps to keep the reusable packages always in motion and many clients utilize this feature,” a LimeLoop spokesperson says.

Bernardine Wu, executive managing director of digital strategy at digital consultancy OSF Digital, says LimeLoop is an interesting packaging vendor to watch, as it provides a sustainable packaging initiative that can scale and make an impact.

Integrating LimeLoop

It took a few months to integrate LimeLoop into all of the systems, McCann says. The retailer has done this twice, once when it launched, and then again in 2022 after a few months of program pause while it replatformed to a Shopify ecommerce site and moved warehouses.

When a shopper selects LimeLoop, the warehouse needs to know which order is selected for that package, as does its ordering platform, and shipping and return vendors. All of these integrations have to be built into its systems.

The merchant also had to learn how many shoppers would actually choose this option and how that correlates to how many LimeLoop bags it needs. Initially, Toad and Co. had 400 bags and it would frequently run out of them. Then, it couldn’t offer the option to shoppers until it received a bag back. In 2022 it invested in more bags for now a total of 2,800 and it no longer runs outs of bags.

Even though the system seems complex, Toad and Co. is happy with the program and the customer response. When Toad and Co. communicates to shoppers about the program either via email or on social media, those communication pieces always receive lots of feedback, McCann says.

While it wants to encourage more shoppers to choose this option, it is going to leave it at that, an option, McCann says.

“We can encourage and education and let people make an educated decision on what they want to do,” McCann says.

Toad and Co. is No. 1623 in the 2022 Digital Commerce 360 Next 1000.

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American Signature’s current supply chain technology is powerful, as it integrates with the warehouse, delivery and warranty systems, Kiggin said. But, it is outdated and a barrier to growth, customer satisfaction and recruiting top talent to work with the technology, Kiggin told Digital Commerce 360 at Manhattan Associates Inc. Momentum 2023 conference in Phoenix last week.

Inventory accuracy and working with old technology

“Some of the major pain points were inventory integrity and knowing where it was and if it was real,” Kiggin said.

For example, if a shopper wants to order a couch, the associate could look up the inventory level of that couch on his iPad or on the checkout desktop terminal. Often, those inventory numbers didn’t match. These numbers also likely didn’t match the online inventory system.

American Signature always gives shoppers an estimated delivery date for their product. But because it lacked an accurate inventory count, it only met that promise 60% of the time, Kiggin said.

Inventory integrity is important with the furniture category, as the majority of sales for bulky pieces are made in store and delivered to the shopper’s home. Few shoppers buy in store and leave with the product. Kiggin said about 7% of its sales are online, a number it wants to grow.

Kim Huebner, director, store operations said the current supply chain technology is an AS/400 system from the 1980s. She described it as looking like a DOS screen, with function keys and green type, and no graphical interface.

“We were very clear on where we were. That was not the hard piece. The harder piece was defining where we wanted to go and how to get there,” Kiggin said.

American Signature selected and began working on upgrading its system with six of Manhattan Associates’ applications in January 2022. They were: Warehouse management, order management, point of sale, customer engagement, customer service and customer service index reporting suite.

The retailer is currently testing the warehouse management and order management platforms, scheduled to go live in early June. The merchant will test and implement the remaining four applications for the rest of the year and with a go-live date of 2024, Huebner said.

Implementing warehouse management and order management

Of American Signature’s four distribution centers, one of them is currently testing the new Manhattan technology alongside its current technology to ensure everything is functioning correctly. So far, so good, Huebner said.

Training its warehouse employees on the new system only took three hours, and the employees were happy to have a better system, Huebner said. American Signature decided to train employees with bite-sized short videos, instead of long handouts to read. It took about a week, or roughly 40 hours, to train its middle group of above entry entry-level employees. It took roughly 40 hours to train its warehouse leaders on the new system.

American Signature will measure the success of these systems by how much its labor management standards at the distribution center are maintained or improved, she said. These metrics include speed of picking, speed of processing and speed of loading.

“Time is money,” Kiggin said.

With the improved system, the goal for American Signature is to meet its delivery promise at least 85% of the time, Huebner said. While 100% is really the goal, the retailer factors in changes that a customer makes after purchase, such as changing a design element on a custom-made piece of furniture or choosing to switch the delivery date because of their own personal circumstances.

Getting buy-in from employees on the new system

As a family-owned company, Kiggin said it was important to American Signature’s management to incorporate many employees in the overhaul process. This included the end-users of the product.

For all of its new systems, American Signature is pulling employees out of their day jobs to put them on the project. This helps ensure that employees using the software can make it the most functional for their jobs, Huebner said. This also helps with buy-in when the systems go live and some employees might be resistant to change.

American Signature gives continual updates to warehouse managers not directly involved in the project. They can still voice their opinions, Huebner said.

Kiggin would not reveal the overall cost but says it is “way over” $1 million.

“It’s a significant investment. And it’s worth every penny,” Kiggin said.

Kiggin described it as a long-term investment, as the Manhattan technology will continue to update and improve alongside the American Signature business.

American Signature is the parent company of Value City Furniture and ranks No. 592 in the 2023 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000.

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Amazon ranks No. 1 in the Top 1000 list of ecommerce retailers in North America, and No. 3 in the Online Marketplaces database. 

Amazon returns at UPS will no longer be free

Customers who drop returns off at UPS locations could be charged $1 per order going forward, The Information first reported. The fee will only apply if there is a Whole Foods, Kohl’s, or Amazon Fresh location closer to the order’s address than the UPS store. 

“We offer convenient, easy returns to Amazon customers, with one or more options for label-free, box-free returns at no cost,” a spokesperson told USA Today. “We always offer a free option for customers to return their item. If a customer would prefer to return their item at a UPS Store when there is a free option closer to their delivery address, a very small amount of customers may incur a $1 fee.”

Amazon will list some products as “frequently returned”

The online retailer also added a badge to some items warning customers that they are “frequently returned.” The Information first noticed the label on a record player and two dresses.

“We’re currently showing return rate information on some product detail pages to help our customers make more informed purchase decisions,” a spokesperson told The Information.

Amazon did not return Digital Commerce 360’s request for comment. 

Returns matter to customers, but they’re not the most important factor

A Digital Commerce 360 survey of over 1,000 consumers in August 2022 found shoppers regularly consider a potential return before they purchase. 54% take free returns into consideration, and 39% also look at the cost of a return. One-quarter of consumers said the timeframe is important.

It’s too soon to tell if Amazon customers will react negatively to the new policy, according to Michael Levin, co-founder and partner at research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. 

“We expect it’s not a huge deal, though, and a very small percentage of marginal customers would react negatively,” he said. “Consumers decide first on cost and convenience of buying something, and think later, if at all, about how easy (or not) it is to return that thing.”

Some customers have already taken to social media to complain about the change, Business Insider reported.

The new policy keeps Amazon on par with the competition, Levin said.

“Many, many retailers charge customers for return shipping, although as far as we know, the major ones (Walmart, Target, etc.) don’t do it aggressively,” he said.

These changes around returns are a more transparent way for Amazon to be upfront about costs with customers, Josh Lowitz, also of Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, said.

“This move is similar to Amazon offering a dollar or two for accepting slightly slower shipping, or combining deliveries into a single delivery day. Amazon is letting shoppers know that they will share the savings, if a customer allows Amazon to operate more efficiently,” he said, by keeping prices lower for less expensive types of returns. Lowitz also pointed to Amazon’s policy of offering returned items for sale at reduced prices.

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The courier has for decades operated an express package business separately from its ground unit. FedEx acquired the ground unit in 1998 and depends on third-party contractors to make the last-mile delivery of parcels. As of June 2024, it will be “a single company operating a unified, fully integrated air-ground network under the respected FedEx brand,” the company said April 5 in a statement.

“FedEx is at a pivotal moment in history,” Subramaniam said during an investor meeting in New York. “There is significant value in FedEx that’s being unlocked for shareholders.”

The plan to boost profit addresses a commitment to investors, led by activist shareholder D.E. Shaw, that FedEx made only two weeks after Subramaniam took the helm. It promised then to boost dividends, rework its executive pay rules and reduce capital expenditures. Under the agreement, D.E Shaw named two board members.

D.E. Shaw has cut its holding of FedEx to about 63,000 shares from a recent peak of 1.25 million shares at the end of 2021.

FedEx delivery networks unify to improve margins

FedEx has trailed United Parcel Service Inc. on profit margins even though its larger rival has a unionized workforce and pays its drivers more than twice what their counterparts at FedEx’s ground network make. Many analysts point to the efficiencies of UPS’s single delivery network as the reason. In the latest quarter, UPS reported adjusted operating margins of 13% compared with 5.2% for FedEx.

The reorganization is a turnabout from the strategy of founder Fred Smith, who defended having multiple networks as a competitive advantage. Critics often noted that an express driver would stop at the same location as a ground driver, creating inefficiencies. Under Subramaniam, FedEx accelerated the shift of packages from its Express unit, where FedEx owns delivery vehicles and drivers are on the company payroll, to the contractor-led ground business.

FedEx is trying to regain its footing after Subramaniam was forced to scrap profit growth goals outlined last September due to declining package volumes. He had unveiled those targets just after he officially took over as CEO in June.

The company expects to achieve $4 billion of permanent cost reductions in fiscal 2025. FedEx said it seeks to save an additional $2 billion from revamping its delivery network by 2027. The savings will include initiatives to move more ground packages by rail instead of truck and provide contractors with better forecasts on volume to reduce the need for emergency help to deliver packages.

FedEx head count

The company didn’t give details in the statement on job cuts and a spokesperson offered no specifics on the scope or timeline. FedEx already had been reducing its workforce in recent months, including shedding 10% of top management jobs.

“We will continue to focus on responsible headcount management in our operations as well as corporate functions,” spokesperson Rachael Simmons said in an email Wednesday.

FedEx’s board also approved a 10% increase in the annual dividend for fiscal 2024 to $5.04 a share.

FedEx said Richard Smith, son of the founder, will be in charge of Airline and International and John Smith will be in charge of all ground operations, including FedEx’s standalone freight business.

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“We have the best program in the world,” Columbus says.

The reason for Columbus’ confidence is the retailer’s 20-minute guarantee, which it meets 98.9% of the time. That means that 20 minutes after an online shopper clicks “buy” online or in the app, the product is ready for the shopper to pick up. If not, Office Depot will give the shopper $20 off her next purchase.

“This is our differentiator, and we’re proud of it,” Columbus says.

Office Depot meets its 20-minute pickup promise 98.9% of the time.

Office Depot implemented the 20-minute guarantee in October 2021 at nearly all of its 980 stores. While shoppers were not asking for a faster pickup time than its previous one-hour guarantee, the merchant wanted to prove it could be even better, Columbus says.

“There’s a big online retailer that can’t do 20 minutes, so we can,” Columbus says.

Jamie Columbus, vice president of omnichannel at Office Depot Inc.

Plus, many small business owners may need to print out a presentation that day or have run out of ink and need more as soon as possible. They would likely be happy with the product in one hour, but 20 minutes is even better, Columbus says.

A majority of shoppers expect their online order ready for pickup in one hour or less, says Brendan Witcher, vice president, principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc. While not every retailer may need to exceed customer expectations with a 20-minute BOPIS guarantee, for Office Depot’s product category, it makes sense, he says.

According to a Digital Commerce 360 and Bizrate Insights survey of 1,132 online shoppers in March 2023, 32% selected BOPIS or curbside as their fulfillment choice because they wanted the product that day.

Office Depot makes changes to meet BOPIS guarantee

To reduce the time to 20 minutes from one hour, the merchant had to make operational changes at the stores to make its employees more efficient. Office Depot upgraded its hardware to Zebra mobile devices that run its inventory system software to alert employees in real time when they have to pick a time to fulfill a BOPIS order. Employees previously had handheld devices to complete this task, but the new system was better, Columbus says without providing specific details.

Office Depot also went through each task an employee has to conduct throughout the day and analyzed if tasks were necessary and the benefit of doing them. For example, sometimes employees have to specifically check an aisle for a high-end item and count how many are in stock. Office Depot decided to eliminate this task, as it did not provide enough value.

When it went live with the program, Office Depot did not have any increases in conversion or key performance indicators to prove that a faster pickup time was a differentiator for shoppers.

Columbus does, however, point to its in-store Net Promoter Score, at 72.5, as proof that shoppers are satisfied with the in-store pickup experience. Prior to this rollout, in July 2020, Office Depot’s NPS was 65.6. The average NPS, which is a widely used measure of online shopper satisfaction, for retailers is 35, according to Delighted LLC, a Qualtrics-owned survey platform.

Office Depot will continue to offer curbside pickup

About 27% of Office Depot’s online orders are for store pickup. Of those orders, 15% of customers choose to pick up curbside.

Office Depot quickly launched curbside at almost all of its stores during the 2020 pandemic. And even though fewer shoppers are opting for curbside than they did a few years ago, Office Depot plans to continue to offer curbside pickup.

“It has slowed down. We like the fact that it’s slowed down,” says Columbus.

That’s because with curbside pickup, shoppers are not entering stores and will not purchase additional items. This compares with in-store pickup, which brings shoppers inside. There, a percentage of them buy additional items, Columbus says without revealing that figure.

Digital Commerce 360 researchers found that Office Depot delivered on its 20-minute promise. It had the order ready for pickup four minutes after clicking buy, according to a mystery shopping test as part of the to-be-released Digital Commerce 360 Omnichannel Report.

From the 20 tested retailers, Office Depot was the fastest. Five merchants had orders ready in less than 30 minutes, and the median time it took merchants to have the order ready was 56 minutes, according to Digital Commerce 360.

Office Depot is No. 23 in the 2022 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000.

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Shares in the operator of the Zara and Bershka chains fell March 14 after the retailer said it planned to invest €1.6 billion in stores and warehouse expansion. The new capex plan come safter Inditex’s operating profit, up 29% in the year through January, missed expectations.

Clothing retailers face tough comparisons in 2023 given last year’s sales boom, which benefited from pent-up demand after pandemic restrictions eased. Online revenue rose 4% in the year through January as shoppers shifted back to visiting brick-and-mortar stores.

Hennes & Mauritz AB said March 15 that sales rose 3% in local currencies in the three months through February, short of analysts’ estimates.

Zara owner Inditex is No. 8 in the Europe Database, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the region’s largest online retailers by web sales. H&M is No. 11.

Challenges at Zara and other Inditex brands

Among Inditex’s challenges are reversing declines in profit at the Massimo Dutti officewear and Oysho lingerie chains.

The Spanish retailer has been weeding out its weakest stores. Now, it’s reaping the benefits of a more efficient brick-and-mortar platform, which is reporting higher sales with fewer shops.

That helped boost net cash to €10 billion ($10.7 billion), which will help fund the investments planned for this year. Projects include expansion in major U.S. cities, a new Zara on the Champs-Elysees in Paris and expanding a platform to sell secondhand clothes in France and Germany.

In addition to Inditex’s store-efficiency program, the company stopped operations in 514 stores in Russia and 82 shops in Ukraine last year due to the war.

The company plans to expand its store network for the first time in four years. It has plans to introduce the Oysho chain to the United Kingdom and the Stradivarius womenswear brand to Germany. In the U.S., Inditex is also targeting stores in big cities including:

• New York
• Los Angeles
• Miami
• Boston
• Las Vegas

Inditex is also introducing a new technology to replace security tags on products.

Zara ecommerce customers to pay for returns

Last month, Inditex said it will start charging Zara ecommerce shoppers in Spain to return items bought. This mirrors a strategy it had previously rolled out in most of its other markets.

The world’s biggest clothing chain had started charging for returns in the earlier part of 2022 in countries where it has a smaller presence than in Spain, including the United Kingdom, France and the United States. Spain accounted for 14.2% of the group’s overall sales as of July 2022.

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EBay job cuts follow those of Amazon, other large tech and ecommerce companies

The reductions are in response to the “macroeconomic situation around the world,” CEO Jamie Iannone said Feb. 7 in a statement. He said they’re necessary to help “create long-term sustainable growth.”

EBay job cuts make it the latest company to eliminate positions in response to economic conditions. Sales have declined in the past six quarters as people shifted back to spending on experiences such as traveling and dining out that they postponed during the pandemic. Analysts, on average, expect the San Jose, California-based company will report that revenue fell about 6% to $2.46 billion. EBay announces holiday-quarter results on Feb. 22.

The “workforce reduction may be a move to streamline operations and make room for new investment focused on elevating the platform’s capabilities and visibility,” Poonam Goyal and Abigail Gilmartin, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts, said in a note.

Amazon.com Inc., eBay’s far larger rival, has said it’s cutting 18,000 jobs and reported last week that online sales dropped 2% in the holiday quarter. Wayfair Inc., an online home-goods retailer, said last month it would eliminate 1,750 jobs, or 10% of its workforce.

EBay ranks No. 5 in the 2022 Digital Commerce 360 Online Marketplaces Database. Amazon ranks No. 3, as well as No. 1 in the 2022 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000 database. The Top 1000 ranks North American web merchants by sales. Taobao and Tmall, which Alibaba Group Holdings owns, hold the first two spots (respectively) in the online marketplaces rankings.

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Of the approximately 650 ballots cast, 206 workers voted yes and 406 voted no to unionize under the banner of the Amazon Labor Union, which earlier this year won a historic election at a much larger Amazon facility in Staten Island. There were 31 contested ballots, not enough to change the outcome.

The loss is a setback for the ALU, which has struggled to expand its influence beyond New York City and even hang on to its gains there. The ALU lost a vote at a second Staten Island facility in May and is now battling Amazon over the results of the election it did win.

2022 Ecommerce Fulfillment Report

Analysis of the latest trends in ecommerce fulfillment. Includes over 30 charts, shipping policies of Top 1000 retailers, Amazon’s fulfillment practices, the state of the worldwide supply chain, and updates on in-warehouse automation and delivery robotics. 

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The push at the warehouse in the upstate town of Schodack, was led by Heather Goodall, who started working at the facility in February. She and her colleagues were demanding higher wages, more paid time off and safer working conditions.

ALU President Chris Smalls said the union would continue to work at the facility and expressed pride in workers who “stood up in the face of a vicious anti-union campaign.” In an emailed statement, he said the election “wasn’t free and fair” and that Amazon subjected workers to “intimidation and retaliation on a daily basis.”

Smalls didn’t say whether the ALU would challenge the result to the National Labor Relations Board, as Amazon did following the union’s sole victory. The ALU has filed dozens of unfair labor practice charges against the company for its conduct in Schodack since going public with the campaign.

In an emailed statement, Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said: “We’re glad that our team in Albany was able to have their voices heard and that they chose to keep the direct relationship with Amazon as we think that this is the best arrangement for both our employees and customers.”

Labor unrest has roiled various US companies in the past couple of years. Last week, Apple Inc. workers at a store in Oklahoma City voted to unionize, marking the second location to do so. A union victory at a Starbucks Corp. store in Buffalo, New York, has since led to hundreds of successful votes around the country.

Last week the labor board said workers at an Amazon warehouse in Southern California had filed paperwork to hold a vote on whether join the ALU. Amazon said it doubted organizers there had collected sufficient signatures to call an election.

The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, meanwhile, is seeking to represent workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. Federal officials determined that Amazon’s conduct during a vote there last year made a fair election impossible, and a rerun election remains too close to call. Other unions have also ramped up their efforts in recent years to organize workers at Amazon, the second largest private employer in the US behind Walmart Inc.

In the UK, hundreds of Amazon workers at a logistics hub near Coventry will vote Wednesday whether to strike. The walkout, if it goes ahead, would probably happen on Black Friday. Staff at several UK locations have previously staged informal work stoppages and walkouts to protest a 35-pence-an-hour wage increase, but a strike in Coventry would mark the first time Amazon workers have formally walked off the job. The workers there are backed by the GMB Union.

Amazon is No. 1 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s database of the largest North American e-retailers by web sales.

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