All posts by : enVista Marketing

The rise of e-commerce, technology and big data has brought big changes to the retail industry—and big opportunities for Carmel-based software and consulting company enVista LLC.

The privately held enVista, founded in 2002 by Jim Barnes and John Stitz, started as a two-person operation with first-year revenue of $1.4 million. Through organic growth, enVista now has some 535 employees at offices around the world, more than 1,000 customers, and projected 2018 revenue of $97 million.

Over the past 15 years, the company has seen average annual revenue growth of 22 percent and has landed on IBJ’s 25 fastest-growing companies list in both 2015 and 2018.

And enVista sees plenty more growth potential.

“It’s been a pretty crazy ride,” said CEO Barnes.

EnVista serves customers across multiple industries, including distribution, logistics, manufacturing and food/beverage. But about half of its revenue comes from retail alone, and in 2015 enVista launched what it calls its Unified Commerce Platform—software that allows retailers to manage their in-store point-of-sale systems, e-commerce, inventory and customer information from a single platform.

“We really uncovered needs in the area of unified commerce, and really helping companies put their e-commerce strategy together and how they go to market with it,” said Stitz, enVista’s managing partner.

The company’s typical retail client has annual sales of $500 million to $2 billion, and enVista’s client list is diverse, including Evansville-based Shoe Carnival, menswear retailer Brooks Brothers, novelty-store chain Spencer Gifts, outdoor-gear retailer Cabela’s, and both Petco and PetSmart.

In the early days of e-commerce, retailers typically ran their online and brick-and-mortar divisions separately. That meant, for instance, that a retailer’s online and in-store merchandise selections might be quite different, and customer data collected via the retailer’s website might not be available to store employees.

But now, the trend is what the industry calls omnichannel retail—integrating operations and serving the customer seamlessly both in-store and online.

That can be tricky to manage, retail experts say.

“Now, you’ve come in with this online presence. That’s a whole different level of expertise that you’ve got to bring into the picture,” said Daniel McQuiston, an associate professor of marketing at Butler University. “It’s a tough thing to do.”

Mara Devitt, a senior partner at Chicago-based retail consulting firm McMillanDoolittle, said traditional retailers must do “a lot of heavy lifting” to succeed in this area.

“Retailers, to respond, have to develop different capabilities within their organizations,” Devitt said. “There’s all these real details that have to be worked out.”

Large retailers, Stitz said, are generally further along the path of omnichannel retail because they have more resources to tackle the issue. And retailers that originated online, like Amazon, don’t have the challenge of juggling a large network of physical stores.

The 2019 rate increases announced earlier this week by shipping and logistics giant FedEx Corp. (NYSE:FDX) contains a stark message for shippers: Easily conveyed packages will see relatively modest increases. Heavier, outsized and less conveyor-friendly shipments, by contrast, will not.

The headline numbers show a 4.9 percent increase for shipments moving via FedEx Express and FedEx Ground, and a 5.9 percent increase for less-than-truckload shipments tendered to FedEx Freight. But long-time FedEx shippers, as well as regular customers of rival UPS Inc.(NYSE:UPS) know all too well there is scant correlation between the announced rate hikes and what their actual increases will be.

Next year will be no different, at least at FedEx. (UPS has yet to disclose its 2019 rates). Rates will rise 5 to 5.4 percent for one to 50-pound shipments moving via the two next-day delivery products: Priority Overnight and Standard Overnight. That is slightly higher than its published rate increases.

The pain comes when shipments enter the 50 to 100-pound range. There, the rates for the same products jumps by 9 to 10 percent, according to an analysis from enVista, a consultancy.

The pattern holds true for 2 to 3-day delivery services. For shipments less than 50 pounds, the increase will be between 5 and 6 percent. For the heavier weight breaks, the increases are in the 9 to 10 percent range, enVista says.

FedEx’s rates for 1-pound shipments moving less than 150 miles from the origin point which is considered the benchmark for the carrier’s minimum charges, will rise between 3.6 percent for ground and home delivery services to 5.4 percent for its priority overnight letter product, according to data from Shipware, LLC, another consultancy. Rates for FedEx “Smartpost,” a product it offers in conjunction with the last-mile delivery capabilities of the U.S. Postal Service will rise 4.3 percent for shipments in the 1-9 pound weight range, SmartPost’s bread-and-butter.

The skewing towards the heavier shipments are “part of the war on large packages” that are occupying more capacity in the two carriers’ networks, according to Joe Wilkinson, a senior director at enVista. Larger packages are harder to handle and not easily conveyable. Satish Jindel, head of SJ Consulting, a consultancy, notes that bigger shipments occupy a disproportionate amount of precious space in the carriers’ physical networks that are already near maxing out.

As a result, carriers impose significant rate increases in an effort to reduce their volume. Stiff accessorial charges on those shipments have become commonplace, as has “dimensional pricing” as many large shipments qualify for it. Dimensional pricing, which calculates rates based on a shipment’s dimensions rather than actual weight, is typically more costly for shippers.