Talking Supply Chain: Channel Free Customer Service

Since the dawn of e-commerce, retailers have attempted to solve the complex world of omnichannel fulfillment. But to Bill Thayer, founder and CEO of Fillogic, that may not be the problem that needs solving.

“I think one of the most important pieces of what we look at is that physical retail is the core of what happens in retail today,” he says. “Over 75% of sales still come from a physical location but it’s poorly served by logistics and logistics technology—we’re big believers that the future is about physical retail. And it’s not just the digital or physical. It’s about everything and that’s … what we call channel-free logistics.”

Fillogic has been taking over underutilized space in malls and helping multiple retailers consolidate deliveries and returns from a single point of contact, creating a middle mile fulfillment operation.

Thayer joined Talking Supply Chain host Brian Straight to discuss Fillogic’s view of channel-free logistics and why he believes it is the perfect balance between the physical and digital worlds of commerce.

“What I think we’ve learned over the last 10 years and, if nobody understood it during the pandemic, they definitely get it now, customers don’t think in channels. They never have. They’ve always thought about, ‘hey I want to buy my stuff; I don’t care if it comes from a retail store; I don’t care if it comes as a dropship.’”

Listen to Thayer explain his vision of commerce