While the focus in automation has been on production with industrial robots for decades, the greatest opportunity for automation is increasingly found further down the supply chain at the level of storage, distribution, fulfillment, and retail. This trend is unsurprising, given the high rate of revenue growth in the global retail market.
In fact, global retail revenue is projected to grow from $27.7 trillion in 2020 to nearly double that number, $55.3 trillion, through the end of the decade. An increasing percentage of this revenue is focused on e-commerce, growing from 15% of total worldwide retail revenue to 40%.
