SUPPORTED CONTENT
POST COVID-19: THE NEW NORMAL
limit their shopping trips. This has boosted the ‘big weekly shop’ model which had been in decline. The crisis has boosted corner shop trade.
Technology is not just facilitating online shopping, but also homeworking. If, for many companies and workers, that is successful it may become a permanent feature, with possibly profound effects on where, when and how people shop. Homeworkers can be much more flexible over online delivery slots. On the other hand, homeworkers might find popping to the local shops an attractive way of taking a screen break and dividing up the working day. This may mean fewer workers shopping or browsing in town centre shops in their lunch breaks, putting further pressure on traditional High Street retail.
Flexible, agile, responsive Supply Chains Clearly, the future shape of retail is uncertain – perhaps the only certainty is that change is inevitable. The retailers that survive and prosper will be those with supply, fulfilment and return networks that are flexible, agile and responsive – capable of adapting quickly to changing consumer lifestyles, thinking and demands. But critically, those highly responsive supply chains must be created with the sustainability of the business, and its future profitability, firmly in mind.
In order to embrace the change, retail supply chains will need to adapt and move
28
☛ WEB VERSION:
https://bit.ly/2O2XEjv
forward into the new norm. But what has this situation taught us about our supply chains?
The topics on the agenda will be many and varied. Some will be direct reactions to how the current supply chain has been impacted. Some changes may already be part of a company’s strategic thinking or were planned in, but the current situation may have amplified the need for change, accelerated the timing or re-defined its scope. The key will be agile planning and prioritisation, balancing cost and risk - particularly as we enter an uncertain period where many businesses will be purely focused on short- term recovery and survival. Importantly, not everything comes with a big price tag, but creative thinking, f leetness of foot and, to some degree, a leap of faith, will be required.
So, what should companies and supply chains be thinking about? Firstly, online. Businesses that have been forced into taking their first online steps, and those that have seen online sales as a marginal ‘nice to have’ need to start taking eCommerce seriously. This doesn’t just mean making the website fit for purpose. It means ramping up the capability to take and to fulfil orders. It means creating the ability to differentiate customer propositions, while offering an omni-channel experience that is consistent right across the brand. And for those seasoned multi-channel retailers and grocers that are seeing
higher volumes, and therefore require reactionary capacity increases – the challenge will be in estimating the level of online demand going forward and ensuring that any service expansion is profitable and sustainable.
Firms also need to rethink their physical estate. Certainly in terms of type and location – High Street, convenience store, retail park – but more fundamentally, how the estate is used. This is not a new question; the debate over the future of the high street and shops has been rolling for a while. The current situation is merely forcing retailers to accelerate their deliberations and make some changes. This is not to suggest there should be no stores at all, but rather how does the physical retail world meet the digital, how do the advantages of a customer’s physical experience in touching a product and receiving advice from a sales assistant measure up to the convenience of online delivery? For example, should all or perhaps just parts of oversized or redundant stores be repurposed as dark stores for online fulfilment, or as city centre hubs for consolidating deliveries within low- emission zones? How do stores fit into strategies for local delivery, click and collect and returns? Should town centre stores be pure showrooms and sales/advice centres, with fulfilment from elsewhere? How do stores play a role in the new ‘community’ movement? And ‘pure’ online players may consider, as some already are, whether business would benefit from a
Direct Commerce |
homeofdirectcommerce.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50
