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Future of Retail — Omnichannel
Services such as collect and return in-store,
next day delivery and in-store fulfilment of online orders add convenience and help to create a more seamless experience for buyers. However, if orders often arrive later than promised, or items are frequently out of stock after orders have been placed, customers will soon become frustrated and lose faith in the brand. To avoid this, retailers will need to carefully
weigh up the benefits and challenges associated with omnichannel fulfilment. Businesses should ensure they have the capabilities and infrastructure in place to cope with these added demands, and pay close attention to the needs and expectations of their customers. Having a thorough understanding of customer needs allows businesses to focus their efforts on investing in services which create value to the customer and provide real, tangible results for retailers.
INVENTORY OPTIMISATION IS KEY Inventory management is a critical business process in ensuring the success of an omnichannel retail model, allowing businesses to balance supply needs based on item demand. Having a single pool of stock that is accessible across the entire network offers a wealth of benefits and advantages for both businesses and consumers, but this also creates a huge inventory challenge for retailers. To adapt to this new fulfilment model, retailers will need to completely change many of the methods they’ve come to rely on for inventory management. Retailers need to change the way in which
they track and estimate total demand, to ensure they have enough product to meet this demand and make sure it’s in the right places too. To do this, businesses will need to know not only where the demand originated, but also what was purchased and from which
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