Retail Analysis
Order Management 101: Two strategies to optimise retail fulfilment
Rob Shaw, SVP Global Sales at Fluent Commerce, explores the benefits of drop shipping and explains what retailers can do to make it work.
O
ver the last two years, with consumers compelled to shift to online channels, retailers have had to supercharge their
operations to respond efficiently to these changing demands. Delivering stand out memorable post-COVID shopping experiences in a way that is both profitable and sustainable is a mission critical priority. This means retailers need to have the ability to discover and deliver available stock fast and find smarter ways of managing inventory to maximise margins. Retailers need to be able to show customers
exactly what is available, where, and when. This means giving customers real-time inventory visibility and utilising a distributed order management system to route products from the most optimal inventory location. Virtual inventory catalogues and dropshipping are two fulfilment
strategies that enable retailers to have better control over stock availability, while minimising business risk, enabling retailers to grow in this ever-changing landscape. Here’s what the two strategies entail, and how they benefit retailers:
1) Virtual inventory catalogues
Virtual inventory catalogues offer retailers control and improve critical product availability. Retailers can use virtual inventories to
6 | August 2022
segment stock data in many different ways - including by channel, market, region and product. In addition, inventory rules can be set up, such as buffers or safety stock levels to categories, products or locations to ensure they don’t oversell and therefore have to cancel orders. This is essential for minimising customer disappointment and optimising the overall customer experience. Taking further control of what is sold and
where unlocks more benefits than retailers expect, generating crafty opportunities to cross and upsell. Here are some ways retailers can maximise the rewards from a virtual inventory in order to optimise their sales and create opportunities on an international scale:
Adapting to new social marketplaces Purchasing via social media has become the newest trend for the connected customer. However, products sold via these channels may differ to those sold elsewhere, as it doesn’t make sense for every product to be sold on them. Virtual catalogues enable a retailer to control which products or categories are made Available to Promise (ATP) in their preferred marketplaces or social channels, in order to specialise for the right market. They can also set specific buffers and safety stock levels for each channel, meaning they will sell more of the right products in these spaces.
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