Business Challenges

• Brick and mortar store inventory will be based on store sizing and investment capacity, if a customer prefers to buy a product that is out-of-stock in the store, it will lead to sale loss.
• Shoppers may even choose to switch brands if specific color or size unavailable.
• Retailers may suffer brand loyalty, as customers instantly look elsewhere for preferred products.
• It may result in reduced foot and digital traffic.

Accepting to arrange the preferred products from another outlet/warehouse would be possible if there is a visibility of inventory across the entire retail outlet chain.

Solution Options

Reserving/ Serving across the network can fit into the Endless Aisle concept.

• Increase the sales by capturing orders for out-of-stock items and fulfil from nearby stores, distribution centres or transferring orders to nearby stores to service the customer.
• A retailer’s ability to sell out-of-stock items to in-store customers or sell online items that are not kept in local inventory.
• Endless aisle is used to equip sales staff with access to other stock points including another store and warehouse inventory. Sales associates can present these options to consumers and provide a better customer experience when items are out of stock.

Benefits for Retailers

Business improvement

• Avoid losing customers and revenue to the competitor due to out-of-stock items
• Provide faster assistance to customers
• Lesser investments on Inventory

Inventory Visibility & Reservations

• Equip sales executive with real-time product inventory data across store locations and distribution centres.
• Provide access to accept or reject the orders based on product conditions
• Block the inventory and move the stock to the reserved location

Order Capture and Fulfilment

• Improve order fulfilment by routing to nearby stores for home delivery or pickup.

Pick Up from Another Store

• Enable sales executives to check a nearby store’s inventory and place an order on the customer’s behalf.
• Enable Buy Online Pickup In-Store (BOPIS) and Buy Online Return In-Store (BORIS) to increase online conversions and average order values.

Integration with other channels / OMS / Online-to-offline (O2O) *

• Share Inventory through API with external OMS providers or standard connectors for aggregator

Contributed By : Subramani