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