Nikki Baird

Compete Blog: Cross Channel Shopping Is a Must

July 27, 2010

FROM RETAILWIRE:
Consumers increasingly do not differentiate between store inventory and online inventory, meaning that retailers need to stop thinking about them as two separate entities. What are the best ways for retailers to convert online browsers into in-store shoppers?      [more...]

Isn't it ironic that it's actually easier to enable buy online/pick-up in store or buy online/return in store than it is to provide inventory visibility across channels? You would think you'd need the one before the other. The reality is that you can kluge cross-channel inventory returns--baling wire and chewing gum types of processes--but you can't kluge inventory visibility. Unfortunately, that visibility is kind of a prerequisite if you're going to expand your fulfillment capabilities beyond chewing-gum, expedient, "temporary" processes.

This is why cross-channel is transformative. This is not simply adding capabilities that enhance each channel. Inventory is a perfect example of how cross-channel reaches into the very heart of the retail business model. In order to have inventory visibility, you need a single pool of inventory. That means buying, selling, pricing, marking down...not that the policies are going to be the same, but that the view of the inventory is holistic and not exclusive to the channel it happens to reside in. That's a huge change from the way retailers think about inventory today--it's a huge change to distribution centers, and the technologies that support them. To supply chain networks and design. To relationships with vendors and how things like drop-ship inventory is managed or how it is made visible to consumers.

Cross-channel is rapidly becoming a base expectation from consumers--and retailers need to move quickly on some major business model shocks and strategy to meet those expectations.