Home > Insights > The Challenge of Retail, Omni-Channel and Supply Chain Management
| Insights

The Challenge of Retail, Omni-Channel and Supply Chain Management

The challenge in retail is summed up in one word, e-commerce. Retailers spent decades creating low-cost supply chains to serve customers from bricks-and-mortar stores and the replenishment systems to keep stores stocked with the right inventory.  However, with the advent of e-commerce these systems are not sufficient to be successful. Even the smallest retailers are selling products from both their physical and online stores. To profitably grow sales today you need an omni-channel approach to your operations and supply chain. Omni-channel integrates store and e-commerce fulfillment, making all of your products available to all possible customers, everywhere at any time.

How Supply Velocity Helps Retail Clients

  • Fulfillment System Supply Chain Design
  • Inventory Optimization

The challenge in retail is summed up in one word… e-commerce

Supply Velocity can help you redesign your supply chain to profitably fulfill e-commerce orders and while also serving bricks-and-mortar store customers. Most retailers start fulfilling e-commerce orders in the backroom of their stores. With any growth in e-commerce demand you will quickly outgrow this space. If you don’t already have a warehouse that supports your stores you may need to open one to serve e-commerce customers. Supply Velocity can help you design your warehouse for store support and e-commerce order fulfillment, and redesign your information flow to take advantage of customers’ desire for immediate gratification via e-commerce and mobile shopping.  This approach leads to cost savings ideas in retail that are integrated with your omni-channel strategy.

Managing inventory becomes a new challenge with omni-channel. Supply Velocity’s inventory optimization service will help you rank inventory items based on different criteria including profit, purchase frequency, volume and others. This ranking is used to calculate safety stock levels. In addition, we have developed demand forecasting algorithms to help you minimize the possibility of stock-outs or over-stock.

If you are wondering how to transform your retail operation and supply chain for omni-channel, Supply Velocity, with hundreds of clients and 600+ Lean and Supply Chain projects, is a proven partner. For more information, see our various Supply Chain Management Services. You can also email me at: Mitch@supplyvelocity.com.