As supply chain disruptions and logistics issues kick in over the critical holiday trading period, how well is your business geared to deliver the fast omnichannel experiences consumers expect? Retailers with a single view of inventory across all locations can slash delivery times, profitably.
During two years of extraordinary change, retailers have adapted to changing consumer demands, evolving channels and rising customer expectations around convenience, choice and speed.
And now they’re in a race to turbocharge their digital and physical fulfilment.
Why is delivery speed so important? Research shows that when delivery times are too long, almost half of omnichannel consumers will shop elsewhere. As for how long is too long, they reveal that over 90 percent of consumers see 2- to 3-day delivery as the baseline, and 30 percent expect same-day delivery.
And retailers know speed matters: over 75 percent of specialty retail leaders have made 2-day delivery a priority and 42 percent are aiming for same-day delivery by 2022.
The challenges of omnichannel delivery
Compressing delivery times requires great execution across all parts of the supply chain.
However, with the explosion in online shopping during lockdown restrictions it has been a challenge for supply and delivery networks to keep up with accelerating customer demand. Ongoing pandemic restrictions will continue to disrupt last mile services in 2022 and beyond.
And while courier and delivery companies are taking a lot of heat for slow deliveries, many of the delays are due to retailers’ own dispatch times.
Services such as ship-from-store, click-and-collect, endless aisle and returns anywhere are all just table stakes today. Yet many retailers can only access rudimentary sales and inventory positions, and have complex systems that are fragile, inefficient and costly to integrate.
While retailer innovators have raised the bar for best-in-class omnichannel operations - our client Cue Clothing fulfils click-and-collect orders within 30 minutes - it’s not unusual for items to take 1 to 2 weeks just to be picked and packed.
So how can technology help compress delivery times?
Unlock the value in your inventory
To provide the speed and convenience consumers expect, retailers are moving from multichannel silos to unified commerce platforms that provide a unified view of inventory across all stores and DCs. This means they can quickly see where inventory is and therefore the fastest place to fulfil from.
Real-time data on stock levels can benefit your business in many other ways too:
Reduce inventory costs by ensuring you’ve got the right inventory available in each location, without carrying the cost of overstocking or ‘buffers’
Optimise your product range by matching stock to each store’s location, community and demographics
Create dark stores for online order fulfilment, turning physical locations into temporary or permanent fulfilment nodes to enable faster delivery and keep retail staff working
React to trends quickly and forecast demand based on historical data, sales forecasts and seasonal variations
Extend your range across more sales channels such as in-store kiosks, shoppable screens, pop-up stores, concessions and mobile devices.
Become omnipotent in omnichannel
And that’s just the start. Once your inventory is under control, you’re free to blend physical and digital channels to create seamless experiences for customers across all channels and touchpoints.
By using your stores for fulfilment or pick-up, you can increase the amount of inventory for sale while reducing inventory cost and slashing delivery times. The return on investment can be spectacular. With endless aisle fulfilment, our clients are achieving at least 200 to 300% growth in online revenue.
You can also build genuinely meaningful customer experiences. With a single view of customer, order and inventory data, you can deliver each customer a powerful, tailored, one-of-a-kind experience across all channels and touchpoints. That will create rich emotional connections, drive up conversions and send your transaction values soaring.
