Inventory Transparency Key to Retailers' Omnichannel Operations
As part of its 2023 Top 100 Omnichannel Retailers report, Total Retail assessed leading retailers and brands across a host of operational criteria. One of those criteria was the ability for consumers to view in-store inventory availability and stock levels from a retailer's website and/or app. Inventory transparency is critical to not only the customer-facing shopping experience, but also the back-end processes that are powering the omnichannel services (e.g., BOPIS, cross-channel returns) that consumers have come to expect.
So how are retailers performing when it comes to providing shoppers with a real-time view into their inventory? The retailers received an average of 9.88 points (max of 12 points) for the inventory transparency criteria. Collectively they earned, on average, 82 percent of the available points for this criteria. This is encouraging given the critical importance of this function to both shoppers and retailers.
What can be done by retailers to push that percentage even higher? Here are some tips that Total Retail has shared in its newsletter and website on improving inventory transparency across channels:
- Using RFID and barcode scanners can help paint a detailed and accurate picture of how much product is where and how long it takes to move. These scanners can be extremely beneficial when paired with something like a digital twin, which is essentially a virtual model of a particular process or facility. — Tom Graham, Smart Warehousing, "Why Lack of Inventory Transparency May Be Hindering Your Business Growth"
- By employing RFID tags, retailers are empowered to track inventory, avoid manual scanning, and implement stock visibility at the item-level to further ensure stock accuracy. This is important because retailers that implement RFID in conjunction with omnichannel experiences report a higher return on investment compared to those that have paired RFID technology with a single sales channel. There's a direct correlation between inventory accuracy and the ability of a retailer to successfully meet the demands of omnichannel selling. — Dean Frew, SML Group, "Preparing for Black Friday: The Role of RFID"
- We see AI-driven supply chain management systems integrated with intelligent fulfillment centers to avoid out-of-stock situations that can frustrate consumers. AI models analyzing and learning from various factors, such as inventory levels, order volumes, delivery routes and purchasing behaviors, are providing seamless logistics experiences to retailers. It has enabled retailers to predict stock requirements during peak and nonpeak seasons. — Vrushali Prasade, Pixis, "How AI Has Changed the Retail Game"
You can download this year's report here to see the full rankings as well as profiles of the top performers. In addition, there is valuable trend information extracted from this year's data.
